Lucknow, January 15
Turning adversity into advantage, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati today thanked her political rivals for launching a tirade against her government which had helped her collect double the amount of financial contributions from her party workers and supporters.

Speaking at the function to mark her 53rd birthday at her 5, Kalidas Marg official residence, she profusely thanked the Opposition parties for indulging in “natakbazi” (drama) of all kinds which had given reason to her supporters to raise double the money even in times of general recession.

“This has not only given me immense happiness but has strengthened my hands on the eve of the Lok Sabha elections. I hope in future my rivals continue to behave in this manner so that my party prospers amidst adversity,” she quipped.

She was dressed in a brocade salwar-kameez in pink, a colour Mayawati reserves for joyous occasions. Normally dressed very plainly, today she was seen wearing gold jewellery as well.

However, she did not cut the customary cake. Nor was there much visible fanfare in the city. She explained that she had decided to keep her birthday celebrations low profile due to the Mumbai tragedy.

Attacking the Opposition, Mayawati said in a well-planned conspiracy they had linked the lynching of the PWD engineer in Aurraiya to her birthday donations in order to malign her party and government across the country.

“The fact remains that there was no relation between the incident and my birthday contributions. We have taken stern action against the accused. Even the victim’s family is satisfied and is not pressing for a CBI inquiry,” she pointed out.

She said her party had decided to hold meetings in each of the 403 Vidhan Sabha segments to expose the true face of the opposition on her birthday that was being observed as “Virodhi Dal Dhikkar Diwas”.

Despite being low profile in celebrations, the CM’s birthday brought developmental projects worth Rs 900 crore for the state and two very ambitious programme to promote girls’ education.

The Chief Minister also inaugurated 31 bridges, 26 roads and announced reduction of value added tax (VAT) on 20 items.

On the occasion, she also released the fourth volume of her book that chronicles her life and documents the growth of the Bahujan movement.

New Delhi, January 15
The Samajwadi Party(SP) postponed indefinitely its national executive meeting pre-scheduled for here today, ostensibly because of preoccupation with its anti-Mayawati agitation in UP, though it did signify a certain thawing of growing estrangement between the Congress and the SP.

For a change SP secretary general Ram Gopal Yadav chose to address the media here today and restricted his subject entirely to the atrocities committed by the BSP government in UP against SP workers agitating on Mayawati’s birthday today against her fund collection drive.

Asked about the proposed national executive he said, “It will be held in Gorakhpur, no date has been set so far.” A much sober and dignified Ram Gopal Yadav refused to get drawn into the SP-Congress sparring caused by constant public outpourings by SP general secretary and spokesman Amar Singh against Congress leaders.

Yadav said, “I will not take any questions on any other issue but this today. This is a very serious issue, which saddens me no end, because of the barbaric assault of UP police on our party workers and leaders agitating peacefully. Peaceful agitation is a fundamental right in the Constitution,” he said.

Yadav’s tone was in sharp contrast to his party spokesman, who only yesterday had reiterated his misgivings against Congress leaders specially AICC general secretary Digvijay Singh.

Earlier, Amar Singh had also set a deadline of January 15 for the government to attack Pakistan in retaliation for the 26/11 Mumbai terrorist attacks and had threatened to pull out SP support to the UPA government if it failed to comply with Singh’s demand.

SP president Mulayam Singh Yadav had in effect endorsed Amar Singh’s line by listing a series of grievances against Congress leaders and had met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh with his letter of protest. Just two days ago, he had also confirmed the plans for a national executive meet to review the relations with the Congress and the UPA government.

Kolkata, January 15
The CPM state committee at its meeting at the Alimuddin party office yesterday discussed the proposal for bringing back "honourably" their "expelled" veteran leader, Somnath Chatterjee, the present Lok Sabha Speaker, to the party.

Though the committee welcomed Chatterjee back to the party, a section in the leadership demanded that he should first apologise for his misconduct and make a formal plea, and then only could he be taken back.

The politburo and the central committee, too, are divided over the issue.

