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Kumaratunga in Delhi, to meet PM and other leaders
New Delhi, Apr. 22 (ANI): President of Sri Lanka, Chandrika
Kumaratunga, arrived here on Monday on a visit that brings
together two crucial but cautious players in a Norwegian-brokered
bid to end the island's ethnic war.
The visiting dignitary was received at the airport by Omar
Abdullah, Minister of State for External Affairs.
Kumaratunga shares with Indian leaders a deep suspicion of Tamil
rebel leader Velupillai Pirabhakaran who is on the threshold of
having a dialogue for peace with the Sri Lankan government led by
her arch-rival, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe.
"It is essentially a private visit," she told the reporters.
The official purpose of Kumaratunga's visit is to deliver a
lecture in the memory of prominent Congress leader Madhav Rao
Scindia who died last year in a plane crash.
But her spokesman, Harim Pairis, informed that Prime Minister
Atal Behari Vajpayee and other Indian leaders would meet the Sri
Lankan President whose People's Alliance coalition has been
traditionally closer to New Delhi than the pro-West United
National Party of Wickremesinghe.
The spokesperson added that the peace process would figure on the
agenda of the talks that will take palce.
Kumaratunga has been a vocal critic of Wickremesinghe's plans to
accommodate the rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, fighting
since 1983 for a separate minority Tamil state in the north-east.
She slammed a Norwegian-brokered truce signed in February as a
violation of Sri Lanka's sovereignty but has recently softened
her stance on the rebels' demand for legal recognition before the
negotiations expected to take place in Thailand next June.
Peiris said the President remained fully committed to the peace
process.
Kumaratunga also urged the government to bargain hard with the
rebels who seriously wounded her in a 1999 assassination bid.
India has been resisting frequent entreaties from the island
government and the LTTE to take up a role in the peace process,
but says it supports efforts to end a conflict that has claimed
64,000 lives so far.
Any peace settlement will need at least the tacit approval of
India, not the least because the insurgents insist on New Delhi
to drop its demand for Pirabhakaran's extradition.
Pirabhakaran had told a news conference two weeks ago that India
had a crucial role to play in the peace process. But New Delhi
rebuffed his call for better relations and said the ban and
extradition request still stood. (ANI)
Ahmedabad tense after fresh conflict, Army on patrol
Go to
top Ahmedabad, Apr. 22 (ANI): Tension still prevailed in some areas
of Ahmedabad, with the Army and para-military forces patrolling
the streets. Rioting in this city accounted for 14 of the 16
deaths that occurred in the last 24 hours.
The renewed violence is likely to put more pressure on the state
government, as well as the Centre, over its failure to contain
the unprecedented bloodshed which left more than 800,
predominantly Muslims, dead.
Gujarat has been convulsed by religious clashes since February
27, the day on which a suspected Muslim mob torched a train
carrying Hindu activists and burnt to death 59 people.
Priyanka, a Hindu housewife, blamed Muslims for the latest surge
in violence, saying they wanted to disrupt the Hindu festival of
Ram Navami which fell on Sunday.
"It was their (Muslims') plan. Yesterday was Ram Navami festival,
depicting Lord Ram's birthday. They wanted to spoil our
celebrations. They also do not want examinations of Class X and
XII to go on
peacefully," she added.
Rioters from both the communities threw light bulbs filled with
acid
and crudely made bombs at one one another in several areas of
Ahmedabad late on Sunday night, forcing the police to open fire.
The tension and prolonged curfew hours have severely affected
students appearing for Class XII examinations.
Keshav Patel, an old Hindu, said a handful of elements in either
Community were fuelling the trouble and not letting peace come
back to the region.
"Neither side wants the exams to be conducted peacefully. They
all want to disrupt them. There are three or four people.
Everybody knows them. They don't want students to write the
papers nations in peace," Patel said.
According to sources, mobs torched houses and shops in the
Gomtipur, Shahpur, Bapunagar and Behrampura areas of Ahmedabad.
Among the weekend's victims was a police officer who was found
hacked to death. (ANI)
Kanshi Ram rules out Dy CM under Mayawati
Go to
top
New Delhi, Apr 22 (ANI): The new government in Uttar Pradesh
headed by Mayawati will be formed within a week, said BSP leader
Kanshi Ram on Monday. But there would be no deputy chief minister
as of now, he added.
"This is to avert a parallel power centre in the state like in
1997", Kanshi Ram explained.
The BJP Parliamentary Board is likely to meet soon to give a
formal approval to the proposal.
