Saturday, June 26, 1999
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N A T I O N |
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spotlight today's calendar |
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EC registers Tohra’s
party BJP opposes RS session |
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Eyeball to eyeball:
India-Pakistan military balance EC to use EVMs in city
Cong asks President to convene
session Experts differ on crossing LoC ULFA giving reports on Army to ISI
NHRC chief asks India to ratify
pact on torture DDA gives relief to Kashmiri
migrants |
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EC registers Tohra’s
party NEW DELHI, June 25 — The Election Commission today formally registered Mr Gurcharan Singh Tohra’s party as the Sarb Hind Shiromani Akali Dal after it gave up its claim on the symbol of scales. Announcing the new name, party general secretary Prem Singh Chandumajra said the claim for the symbol was given up since in their view the symbol had been defamed by the SAD. "Scales are to give justice to the people, but the SAD is not doing so. So there is no reason for us to ask for the same symbol,’’ Mr Chandumajra said. He said the party would seek a fresh symbol from the Election Commission, which, in its letter, said that the new party would not be entitled to reserve any exclusive symbol. However, the candidates duly put up by the party would be entitled to benefits of preference over independent candidates under the commission orders. Mr Chandumajra said the new party would like to work together with other parties which shared common ideology and were either anti-BJP or anti-Congress. He said the party could tie up with the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) in Punjab. To a question if the party would enter into any alliance with the Nationalist Congress Party, he said informal talks were held earlier in this regard. He also announced the
appointment of party presidents in six states. They are,
Mr Hazoor Singh for states in the South Mr Preetam Singh
for Madhya Pradesh, Mr Kewal Singh for Maharasthra, Mr
Hardev Singh Champion for West Bengal, Mr Malkiat Singh
for Vidharbaha Region and Mr Preetam Singh for Gujarat. |
BJP opposes RS session NEW DELHI, June 25 — The BJP today said it was not in favour of convening a special session of the Rajya Sabha for discussing Kargil developments. The party, however, agreed to support any decision taken in this regard by the government in consultation with other parties. BJP national vice-president K.L. Sharma told newspersons here that the party did not agree with the Congress demand for a special session at a time when the nation’s territorial integrity was being threatened by the enemy. "This demand is aimed at scoring political points. There is no point calling a special session of the Rajya Sabha. It would be a digression. But we would support the decision the government takes in consultation with other political parties," he said. Condemning what he called "the negative attitude of the Congress and the Left’’, Mr Sharma said the motive behind the demand was to hold a mirror to dissensions in India’s political structure. He reiterated that the government and the armed forces were determined to flush out infiltrators from Indian territory. Mr Sharma said that the government was competent to take decisions and it was unbecoming and immature of the Congress to put a question mark on it. He sought a clarification from the Congress on a statement issued by its general secretary, Mr Pranab Mukherjee, that the political executive of the country at the moment did not enjoy the confidence of people. The statement urged the Congress to answer in no unclear terms whether it disagreed with the ongoing initiative to free the Indian soil of Pakistani intruders. Commenting on the political crisis in Haryana, Mr Sharma said "our first preference is a non-Congress government in the state." Meanwhile, the
BJP’s Study Committee on Foreign Affairs has
criticised Mr Natwar Singh’s remarks on the G-8
communiqué. |
