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| Hot issues of Today |
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| Mar 16, 2007 |
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Blood flows again, this time cops'
NEW DELHI: Hours after Union home minister Shivraj Patil cautioned Rajya Sabha members against using statistics to project Left-wing extremism as a Frankenstein, Naxalites carried out one of their deadliest attacks, killing 52 police personnel — 18 men of the Chhattisgarh armed police and 34 special police officers (SPOs) — in a pre-dawn operation on a police outpost in Bijapur, Chhattisgarh.
The attack, which came within a fortnight of the killing of Jharkhand MP Sunil Mahato by Naxalites, may set a record in terms of highest police casualties. This is best demonstrated by the fact that 84 security personnel were killed in the whole of 2006 in Chhattisgarh.
Incidentally, all the police personnel and SPOs posted at the outpost, housed in an abandoned school building, were armed. However, given the time chosen by the Naxalites to strike — 3 am — most of the personnel, barring the sentry and guards posted for night vigil, were fast asleep in the barracks as nearly 200 extremists descended upon the camp, hurling grenades and opening fire.
The CRPF camp was nearly 10 km away. The Naxalites, according to senior MHA officials here had meticulously planned the attack: they not only made away with the police weapons, but also mined the ground leading to the jungles where they retreated after the attack.
The Centre, worried at the increasing frequency and intensity of Naxalite strikes — the Bokaro mine explosion in December 2006, which killed 15 security personnel, Mahato's assassination and now, the attack on the police outpost at Bijapur — is likely to review the situation and may need to fine-tune the operational strategies to rein in the surge in violence.
The Bijapur incident is certain to sharpen the Opposition attack against the UPA government over its flawed approach in management of the internal security situation. The Centre has been unable to ensure synergy between the states in counter-Naxal operations. As a result, barring Andhra Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, which have conducted some successful operations against the extremists, the response of the affected states leaves much to be desired.
According to an initial assessment of security agencies, the killing of as many as 34 SPOs — locals who are trained in use of weapons to enable community policing in a terrain that may be largely unfamiliar to non-resident security personnel — on Thursday was essentially aimed at discouraging popular uprisings like Salwa Judum.
Even the fatal attack on Mahato was meant as a warning to those participating in mass movements against Naxals. Mahato, it may be recalled, was a key member of the Nagrik Suraksha Samiti in Jharkhand.
The Centre, meanwhile, has asked the state to report back on the casualties that the security personnel managed to inflict on the Naxalite attackers. This may help the officials gauge the adequacy and quickness of the response of the Chhattisgarh armed police personnel deployed at the post.
Soon after the attack, the MHA rushed personnel of the CRPF's 30th battalion to the spot for combing operations and pressed a helicopter into service to evacuate the injured. The statements of the injured will establish the sequence of events, besides pin-pointing a security lapse, if any.
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/News/PoliticsNation/Blood_flows_again_this_time _cops/articleshow/1770145.cms
Centre gropes for solution to Naxal terror
Even as the internal security situation on the western border is seemingly under control and efforts are on to neutralise insurgency in the Northeast, the Centre is apparently groping to find both short and long-term solutions to the Naxal problem, which is threatening to challenge democratically-elected governments in several states. The problem has already started assuming alarming proportions and if a quick response isn't evolved, things could get out of hand.
The issue is likely to be discussed at the meeting of director generals of police over the next two days and some kind of workable policy is expected to be evolved once deliberations are complete. The Prime Minister, home minister and senior home ministry officials will also participate in the conference.
Politically, the Naxal threat is real and not imaginary, and needs to be handled not only as a law and order problem but as an issue that has socio-economic and political dimensions. Therefore, a mere bureaucratic view or table top theoretical simplification of the problem isn't going to be adequate; a well-conceived and thought out response is required.
According to ministry estimates, at present, 76 districts in Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Bihar, Orissa, Maharashtra, West Bengal, UP and MP are badly affected by Naxalism. These are those districts comprising about 450 police stations from where incidents have been reported in the last two years. Besides, there are another 50-odd districts where Naxal groups have extended their influence/activity but not violence as such. These districts fall in the said nine states as well as Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu. In all, Naxal activities have been reported from 1,200 police stations.
In addition, Naxalites have identified 31 districts in some of these states and in Uttranchal as possible targets. According to a ministry official, Naxalites sometimes pursue the policy of tactical retreat, whereby they move away from certain areas to avoid police action and focus on other areas to expand their influence.
Intelligence reports suggest groups have so far only been using weapons procured indigenously and not through terrorist outfits, like LTTE, and other countries as speculated. Even though there are ideological linkages with similar outfits in Nepal and other countries, there is no evidence of logistical support from these areas.