The seventh-time elected party MP was expelled for violating the party rules and conduct during the left parties’ withdrawal of support from the Manmohan Singh government on the Indo-US nuclear deal issue.

The CPM leadership, at that time, wanted the Speaker to vote against the government and also to step down from the Speaker’s chair but he declined in both the cases. Afterwards, he was expelled life-long from the party.

But now in the wake of the country’s changing political situation vis-à-vis the erosion of the party’s popularity both in West Bengal and Kerala, and partly in Tripura, a section in the leadership has suggested that Chatterjee and other veteran leaders who were either expelled or had themselves left the party should be brought back for revamping the party.

The elderly Jyoti Basu is one of those leaders who have been advising the present leadership to bring back Chatterjee and others without any further delay, as he felt their return would once again strengthen the party.

The state transport minister Subhas Chakraborty, who is known to be close to Basu, at the state committee meeting yesterday formally raised the Speaker’s issue and demanded that the party should invite Chatterjee immediately. But several others opposed to the idea and demanded that Chatterjee’s re-entry could be considered only when he apologises for his misconduct.

The politburo leader Sitaram Yechuri, who is also a Rayya Sabha MP from West Bengal, said there was no legal bar for Chatterjee’s return to the party and the leadership would certainly consider if there was any proposal from any quarter. The party general secretary Prakash Karat also was not opposed to Chatterjee’s return.

But the hardliners in the party, particularly, a section in the party’s Kerala unit, the trade union leader MK Mandhe, MPs like MD Selim, Basudev Acharyya and Samik Lahiri and others oppose to his re-entry.

New Delhi, January 15
The Mumbai terror attack was a test of India’s patience and the Army was ready and fully capable to carry out any task assigned to it by the government, chief of the Army staff Gen Deepak Kapoor said at the 61st Army Day parade here today.

“The attack on Mumbai was a test of our patience...The only and biggest challenge before us is terrorism and we are ready to face it,’’ Kapoor said.

Noting that India was keeping all options open to deal with the menace of terrorism, he pointed out that India desired to resolve all issues through peaceful means. “However, to ensure the security of people and territory, we can use all possible available options,’’ Kapoor said.

He said India’s neighbours, too, were facing challenges, which could pose a threat to the security of the country. “We have to remain vigilant against these threats if we have to progress and prosper,” Kapoor said.

Talking about various internal security threats faced by the country, he said there were various elements in the country, which still wanted to disintegrate the nation and the biggest threat came from insurgencies in Jammu and Kashmir, north-east and Naxalism. He said all organisations of the government were working against these threats.

Talking about the achievements of the Army in containing the insurgencies in the country, Kapoor said elections in Jammu and Kashmir could be held peacefully because of the security shield provided by the Army.

New Delhi, January 15
When Prime Minister Manmohan Singh addresses the captains of industry in Mumbai at The Trident Oberoi Hotel on Saturday, the symbolism of this very conscious and deliberate move will not be lost on the people.

The message that the PM will be sending out to the country and the world at large is that “Everything is back to normal. India is safe ...please come back.” The Trident Oberoi was the scene of the one of the worst terrorist attacks witnessed in India in recent times. The hotel, which was badly damaged in the three-day siege by armed terrorists, had re-opened a month after the November 26 carnage.

Speaking at the Economic Times awards function, the Prime Minister is expected to use the opportunity to outline the road map ahead in dealing with the ongoing economic meltdown and the crisis of confidence which has gripped the country both on the corporate and security fronts in the aftermath of the Mumbai carnage and the Satyam fraud.

While Manmohan Singh is expected to allay fears on these fronts, he will also be conscious of the fact that the captains of Indian industry who had once hailed him for introducing economic reforms, have now found a new hero in Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi. Ratan Tata, Reliance chief Anil Ambani and Bharati head Sunil Mittal have publicly declared their preference for Modi as the country’s next Prime Minister. Clearly, India Inc has indicated its preference for one M over another M.