Muslims protest against Pak GULBARGA, June 25 (UNI) — About 5,000 members of the Muslim community today burnt the effigy of Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in protest against the Pakistan infiltration in Kargil. Earlier, a mass prayer was held and a procession was taken out through the main streets of the city. Employees of the Government Tool Room and Training Centre in Bangalore decided to contribute their one-day salary to the Kargil Relief Fund, according to a Press statement here. In Bhubaneswar, activists of "Yuva Kalinga’’, a political outfit floated by some Biju Janata Dal ministers, burnt the effigy of the Pakistan Prime Minister and its national flag. The organisation paid tributes to Kargil martyrs and observed today as the ‘national awakening day’ to rouse patriotic feeling. PANIPAT, (FOC): A number of Muslims today organised a demonstration against Pakistan intrusion in Kargil sector. The demonstration was taken out under the banner of Anjuman Islahul Musalmeen. The demonstrators organised a procession which started from Kalandar Chowk and after passing through main bazaars culminated at Lal Batti Chowk on the G.T. Road. They were carrying placards and banners condemning Pakistan and Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. They also burnt an effigy of Nawaz Sharif at Lal Batti crossing. The procession was led by the district president of Anjuman Islahul Musalmeen, Mr Matloob Ahmad; general secretary Manish Ansari; Congress Muslim cell president, Zarif Ahmad 'Salim'; and former general secretary of the Haryana Youth Congress, Rajiv Ahuja. In their addresses the Muslim leaders said "First of all we are Indians and then Muslims and we are ready to lay down our lives for our country. They criticised Pakistan for violating the Line of Control. The leaders also pointed
out that some vested interests were trying to create
difference between the Hindus and Muslims and asserted
that such elements would not succeed in disturbing
communal harmony. They announced that Anjuman Islahul
Musalmeen would organise a blood donation camp for the
injured soldiers and would also raise funds for Prime
Minister's Relief Fund to provide financial help to the
bereaved families of the martyrs. |
Eyeball to eyeball:
India-Pakistan New Delhi: With total control over the nuclear weapons capability in his country Pakistan Chief of Army Staff General Parvez Musharraf was testing out how well he could use the low-cost option of a “militant” spearhead hurled form behind the threat of first use of nuclear weapons. When Gen Parvez Musharraf launched the mixed mercenary-regular army expeditionary force into the Mushkoh-Dras-Kargil-Batalik salient of Jammu and Kashmir he was experimenting with a new politico-military structure in Pakistan. The export of fundamentalist militancy is Pakistan’s only real means of acquiring the “strategic depth” it yearns for and in Parvez Musharraf Pakistan has found a “rise and shine boy” who has to live down his Mohajir antecedents in a dominant Punjabi Milieu and what better way to do that than to bite off a portion of Kashmir and regurgitate it, hyena-like, before a nation that is finding it increasingly difficult to legitimise its own birth. He had launched his misadventure in the Dras-Kargil sector in collusion with former ISI crony Aziz in the hope of converting Pakistan’s nuclear first-use doctrine into a currency of diplomatic manoeuvre in foreign affairs, particularly vis-a-vis India, and as a political rallying point within the body politic inside Pakistan. His calculus for
acquiring total control of the reins of powers is as
follows: The threat of first use of nuclear weapons will
seek to induce hesitation in the Indian political
leadership to use its superior conventional military
strength and its better manoeuvre tactics and restrict
the conflict to Kashmir. That is why the entire Pakistani
military establishment has been brought to forward
deployment positions. |
EC to use EVMs in city NEW DELHI, June 25 — For the first time in the country, 46 parliamentary constituencies spread across 17 states and Union Territories will cast their vote for the Lok Sabha through electronic voting machines (EVMs). Apart from the four major cities of Delhi, Mumbai, Calcutta and Chennai, three constituencies in Punjab, two in Haryana and Chandigarh will witness the use of EVMs, the Election Commission announced today. The constituencies selected in Punjab include, Faridkot, Patiala and Tarn Taran, all of which are expected to witness keen political battles. Minister of State for Industry Sukhbir Singh Badal represented Faridkot and the general secretary of the newly formed Shiromani Akali Dal, Mr Prem Singh Chandumajra represented Patiala in the dissolved Lok Sabha. In Haryana EVMs will be used in Karnal and Rohtak. The decision to use EVMs was taken at a meeting of the Commission yesterday and announced today. The Commission said it was encouraged by the positive response it got from the people for using EVMs in elections to the Assemblies of Delhi, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh last November and of Goa, which elected a new Assembly earlier this month. It said taking into
account the experience, it decided to extensively use
EVMs during the Lok Sabha elections this year. Nearly one
lakh EVMs will be put to use at nearly 65,000 polling
stations. The Commission proposes to launch a major
awareness and training campaign for introducing the EVMs.