Naxal groups usually have huge funds (Rs 100-150 crore a year) gathered through extortion, ransom, payment of levy on development activities or over movement of agricultural/minor forest produce and minerals. Besides, bank robberies and looting have been reported.
Government agencies put the total estimated number of hardcore underground cadre in the affected states at 9,300 — a significant growth from 2004 (2,165 recruited) and 2003 (831 recruited).
http://www.hindustantimes.com/storypage/storypage.aspx?id=c98c1e26-6461-4498-ab9e -5b360e7509fb&ParentID=dec4300c-2a3c-4824-be6b-b3f119f592f4&MatchID1=4413& TeamID1=2&TeamID2=5&MatchType1=2&SeriesID1=1104&MatchID2=4412&TeamID3 =13&TeamID4=3&MatchType2=2&SeriesID2=1104&PrimaryID=4413
No end to Naxalite violence In the biggest ever Naxalite related violence in the history of Chhattisgarh more than 60 security personnel were killed when a large group of heavily armed Maoists attacked a security camp at Rani Vodli in Bijapur police district of Bastar, bordering Andhra Pradesh and Orissa..Though the state has witnessed many such attacks in the past, the present one brought the heaviest causalties.
The Naxalites, who were lying low for the past few months, have once again proved government wrong as the state all this while was claiming that the Naxalites were forced to retreat due to the tight security arrangements and popular support of the anti-Maoist-Salva Judum campaign. Apparently the retreat was more of a tactical step taken so as to give shape to the present carefully planned, dare-devilish attack.
The state government as well as the Central government, which have been working jointly in the fight against the Naxal threat, have again been found wanting as today's attack proved. The highly publicized Salva-Judum campaign, which was launched by the state government to curb the Naxal spread, has also proved to be a damp squib with human rights organization and media slamming the movement as a forced measure rather than a voluntary action by the villagers and tribals of the Naxal affected areas.
Reports from Bijapur suggest death of 65 security personnel and injuries to others who have been transferred to Jagdalpur, the headquarters of Bastar. The chief minister, Raman Singh had confirmed 49 deaths and the district administration admitted over 55 casualties. Maoists have killed about 700 people in the last two years in Bastar, but the Thursday pre-dawn attack on the security camp was the worst of all the crimes committed by the Naxalites as they raided the barracks, indiscriminately, killed the sleeping security people and looted their arms.
In the past too, they had killed 26 CRPF jawans in the same area, killed 58 pro-Salva Judum volunteers returning from an anti-Maoist rally, invaded several relief camps killing the peace movement activists and their families. The government was forced to shift over 50,000 people in the relief camps in their own homeland.
The Rani Vodli incident had come within a week of the killing of Jharkhand Mukti Morcha member of Lok Sabha, Sunil Mahto near Chaibasa in Jharkhand. The Maoists had killed the then transport minister of Madhya Pradesh, Likhiram Kanware, attacked the then chief minister of Andhra Pradesh, Chandrababu Naidu in Tirupathi and later stormed the Jehanabad jail in Bihar.
But, the series of attacks in Bijapur's Farsegarh and Kotru blocks is definitely the result of lack of development activities in the remote areas even now. Corruption is rampant in the villages, the officials are finding it difficult to enter the villages and the contractors have literally surrendered themselves to the will of the Maoists.
The BJP led government had enacted the Chhattisgarh special Public security Act last year making strong provisions for detention of even those supporting the Maoists, publicizing their activities or glorifying their violent actions through audio or video presentations of photographs. The government made a special provision of Rs. five crores for the anti-Maoists campaign -Salva Judum in the annual budget last year. The anti-naxal movement is meeting up with resistance from the Maoists frequently and the Rani Vodli attack is yet another incident in these series. The ritual of the chief minister calling upon the union home minister, demanding more forces and helicopters has been repeated this time too.
The approach of both the Centre and state governments on the increasing Maoists violence is confusing. They are talking of the Naxalites creating a corridor from Pashupathi Nath to Tirupathi (Nepal to Andhra Pradesh), forgetting that they are already sharing power in Kathmandu and are aiming to capturing the power or share the power in New Delhi, which is evident from their literatures.
When Maoists were digging up wells, constructing tanks and opening primary schools in Bastar, the state administration's teachers, engineers were staying in the district headquarters.
During Raman Singh's week-long tour to the villagers by helicopter, he was told about the non-availability of teachers, doctors and engineers in the blocks. The engineers of Wadrafnagar, a subdivisional town in Surguja, prefer to operate from Ambikapur, the district headquarters, 80 kms away from their posting giving enough space for the Maoists and their sympathisers to work.
http://www.centralchronicle.com/20070316/1603301.htm
Two killed in police firing in Bihar Begusarai, March. 16 (PTI): Two persons were killed and another injured when police opened fire to quell a violent crowd protesting alleged irregularities in the preparation of the below poverty line (BPL) list in Bihar's Begusarai district today.