UPA sources said the PM was likely to reassure the corporate world that the government was on top of the situation. The Mumbai attacks had raised serious doubts in the international community about the security risks involved in doing business in India, the Satyam case had severely damaged the credibility of the country’s IT industry. In the first case, the UPA had acted swiftly by amending its terror laws, setting up a NIA and launching a diplomatic offensive against Pakistan for allowing its territory to be used for terror attacks against India.

Similarly, the government had been monitoring the economic situation on a daily basis and had announced a series of stimulus packages to minimise the adverse fallout of the global meltdown. The unravelling of the Satyam fraud was the latest source of worry for the UPA government as it had raised serious doubts about the role of regulatory mechanisms in the country, the role of the entire banking sector and the status of corproate governance. In this connection, he was expected to remind India Inc about its responsibilities and the need for putting its house in order.

Hyderabad, January 15
In a continuing disturbing trend of Andhra youth becoming victims of violence in the US, software engineer from the city Akshay Vishal was allegedly shot dead by unidentified gunmen in Arkansas.

Vishal, 26, an employee of the fraud-hit Satyam Computers, was gunned down on Tuesday, according to a delayed report received by his family members here.

The engineer, who was on a contract with US company Jet Falcon, was getting into a car at Little Rock, Arkansas, when he was allegedly shot, his friends informed the family. He was profusely bleeding and rushed to a hospital but succumbed to his injuries, said Vishal’s father N Lakshman Murthy, an official of the BSNL.

The motive behind the killing was not immediately known. The victim’s friends said some African Americans allegedly shot him after a wordy duel. A pall of gloom descended on the family.

“He had called us from his office and promised to call again after reaching his home, said Murthy, weeping inconsolably.

Vishal, who did MS from Alaska University, had gone to America four years ago. His family has requested the state government to arrange for passports to go to the US to bring the body.

This is the latest in a series of killings of AP students and employees in the US. Shashank Pulluru, an MS student at Middle Tennessee State University, was allegedly shot and injured by some African Americans in Tennessee on Nov 15 last year.

Arpana B. Jinaga, 24, a software engineer in EMC Corporation in Seattle, was found murdered in her apartment on November 3. T. Soumya Reddy, 23, who was pursuing MS in electrical engineering at Southern Illinois University, Edwardsville campus, was found dead in a car near a lake in Chicago in September. Her cousin Vikram Reddy, 27, who was a software engineer in Chicago, was also found shot dead nearby.

Srinivas, a postgraduate medical student from Karimnagar, was found murdered in Pennsylvania March last. A Kirankumar and K Chandrasekhar Reddy, both PhD students, were shot dead by intruders in their apartment at Louisiana University in December 2007.

New Delhi, January 15
India today snubbed British Foreign Secretary David Miliband for his reported remarks on Jammu and Kashmir. In an interview today, Miliband emphasised that the resolution of the Kashmir issue would “help deny extremists in the region one of their main calls to arms and allow the Pakistani authorities to focus more effectively on tackling the threat on their Western border.’’

Asked to comment on the British leader’s statement, External Affairs Ministry spokesman Vishnu Prakash said: “Miliband is entitled to his views, which are clearly his own and are evolving. India is a free country and even if we do not share his views he is free to express them. However, we do not need unsolicited advice on internal issues in India like Jammu and Kashmir.”

Meanwhile, visiting Saudi intelligence chief Prince Muqrin bin Abdul Aziz-al-Saud today met National Security Adviser MK Narayanan. During the meeting, the Indian side is understood to have shared with him the dossier of the evidence suggesting the involvement of elements in Pakistan in the Mumbai terror attack. Chiefs of Indian intelligence agencies were also said to be present at the meeting.

Kolkata, January 15
In a world where most people hardly have the time or inclination to help others, good samaritans are still around, even if they themselves are impoverished.

Thirteen-year-old Dipali Mukulia will agree to it. Her world had come crashing down when her medical report showed that she had cancer. Alone in the metropolis to earn her bread as a housemaid, she could barely think of her treatment. The future seemed uncertain.

