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Another Bihar minister resigns (Go To Top)

          Patna: The Rabri Devi government in Bihar faced a serious political crisis on Tuesday after the state's Food and Civil Supplies Minister Purnamasi Ram resigned from the Cabinet and from the primary membership of the ruling Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD). Ram resigned to protest the 'doling out' of Bagaha parliamentary constituency to the LJP under a seat sharing arrangement. He was an aspirant for the RJD seat from Bagaha and after it was allotted to secular front partner LJP, he announced his decision to contest as an independent. Ram's resignation follows the resignation of the Minister of State for Weights and Measures and Horticulture Chedi Paswan who quit the ministerial post and also the party on Monday on the similar grounds. Meanwhile, RJD national vice-president Raghuvansh Prasad Singh today said that the party had also urged the chief minister to remove Minister of State for Finance (Commercial Taxes and Small Savings) Dadan Singh alias Pehlwan from the state cabinet, as he has decided to contest the elections as an independent from Buxar against the RJD official nominee.

Naxals gun down Beur jailor (Go To Top)

          Patna: Suspected rebels of the outlawed People's War Group (PWG) have gunned down the Beur jailor in Patna. Several bullets were fired at Narendra Singh outside his house while he was getting out of his car. Singh was rushed to a local hospital where he was declared brought dead. Car driver Brij Kishore said the scooter-borne assailants opened fire at Singh the moment he alighted. "I was parking the vehicle when they opened fire at us. They were on a two-wheeler. We were coming from the jail and when he (Singh) was getting down, the incident happened," said Kishore.

          The PWG is the largest of the Naxalite groups while the Maoist Communist Centre (MCC) and a faction of the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) are also active in the region. Besides Bihar, Andhra Pradesh, Jharkhand, Orissa, Madhya Pradesh, and Uttar Pradesh are affected by the Naxalite movement. The Naxalites, who are fighting for peasents rights and radical re-distribution of land, have targeted rich landowners and government officers.

Geelani call for election boycott (Go To Top)

          Srinagar: Breakaway faction of All Parties Hurriyat Conference (APHC) on Tuesday said it would boycott the April-May national elections. Syed Ali Shah Geelani, leader of the breakaway faction APHC, said the group would start a campaign to make the boycott call a success. "Today we have given a call that no one should take part in elections. We have been in touch with people here and they have assured us that they will make our election boycott policy a success. So, to carry forward this election boycott policy, Hurriyat has decided to launch a campaign. I want to make it clear that it will be held in a very peaceful and disciplined manner and we will convince people to boycott the polls," Geelani told reporters in Srinagar. The call came a day after newspapers reported that the APHC led by moderate Moulvi Abbas Ansari may not boycott the polls, for the first time ever. Hurriyat resumed peace talks with India late last week in a bid to resolve the decades-old Kashmir dispute.

Police net top Nepalese rebel (Go To Top)

          Siliguri: Police in West Bengal, bordering Nepal, arrested a top Maoist guerrilla leading the rebellion in the tiny Himalyan kingdom, late on Monday. Fifty-year old Mohan Baidya, the third in command of the Nepal Communist Party (NCP), was nabbed from a tea garden in the Darjeeling-Siliguri region, where he was staying with one Bikram Pradhan. Both Baidya and Pradhan are in police custody. "Yesterday we arrested two people in Darjeeling based on some specific information and later it was verified that these two guys are linked with the Maoist party in Nepal. One of them happens to be Mohan Baidya, who is a member of the permanent council of their organisation. The second person is Bikram Pradhan, he is a local guy of Jalpaiguri and we are trying to find out what links does he have with that man," Rajiv Mishra, superintendent of police, said on Tuesday. The Maoists have been fighting to set up a communist republic in the Hindu nation wedged between India and China. Nearly 9,000 people have been killed in the insurgency since it began in 1996. Nepali troops earlier this month began a fierce battle with the rebels in a remote mountain area.

Tamil candidate killed in Sri Lanka (Go To Top)

          Colombo: Gunmen shot dead a Tamil candidate in eastern Sri Lanka on Tuesday, sparking fears of factional fighting among Tamil Tiger rebels ahead of Friday's parliamentary polls. Military officials were quoted by local dailies as saying that Tamil National Alliance candidate Rajan Sathyamoorthy and one of his relatives were gunned down at his house in Batticaloa. Sathyamoorthy had been a supporter of the LTTE's eastern command chief V. Muralitharan, better known as Karuna, who had recently split from the parent body.