Two middle-aged men -- Biso Jha and Baleshwar Sah -- were killed and a woman named Neelam Devi was seriously injured when police fired to disperse the crowd that set fire to the Matihani block office, about 12 km from here, and a few vehicles parked in front of it, officials said.
Nearly a thousand people had assembled in front of the block office since this morning to protest against the alleged non-inclusion of a large number of "genuinely poor" people in the list.
They began hurling stones at police at around one pm following which police carried out a baton-charge, leading to injuries to a few persons.
Enraged, the protestors set on fire a couple of two- wheelers and the jeep of the block development officer before torching his office, prompting police to open fire.
District Magistrate Sanjeev Hans and Superintendent of Police Amid Lodha are camping at the spot. The situation, police said, was "tense but under control".
http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/holnus/004200703161654.htm
Sporadic violence in West Bengal
KOLKATA : Sporadic incidents of violence on Friday marked a Statewide strike called by the Trinamool Congress, BJP, Congress and the Socialist Unity Centre of India in West Bengal in protest against Wednesday's police firing in Nandigram that claimed 11 lives.
Amid the bandh, the CBI began field investigations into the Nandigram violence.
Three State buses were set ablaze and 12 buses attacked by stone pelting mobs.
Roadblocks were put up at several places and vehicular traffic was minimal. Train services on both Howrah and Sealdah divisions were affected. There were reports of long distance trains being stranded at different stations as protesters squatted on the tracks.
Some strike supporters were arrested while trying to head for Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee's residence in the southern part of the city.
Alleging that "vandalism had been committed in the name of bandh," Chairman of the Left Front Committee, Biman Bose, claimed that employees and officers of various Government offices were attacked by bandh supporters and even offices of the Communist Party of India [Marxist] was set on fire.
Ridiculing remarks by Opposition leaders that the bandh was "spontaneous," he asked whether all incidents of vandalism in the course of the strike had "also been spontaneous." Trinamool Congress leader Mamata Banerjee said people from all walks of life, different organisations and political parties protested against the "bloodbath" in Nandigram and Khejuri and supported the strike. State Congress leader Pradip Bhattacharya said people spontaneously participated in the bandh despite attacks on party workers.
Stand on SEZs
PTI reports:
The Government would not take any initiative on Special Economic Zones till a ``socially balanced'' decision was taken on these projects at the national level,'' Finance Minister Asim Dasgupta told reporters in the Assembly lobby after presenting the budget for 2007-08.
http://www.hindu.com/2007/03/17/stories/2007031706680100.htm
Future ramping up presence in West Bengal
KOLKATA: Kishore Biyani's Future Group is ramping up its retail presence in West Bengal. The group has silently signed up properties in Howrah, Siliguri, Bardhaman, Kharagpur, Darjeeling and even Asansol to open stores and occupy approximately 29 lakh square feet (sq ft) of the state's retail space.
Total investment being envisaged is over Rs 500 crore. The move is expected to shore up the group's overall business from the state to Rs 800 crore by financial year ended June 30, 2008, from an estimated Rs 450 crore in the current year.
Outlining the Future Group's growth plans, company insiders said the group's retail outlets in Kolkata would cover 8 lakh sq ft by December 2008 from the present 2.5 lakh sq ft, while it would occupy some 29 lakh sq ft of retail space in the state. Incidentally, Pantaloon Retail India is the retail arm of the Future Group.
Pantaloon Retail India regional head (eastern zone) Sandeep Marwah told ET: "West Bengal plays a critical role in our overall scheme of growth. We began our retail journey from here and hence, the state will always occupy an important place in our growth plans."
The group plans to set up six new Pantaloons outlets in the state. Of these, three new stores will come up in Asansol, Siliguri and Batanagar. Incidentally, all three Pantaloons outlets are in Kolkata. The group also intends to open 15 new Big Bazaar outlets by December 2008 from the present three it has in Kolkata and Durgapur.
"We have already identified 11 properties for Big Bazaar stores in Kolkata. The balance four will come up at Belur, Bardhaman, Kharagpur and Darjeeling. This apart, we will also open a couple of independent Food Bazaar outlets across the city and Howrah," the insider added.
The Future group has also finalised plans to launch its mega-scale seamless mall in the city, central, covering some 3.5 lakh sq ft in calendar 2008.
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/News/News_By_Industry/Services/Retailing/ Future_ramping_up_presence_in_West_Bengal/articleshow/1774028.cms
ADB to give $200 mn for irrigation to Orissa
Bhubaneswar, March 15: The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has assured the Orissa government assistance of USD 200 million (Rs 900 crore approx) for its integrated water resources management programme (IWRMP).