The family in south Kolkata, where she worked for two years, tried to get her some treatment, but soon she left for her home.

Her own family at Krishnanagar Bazar in south Praganas district, earned little and found it difficult to feed the several mouths and could hardly take care of her costly treatment.

"We didn't have the money to pay for Dipali's treatment and didn't know what to do," her mother Seema Mukulia said. Unwelcome in her own family and jobless, the teenaged girl returned to the metropolis, but didn't know where to go.

"I was desperate and came back to Kolkata with the hope that I may still get work and arrange for my treatment. I met Aparna Das whom I knew in the Sarbasikhsya Abhijan School which I used to attend," she said.

"After knowing my plight, Aparna took me to her parents who readily accepted me as one of their child and asked me to live with them." Ever since, Babu Das, Aparna's now so-called father, has not only been arranging for her treatment, but she is also being sent to school regularly.

Das earns a meagre sum by cleaning taxis and was hopeful that the family would be able to stand by the sick girl and ensure that she was cured.

''We have to arrange food for four and we can always squeeze in a fifth member. Dipali is like our daughter and we will do everything possible to help her out of this situation,'' he said as the girl's face lit up.

Dipali is presently undergoing treatment at the Nil Ratan Sarkar Medical College and Hospital.

"The treatment has led to gynaecological problems as her ovary and uterus have been affected," said Subir Gangopadhyay, who has been attending on her at the hospital. — PTI

New Delhi, January 15
The government will hold the budget session of Parliament from February 12 to 26. The decision was taken late this evening at a meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Political Affairs. This will be the last session of 14th Parliament and a significant one in the wake of the impending Lok Sabha elections.

The session will start on February 12 with the Presidential address to both the Houses of Parliament. It will end with a vote on account, whereby, the incumbent government will seek fresh authorisation of Parliament to spend money beyond the financial year end on March 31, 2009. Parliament’s authorisation for expenditure ends with the end of the financial year, which means the government will have to seek authorisation to spend money till the time the new government brings in a new budget.

On February 13, the government will present the Railway Budget; the General Budget will be presented on February 16.

The last session of 14th Parliament will also see three ordinances - concerning the establishment of central universities, the salaries of high court and Supreme Court judges and another matter pertaining to the Central Industrial Security Force.

New Delhi, January 15
Has India softened its demand that Pakistan hand over to it persons New Delhi suspects of involvement in the Mumbai terror attack?

It appears that India is not averse to a fair and transparent trial of the perpetrators of the Mumbai mayhem in Pakistan if extracts from an interview given by External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee are to be believed.

“We do hope that the material and evidence that we have given, Pakistan will act on it and fugitives violating the Indian laws who have taken shelter in Pakistan will be handed over to India for their proper justice. If not hand over to India, Pakistan must try and convict the suspects,’’ Mukherjee is reported to have told the news channel ‘Aaj Tak’ in an interview to be broadcast over the weekend.

Indian officials were tight-lipped on Mukherjee’s statement, which is being widely seen as a major climb-down by India since it has in the past 50 days insisted that Islamabad hand over to it the fugitives from the Indian law, who are suspected to be involved in the Mumbai attacks and other terrorist incidents in the country.

Meanwhile, India has taken note of Pakistan Interior Minister Rehman Malik’s statement earlier in the day claiming that Islamabad was taking action against Jamat-ud-Dawa(JuD), which has been banned by the UN in the wake of the Mumbai attacks. Malik also announced several members of the outlawed militant groups had been detained and five ‘training camps’ of the JuD shut down.

Though there was no official reaction to Malik’s statement, officials said Islamabad, reeling under intense diplomatic pressure, appeared to be taking some measures to deal with terrorism, emanating from its soil.

“This is another positive step after Pakistan acknowledged that Ajmal Amir Kasab, the lone terrorist captured during the Mumbai attack, is a Pakistan national. But it is not enough. We will have to see what more Pakistan does in the coming days,’’ an official said.