The Films Division has been assigned with the preparation
of special films for this purpose and Doordarshan and All
India Radio are being asked to provide extensive public
interest messages to support this programme. |
Cong asks President to
convene session NEW DELHI, June 25 — The Congress tonight requested the President to convene the Rajya Sabha session at the earliest to discuss the Kargil issue and also the conduct of the caretaker government. The party’s request was conveyed by Dr Manmohan Singh, Leader of Opposition in the Rajya Sabha, through a three-page letter to the President, Mr K R Narayanan. The letter said the main issue to be discussed was the situation along the Line of Control. He said while there was national consensus on backing to the hilt the armed forces and doing nothing to harm their morale, what was of concern was that so many Pakistan army regulars and enemy agents had crossed the LoC. “While this may not be the appropriate time for a full fledged post-mortem, the nation needs to be taken into confidence that the serious deficiencies in our defence preparedness and national security system revealed by this situation have now been rectified, in an effective manner”, the letter said. He also said a national consensus needed to be built ensure that the caretaker government’s military and diplomatic moves reflect the united will of the nation. Dr Manmohan Singh
pointed out that on a previous occasion a Rajya Sabha
session was called on November 8, 1962 while the Lok
Sabha session began a fortnight later on November, 21,
1962. “No restraints were placed on the issues that
could be raised or the concerns to be ventilated in
Parliament. Nor were any restrictions placed on normal
Parliamentary activity during the war of December
1971”, he said. |
Experts differ on crossing LoC NEW DELHI, June 25 (PTI) — Even as Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee has described the question of crossing the Line of Control (LoC) as a “hypothetical” one, defence experts are divided over where to draw a line to prevent recurrence of violent faceoffs along the LoC. “We must create a politico-military-diplomatic strategy so that the nation does not have to go through the motions of Kargil every two years,” says Air Vice Marshal Kapil Kak (retd), Senior Fellow at the Institute of Defence Studies and Analyses (IDSA) here. When the Army Chief Gen V.P. Malik said there was a need to look beyond Kargil he talked about the problems restraint was imposing by delaying eviction, AVM Kak explains. “It was a message to Pakistan that such misadventures are going to be costly,” he says, adding that “it was a statement in the sense of conveying a message that the path of peace and deterrence covered from December 1971 to April 1999 should be followed”. Mr Brahma Chellaney, Professor of security studies at the Centre for Policy Research, however, believes “if we simply undo what Pakistan has done in Kargil, it will become a Siachen multiplied by eight times”. “Till the conflict broke out there was one brigade in Kargil. But if we are to maintain a security presence after driving the intruders out it will mean deploying three divisions. Siachen will look much smaller,” he says. Looking beyond Kargil implies India will have to adopt a military strategy to check any encroachment along the LoC in the future, says Mr Chellaney. “In order to end the threat we have to not only get back our territory but also capture the vantage points in Pakistan’s side of the LoC from where it has been shelling Kargil and Dras towns in the summers of 1997 and 1998,” he advocates. “Pakistan has been bleeding India’s interest. It will continue to bleed our interest even after we throw out the intruders,” he says, adding, “The idea is not to capture land for the sake of doing so. Rather it is to capture controlling heights along the LoC even if they are on Pakistan’s side to secure our national highway to Leh, military assets and towns from shelling”. However, both the experts agree that India should achieve a clear result from the present crisis. They differ on the means to reach the end. The IDSA Senior Fellow says military action on the ground, well within our territory, coupled with diplomatic pressure in the international fora can achieve results. “By crossing the LoC we will be doing what Pakistan has hoped for: an escalation which can be blamed on India, early termination of hostilities, and shifting of the LoC under a new ceasefire arrangement,” AVM Kak says. Defeating Pakistan by fighting on the terms of its choosing has its advantages for India, he adds. It will not be fair to set a time-frame for the armed forces to evict the Pakistan-backed intruders from our territory, says AVM Kak. Mr Chellaney was more forthright in saying that “it will not be easy for India to evict all encroachers and secure every inch of our territory by the time elections are held”. Either way, the analysts are certain that Indian troops will be on a higher alert this winter despite the 20 feet-deep snow at an altitude of 15,000-18,000 feet beyond the Zojila pass. India needs to hold the
heights of Kargil, Batalik and Dras irrespective of the
costs. |