The assurance was given by a team of ADB officials, who discussed the project with Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik in Bhubaneswar on Wednesday, official sources said.
Irrigation infrastructure and lift irrigation points north of Mahanadi river would be improved under the Rs 1200 crore programme, which would also strengthen 'pani panchayats' (water users' associations) as well.
The pani panchayats would then be able to function with more responsibility and the water resources department would function only as the facilitator, the sources said.
The Chief Minister explained to the ADB delegation the steps the government was initiating to ensure irrigation in at least 35 per cent of the arable area in each of the state's 314 blocks, the sources added.
http://www.financialexpress.com/latest_full_story.php?content_id=157856
Maoists excavating atomic ore, says official Maoist guerrillas in Chhattisgarh are illegally excavating columbite, an atomic ore, in the state's Dantewada district, a mining department official said Friday.
'Extremists who are technology savvy have excavated hundreds of kilograms of columbite,' the official said, referring to the Communist Party of India-Maoist, which Wednesday killed 55 security personnel in a police camp.
'The state government is well aware of the illegal mining and has stepped up patrolling to stop the smuggling of columbite,' the official told IANS on conditions of anonymity.
The atomic material - officially called niobium - is a superconductive material that helps in developing magnetic fields using less power. It is used in magnetic-ignited trains and rocket launchers. Columbite, which is said to be black in colour, can be used as structural material in nuclear reactors.
The official claimed that the illegal mining had been going on for at least two years but the government woke up to it only in January.
The issue found mention in the Chhattisgarh assembly Feb 22, and Chief Minister Raman Singh said the government 'is taking all measures with the Atomic Energy Department to ensure that columbite ore, an atomic mineral, is not illegally excavated and smuggled'.
A top counter-terrorism expert said the Maoists had set up a research and development training centre near the Chhattisgarh-Maharashtra border close to Abujhmad region.
'Maoists always look for technological back-up for bigger attacks. Now the time has come for the Indian government to look into the angle. How much success have the Maoists had in recent years?'
Mining officials say the Atomic Energy Department is conducting a comprehensive survey in Bastar region, including Dantewada, to locate actual stocks of columbite reserves.
http://www.indiaprwire.com/businessnews/20070316/21426.htm
ATSUM urges to re-introduce Reservation Bill
Imphal, March 16: The All Tribal Students Union, Manipur has urged the Chief Minister O Ibobi to re-introduce reservation of vacancies in post and services (SC/ST) Amendment Bill 2006 in the ongoing Assembly session which began from today.
Issuing a joinyt statement signed by ATSUM president, John Pulamte and its general secretary Thomas Taishya today, it mentioned that the Manipur Reservation of Vacancies in Post and Services (for SC/ST) Amendment Bill 2006 which was passed by the Manipur Legislative Assembly on September 18 last year needed to be re-introduced as suggested to the Chief Minister during his previous tenure by the Governor.
While congratulating the Chief Minister for leading the Congress party to victory in the 9th Assembly election held recently and returning to power for the second consecutive term, ATSUM said that they took the opportunity in reminding the pending issue with his (CM) earlier Govt urging for immediate attention.
The statement pointed out that an agreement was reached between ATSUM and the State Govt on September 20 last year with regard to the then recruitment process of 671 sciences and arts graduate teachers for schools both in hills and the valley which says 'wherever there is a backlog of ST reservation exceeding 50% of the vacancies taken together with normal percentage of reservation for ST available in the current recruitment, the ST vacancies will be filled upto 50% of the advertised vacancies'.
It added that the Government unilaterally violated the agreement and promised to rectify following that ATSUM expects to take up the issue in the first Cabinet meeting of the new Govt.
Further, the statement observed that the state Govt on December 4 last year had granted administrative approval of Rs 1500 lakhs under SPA-2006-07 for constructing schools and qaurters, where maximum implementation programme are to be undertaken in the hills and interior areas entrusting to MHPC, MTDC, DRDA and engineering cell of Education (S) as implementing agencies.
"we would like to suggest that the said work should not be given to any contractor or private agency but it should be directly to the village where the school is located", said ATSUM.
It further contended that the officials concerned, the chairman/chief of the village, the school headmaster concerned, staff and tribal student bodies should be actively involved in the work.
The tribal students cautioned it will be compelled to agitate if their plights are not heeded.
http://www.e-pao.net/GP.asp?src=12..170307.mar07
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| Hot issues of Today |
- Mar 15, 2007
- Mar 14, 2007
- Mar 13, 2007
- Mar 12, 2007
- Mar 11, 2007
- Mar 10, 2007
- Mar 09, 2007
- Mar 08, 2007
- Mar 07, 2007
- Mar 06, 2007
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