Kozhikode, January 15
A special court in Kerala Thursday sentenced 62 persons to life imprisonment for the May 2003 communal violence in the coastal village of Marad in which eight persons were killed.

Additional Sessions Judge (Special Court) Babu Mathew P. Joseph also sentenced one person, Abdul Latheef, to six years imprisonment for misusing a mosque. The guilty verdict against the 63 had come in December, when 76 persons charged in the case were acquitted.

The judge, however, agreed to treat the years that the culprits had spent in jail as part of the sentence. With Latheef already having spent six years in jail, he can walk free.

Marad had been seeing communal tensions before the massacre of eight fisherfolk on May 2, 2003. Earlier, six persons had been killed in an attack in 2002.

The first outburst of violence took place on January 3 and 4 in 2002 when three Hindus and two Muslims were killed in a sudden breach of peace, in what began as a trivial altercation over drinking water at the public tap.

The second episode took place during dusk on May 2, 2003, when seven Hindus and one Muslim were hacked to death. The killers then escaped into the local Juma Masjid.

The Marad inquiry commission’s report notes the submission of then Kozhikode police commissioner T.K. Vinod Kumar that hundreds of local women converged on the mosque to prevent the police from entering it.

The Kerala government had last month asked the central government to launch a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe into the Marad massacres of 2002 and 2003.

Reacting to the sentencing, defence counsel G. Janardhana Kurup said an appeal would be filed soon.

“The case is a weak one where all the evidence is weak. We will certainly go in for an appeal. Ninety percent of the people sentenced have a good chance of being let off,” he told reporters.

Public prosecutor P.D. Ravi said that he would discuss the issue with the government.

“This is being done to see if we need to go for an appeal,” said Ravi, unhappy that the court did not classify it as a rarest of rare case.

State Congress president Ramesh Chennithala welcomed the verdict saying: “What we need is communal harmony and not communal violence.” However, former state Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) president P.S. Sreedharan Pillai was unhappy and said the verdict was only a “partial success”.

“The need of the hour is that everyone should note that we cannot afford to have a repeat of this,” said Pillai, a popular criminal lawyer. — IANS

New Delhi, January 15
The High Court of Bombay at Goa will hear a criminal revision petition against actor Amitabh Bachchan and others, charged with violating the Tobacco Control Act.

The case involves installation of billboards along the national highways, featuring Big B in an ad for Anchor products. In the hoardings, the actor is holding a cigar and saying: “Meri Family Mein Bhi Hai” — something the petitioners say is in gross violation of the tobacco control law which bans direct and indirect advertisement of tobacco products.

The petitioners National Organisation for Tobacco Eradication (NOTE) maintain that the actor indirectly promoted tobacco by featuring in an ad for Anchor products. NOTE first filed a police complaint in the matter in December 2006 when the hoardings were put up along National Highway 17 near Margao. “The hoardings came up on December 25, 2006 and on December 31 we issued an advertisement in all the local dailies addressing Bachchan, who was then recuperating from illness in Goa. I asked him why he should, by his ads, make millions suffer, when millions in the country were praying for his health,” Dr SS Salkar from NOTE told The Tribune on Wednesday.

Chennai, January 15
Thol Thirumavalavan, leader of Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi, the most popular Dalit outfit in Tamil Nadu, today began an indefinite fast urging the Centre to immediately stop the military offensive in Sri Lanka.

Even while Foreign Affairs Secretary Shiv Shankar Menon is already in Colombo, the 47-year old Dalit leader, an ally of the ruling DMK, began the fast at Maraimalainagar, about 55 km from Chennai.

Earlier, speaking on the occasion, Thirumavalavan warned the Congress that it would face a humiliating defeat in the forthcoming Parliament elections, if it continued to insult Tamil sentiments on the Sri Lankan issue. Quoting the remarks of a Sri Lankan minister, Thirumavalavan said Menon was visiting Colombo only to attend a meeting of officials of SAARC countries and that pressing for a ceasefire was not on his agenda.