ULFA giving reports on Army to ISI GUWAHATI, June 25 (PTI) — Banned militant outfit ULFA is making phone calls to Pakistan to inform the ISI on troop movements from the North-East to the Kargil sector, according to the GOC, 4 Corps, Lt-Gen D.B. Shekatkar. “The Army has intercepted phone calls made by ULFA from PCOs in the city and elsewhere informing the ISI about troop movements”, General Shekatkar told a Press conference here last night. “The callers speak a corrupted version of Urdu and the phone calls are being made from Guwahati, Kokrajhar, Nalbari, Bongaigaon, Dhubri and Nagaon districts to Lahore, Karachi, Gujranwalla, Sialkot and Narowar in Pakistan informing them about troop movements to the Kargil sector, besides passing on other information,” he said. ULFA was also making calls to Nepal and Myanmar from Siliguri informing ISI agents there about Army deployment, General Shekatkar, who heads the operational command of the Unified Headquarters formed in the state to counter insurgency, said. The PCOs had been identified, the calls were being tapped but the Army was yet to arrest the persons involved, he said. Proof of the ISI’s involvement was evident in the recent blast at New Jalpaiguri station in which three jawans were killed, he said. After the New Jalpaiguri blast, the Army had ordered extra vigil and thorough checking, he said. He claimed that
ideological differences had cropped up between
ULFA’s political and military wings on appointments
to various posts, money collected through extortion and
holding of talks with the government. |
NHRC chief asks India to
ratify pact NEW DELHI, June 25 (PTI) — India must ratify the UN convention against torture without any delay as a first step towards eradicating the evil, the National Human Rights Commission Chairman, Justice M.N. Venkatachaliah, has said. He regretted that though the Indian Government, after persistent advocacy by the NHRC, had announced in June 1997 that it would ratify the convention, it had not been done so far. "I therefore urge that this step be taken at the earliest,’’ the NHRC chief said in his message on the occasion of the UN International Day in support of victims of torture being observed tomorrow. He said the practice still persisted in the country despite the Indian constitution, laws and rulings of the Supreme Court forbidding it. Justice Venkatachaliah said no circumstances — war, public emergency or only order from the higher authority — could be invoked to justify torture. He said there were certain crimes so ugly that they scarred and disfigured civilisation itself. ‘Torture is such a crime. Neither our planet, nor our civilisation, should countenance it any more,’’ he said. Justice Venkatachaliah also said the NHRC would organise the eighth international symposium on torture in New Delhi later this year. The symposium would be jointly organised with the International Rehabilitation Council for Torture Victims (IRTC) from September 22 to 25. Meanwhile, The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) is consulting the home and Law ministries and several organisations, including the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) and the Law Commission, before India ratifies the UN convention on torture, a senior MEA official told PTI. "It would take some time before India ratifies the convention as we have to examine several issues, including compensation to torture victims," the official said. India is among the 80
nations which are yet to ratify the convention after
signing it. It shares the non-ratifier status with
countries like Pakistan, Bhutan, Fiji, Japan, Myanmar,
Singapore, Thailand and a host of African nations. |
Sacrifice of man for a dog AHMEDABAD, June 25 (UNI) — Some dogs are man’s best friend. Some have the best friend in man. An Ahmedabad resident got killed yesterday while saving a mongrel from the fast currents of the Sabarmati river. The police said though Pratapji Bhavanji Thakore brought the dog to safety he got swept away by the swirling waters. The Naranpura resident had jumped into the river when he saw the dog fighting for its life in its waters. The catchment area of the river has been receiving heavy rains for the past few days. The police said a case
of accidental death has been registered. |
DDA gives relief to Kashmiri migrants NEW DELHI, June 25 (PTI) — The Delhi Development Authority (DDA) will provide 50 per cent relief in penalty to the Kashmiri migrants who are in possession of DDA flats, purchased and allotted under the hire-purchase scheme. The assistance will be over and above the relief being given under their Amnesty Scheme-1998, still in operation, and is subject to verification of their migrant status, a DDA press note said yesterday. The relief could be obtained by submitting an application at counter No 5, D-Block, in DDA’s office in Vikas Sadan in South Delhi, it said. The documents that
should accompany the application include a copy of the
migration certificate, an attested copy of the general
power of attorney and sale agreement, a copy of the
allotment and possession letter and proof of physical
possession of the flat, the press note said. |
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