BJP President Jana Krishnamurthy, on his return from Chennai in
the morning, remained non-committal on when the Board would
meet.
meanwhile, Samajwadi Party President Mulayam Singh Yadav said the
proposed BJP-BSP coalition was not based on principles.
"The alliance is not based on any principles and I do not rule
out a revolt among the parties involved," he told reporters at
Agra on Sunday.
SP, which had the "biggest support and largest strength" after
the recent Assembly elections returned a fractured verdict,
should have been asked to form a government, he said.
Yadav said his party had sought support from Congresss and other
parties engaged in fighting communalism but the Congress did not
give its support.
On the impasse in Parliament on the Gujarat issue, he said it
would be wrong to accuse the Samajwadi Party of not allowing the
Lok Sabha to transact business.(ANI)
All PPSC appointments scrapped: CMGo to
top Chandigarh, Apr 22 (ANI): The Punjab government has cancelled the
appointments of 639 people to various posts recommended by the
state Public Service Commission in the light of the arrest of its
chairman Ravinder Pal Singh Sidhu.
Chief Minister Amarinder Singh told reporters on Monday that
3,446 appointments made during the five-year tenure of Sidhu
would be scrutinised.
He said the state government has written to Governor J F R Jacob
recommending removal of Sidhu as PPSC chairman.
The 639 posts, for which PPSC had made recommendations, would be
advertised again and fresh recruitment process initiated, the
Chief Minister said.
"Investigations are still on and movable and immovable assets of
Sidhu worth Rs.25 crore have been detected", he said.
Singh said investigations would cover all appointees and no one
would be excluded because of influential parentage or any other
consideration.
Referring to the lengthy process defined for the removal of PPSC
chairman, Singh said the Constitution had "never visualised" a
situation like the case of Sidhu.
"There is a long process, but it has to be followed", he said,
adding that the six-year-term of Sidhu was due to end in
September this year.
Answering a question about some IAS and PCS officers allegedly
amassing wealth disproportionate to their known sources of
income, he said, "if any specific complaint comes it will be
probed to its logical end.(ANI)
Fate of Indus Treaty uncertain
Go to
top Lahore, Apr 22 (ANI): The Indus Basin Water Treaty will be
"automatically suspended" if India fails to invite Pakistan for
the mandatory May meeting of the treaty.
Dawn has quoted ources in the office of Pakistan's Permanent
Commissioner for Indus Basin Treaty to say that both sides
normally start preparations for the meeting by the end of March.
It takes more than six weeks to prepare agenda and travel
documents for the participants.
So far, India has neither contacted nor invited Pakistan to the
meeting which "must be held before May 31" to keep the treaty
alive. The meeting is held alternately in India and Pakistan and
is slated to be held in New Delhi this year.
The breach of the treaty will be formalized once India refuses or
fails to attend the meeting. Pakistan, sources claimed, would
then be in a position to move the international court.(ANI)
Killer anthrax in Palamau tiger reserve, officials sceptical
Go to
top Ranchi, Apr. 22 (ANI): Two elephants and at least 12 heads of
cattle have perished on account of anthrax in Jharkhand's Palamau
Tiger Reserve.
The death of one female elephant on April 4 confirmed the
outbreak of the disease in the Tongari area of the Reserve, but
officials claim that the other deaths were not caused by this
kind of infection.
The female pachyderm did show symptoms of anthrax but the
authorities didn't take the case seriously although the animal's
blood samples were sent to Ranchi Veterinary College for
examination. Meanwhile, on April 13, another elephant died in
Ramandag area of the forest. By that time, the medical report on
the first death revealed that it was indeed anthrax which killed
the victim.
According to reports, so far only one area has been affected. "We
will form committees to find out the real cause behind the
disease. but the disease is surely affecting the wildlife of the
area," said Sudesh Mahato, a minister in Jharkhand government.
Anyway, the forest authorities have finally woken up and anti-
anthrax vaccines have been brought from Bhubaneshwar and Kolkata.
The officials, however, say that wild animals cannot be
vaccinated. But the disease can be controlled only through
preventive measures.
"Anthrax is not an epidemic. Preventive measures are there.
Anti-anthrax vaccine is being given to all the animals.
Vaccination, however, cannot be performed on wild animals. It can
be controlled through preventive measures," said Dinesh Kumar,
divisional forest officer.
The officials are of the view that contaminated water is the main
cause for the spread of the disease. Domestic cattle as well as
wild beasts drink water from the same ponds..
Palamau Tiger Reserve came into existence on June 4, 1974 and is
spread over an area of 1026 square kilometres. It has 37 tigers,
252 elephants and 33,257 monkeys. (ANI)
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