The Centre was insulting Tamils by refusing to take steps for stopping the military offensive, which had displaced more than three lakh people including women and children, who are living in forests, in open air without food and medicine.

Thirumavalavan recalled the resolution passed in the state assembly, the all-party delegation led by Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi to the Prime Minister and agitations by various organisations on the need for ceasefire and restoration of peace talks.

Initially, the fast was planned at Chennai, but the venue was shifted to a more spacious place, as a large number of people started arriving in the early hours of today. He said the Union government should realise the prevailing ground realities in the island nation, where Tamils were being killed by the military under the guild of fighting terrorism.

The fast was to urge the Indian government to step in and stop the ongoing genocide immediately and initiate peace talks to arrive at a politically negotiated settlement to the decades-long crisis,

As Thirumavalavan began his fast, Tamil Nationalist Movement leader P Nedumaran drove down to the fast venue and expressed his solidarity with the fasting leader.

Hyderabad, January 15
The contours of political re-alignment in Andhra Pradesh became clear today with four opposition parties - Telugu Desam Party, CPI, CPM and Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) - announcing poll tie-up to defeat the ruling Congress in the coming Assembly elections.

The announcement was made after the leaders of four parties met at the Jubilee Hills residence of TDP chief N Chandrababu Naidu here.

“We have decided to forge a grand alliance to see the end of the Congress’ misrule in the state,” Naidu said at a joint press conference with TRS president K Chandrasekhar Rao and state secretaries of CPI and CPM K Narayana and BV Raghavulu, respectively.

The details of seat adjustments would be worked out later.

The “rampant corruption and irregularities” in the welfare schemes of the Congress government would be the main poll agenda of the opposition alliance, they said.

The decision on alliance brings to an end a prolonged suspense over poll strategy of TRS which is in the forefront of a movement for separate Telangana state.

Earlier, there were reports that the Telangana party was in a dilemma over whether to go with the TDP-Left combine or actor-turned-politician Chiranjeevi’s Praja Rajyam Party (PRP).

There was also a speculation that the Congress may be forced to take a pro-Telangana stand to woo TRS back into its fold ahead of the elections due in April.

“All such reports are creation of the Congress to spread confusion. We are very clear that the Congress should be defeated,” Chandrasekhar Rao said.

Interestingly, the 2004 elections saw Left parties and TRS joining hands with the Congress, which was then in the opposition, to defeat the TDP government headed by Naidu.

The roles have now been reversed. After being a partner in the UPA at the Centre and in the Congress government in the state, the TRS had pulled out of the alliance over delay in formation of Telangana state.

The Left parties had withdrawn support to the UPA government on the Indo-US nuclear deal.

Ever since losing power, the TDP has been cosying up to the Left parties and desperately trying for an image make-over. Shedding its reforms-savvy image, Naidu has since embraced populism to get closer to the Left and did a somersault on Telangana issue to earn the support of TRS.

The coming together of four opposition parties would also give a boost to the efforts to forge Third Front at national level as an alternative to UPA and NDA, Narayana and Raghavulu said.

“The countdown for the downfall of the Congress has started. We have joined hands to eliminate the forces of corruption represented by Congress,” the opposition leaders said.

With today’s development, it is now clear that the coming polls will witness a “straight contest” between the combined opposition and the Congress, they said and dismissed Chiranjeevi as an insignificant factor.

Prior to firming up poll alliance, the four parties took up joint agitations on several public issues including corruption in high places, price rise and land allotments for Special Economic Zones (SEZs).

The recent fiasco in Satyam Computers has provided further ammunition for the opposition parties to attack the ruling party.

Accusing the Congress government of showing “undue favours” to Maytas Infra, an infrastructure and construction company owned by Ramalinga Raju’s family members, they said projects worth over Rs 30,000 crore had been awarded to the company during the last four years.

Indicating that the fallout of Satyam scandal would be made a campaign issue, the opposition leaders demanded that documents pertaining to Maytas projects be placed before an all-party panel.