New
Delhi: India on Saturday said it was upset with a U.S.
decision to name Pakistan as a major non-NATO ally. Days
after the United States declared that ties with India had
never been better, New Delhi criticised Washington for granting
Pakistan the kind of special ally status that will make
it easier for Islamabad to acquire sophisticated U.S. weaponry.
"The Secretary of State Colin Powell was in India two days
before the statement was made in Islamabad. While he was
in India there was much emphasis on the India-United States
strategic partnership. It is disappointing that he did not
share with us this decision of the United States government,"
foreign ministry spokesman Navtej Sarna said here without
elaborating.
PM
assails American book on Shivaji (Go
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Beed
(M'rashtra): Describing Maratha Emperor Chhattrapati
Shivaji Maharaj as a "true nationalist and the greatest
ever war strategist," Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee
on Saturday said the Centre will back the Maharashtra government
if it takes action against a "foreign author" who had penned
a controversial book on Shivaji. "If the Maharashtra government
does not take action, the Centre would take action on its
own," Vajpayee said addressing a rally where a dozen people
were detained for slogan shouting in protest against Vajpayee's
earlier stand that a ban may not be the right way to tackle
such a book.
Controversy
erupted in Maharashtra in January over American writer James
Laine's book "Shivaji - Hindu King in Muslim India" and
activists of a Maratha outfit had vandalised the Bhandarkar
Oriental Research Centre at Pune from where the author had
accessed source materials on the subject. In the book, the
author had made certain "derogatory remarks" against Shivaji,
who is revered in Maharashtra as well as India. Vajpayee's
stand today is a departure from his earlier statement on
January 16, when while addressing a meeting after unveiling
the statue of Shivaji at the Chhatrapati Shivaji International
Airport in Mumbai, the Prime Minister had said that "thought
had to be tackled with thoughts" instead of resorting to
banning the book. The Congress-NCP alliance government in
the state had banned the book published by Oxford University
Press.
BJP
for statute change on foreign origin issue (Go
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New
Delhi: In an effort to make Congress president Sonia
Gandhi's foreign origin the focal point in the forthcoming
elections, the Bharatiya Janata Party on Saturday sought
constitutional amendment to bar foreigners from holding
high offices. Talking to newspersons at his residence, BJP
president M Venkaiah Naidu reiterated that the BJP-led NDA
would fulfil its promise given in the 1998 manifesto on
the issue if returned to power, saying it could not do so
this time for lack of majority in the Rajya Sabha. The party,
he said, had a principled stand that the persons of foreign
origin should not hold high offices like that of President,
Prime Minister and Chief Justice and there was no change
in its stance. "We could not make constitutional provision
as the NDA did not have adequate number in the Upper House,"
he said.
Srinagar-Muzaffarabad
bus service from August 1 (Go
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Islamabad:
The Indian Government has decided to launch bus service
between Srinagar and Muzaffarabad from August. Quoting a
Voice of America (VOA) report, the Nation said that the
decision was taken at an intra-ministerial meeting in New
Delhi that also pondered over the logistical needs for starting
the bus service. According to government sources in New
Delhi, it was also felt that four months was required to
ensure the building of basic infrastructure, including construction
of roads and bridges and provision of immigration and customs
facilities.
Earlier,
Pakistan and India had fixed March 29-30 for conducting
technical-level talks for the Srinagar-Muzaffarabad bus
service, but these parleys have now been rescheduled for
April 8-9. According to a separate report filed by the Daily
Times, the talks will take place in Islamabad. Official
sources told the paper, that the Pakistan Government had
accepted the Indian Government's request to extend the agreed
dates. "The Indian government requested through diplomatic
channels to reschedule the talks because the agreed dates
of March 29 and 30 were causing logistical problems for
the Indian government," the sources said. "All the modalities
regarding the Muzafarabad-Srinagar bus service will be thoroughly
discussed during these talks," sources said when asked if
Pakistan would insist on its initial condition of UN-manned
check posts and travel permission with UN documents.
