Support after restoration of judges by Monday: Sharif

LAHORE: Taking a tough stand, PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif on Saturday cut short by two days the Wednesday deadline for restoration of the deposed judges and linked the issue to his party's support to PPP leader Asif Ali Zardari's candidature in presidential polls in Pakistan.

"It will take Parliament 10 minutes to pass a resolution for reinstatement of deposed judges after which an Executive Order should be issued by the Prime Minister in the evening," the former prime minister told reporters here after a meeting with PPP leaders at his residence.

Sharif advanced to Monday the deadline set for Wednesday by him for restoration of the judges sacked during last year's emergency rule by former President Pervez Musharraf, who resigned from the post early this week.

All the deposed judges should now be reinstated by Monday in view of the announcement of the presidential election on September six, he said.

Sharif conditioned his party's support to candidature of Zardari for the Presidential polls with the repeal of the 17th amendment empowering a President to dissolve Parliament and dismiss an elected Premier as well as with the restoration of deposed judges.

"We have asked PPP to inform us by Saturday night whether the judges will be reinstated by Monday," Sharif was quoted as saying by ARY One channel, adding that his party would announce its strategy after PPP response.

His remarks came after a three-member PPP delegation led by senior leader Raza Rabbani met Sharif at his at his Raiwind farm house residence here and sought his support for Zardari's candidature for the post of President.


Source : Times Of India

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Northeast must 'agitate' with Centre for development: Aiyar

NEW DELHI: Noting that India's 'Look East' policy was yet to reap benefits for the country's northeastern region, Union Minister Mani Shankar Aiyar has said these states must "agitate" with the Centre to seek development.

Aiyar, the minister for Development of the North Eastern Region (DONER), said efforts were on to make the region a gateway to the prosperous South East Asian nations.

"Now we are focusing on linking the region to South East Asia on the basic assumption that South East Asia begins in North East India," he said.

There is an urgent need to link the markets of the eight northeastern states with the emerging economies of the South East Asian countries, he said.

"That's why I have been urging northeastern states to agitate much more with the Central government to argue their case before us, to factor in the importance of developing NE and determine what our strategy should be for development of the region," Aiyar said.

Contending that the Look East Policy had so far primarily benefited the southern and western India, he said the impact of the policy on Northeast has been negligible.

Aiyar, who took over charge of the ministry in 2006, said the economy of the region may look up as private sector has also evinced interest in investing in the region.

The North Eastern Development Finance Corporation Ltd has received investment proposals amounting to Rs 14,000 crore from the private sector, half of them in the last one year.

The DONER Ministry has organised a North East Business summit on September 15-16 to attract investment from the ASEAN and other neighbouring countries to the North East.

Source : Times Of India

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Chiranjeevi hosts tea party for filmstars

HYDERABAD: Actor Chiranjeevi, who has stepped into politics, hosted a tea party for the film fraternity at the Rama Naidu studios at Jubilee Hills on Saturday.

Amongst those who were present were actors Nagarjuna, Venkatesh, Tarun, producer D Rama Naidu, Tammareddy Bharadwaja and others.

Interestingly, actor Mohan Babu who is known to have a running a feud with Chiranjeevi also came for the tea party. "He invited me with love and I came," Mohan Babu said.

Nandamuri Balakrishna and NTR Jr from the Nandamuri clan were conspicuous by their absence. Recently, TDP president Chandrababu Naidu has pulled in NTR family members into the active politics to try out their charisma against the Chiranjeevi factor.

Addressing the film fraternity, actor Chiranjeevi said that even in his political life, he will see to it that the film fraternity gets its due respect. He also explained why he was getting into politics.

Source : Times Of India

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Land-for-job: NDA team meets PM, demands Lalu's ouster

NEW DELHI: Keeping up the pressure on railway minister and RJD chief Lalu Prasad, a delegation of Opposition NDA on Saturday met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and demanded that he be sacked from the Cabinet in the wake of the alleged "land-for-jobs" scam that came to light after an expose telecast by a private TV channel.

Taking a dig at Prasad, who has been credited for his "management skills" for turning around the Indian Railways into a profit-making enterprise, BJP leader Muqhtar Abbas Naqvi said that the scam has exposed that the "management guru has turned into a corruption guru".

The NDA leaders claimed to have documentary evidence showing that people who got jobs in the railways had transferred their land to close family members of Prasad. They also accused the railway minister of giving jobs to those who had deposed in his favour earlier in the fodder scam.

Armed with documentary evidence like registration certificates of land that has reportedly been transferred to the names of Lalu Prasad's family members, the NDA members demanded an inquiry into the scam.

The delegation, comprising BJP vice-president Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, JD(U) president Sharad Yadav and his colleagues Rajiv Ranjan Singh and Shivanand Tiwari, said they submitted "proof" relating to the scam to the PM.

The PM, according to Naqvi and Yadav, assured the delegation that he would "look into" the matter. The leaders claimed that the documents proved the involvement of Prasad, Union ministers Prem Chand Gupta, Kanti Singh and Raghunath Jha in the scam. Hitting out at the UPA government over the issue, Naqvi said, "First we had the cash-for-vote scam and now land-for-job. These incidents signify the height of corruption."

"The Prime Minister should not maintain silence on the issue as this sends a wrong message that he is also hand-in-glove," he said, in an attempt to rope in Manmohan Singh into the issue.

Source : Times Of India

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Soren set to become Jharkhand CM

NEW DELHI: Shibu Soren is tantalizingly close to realising his aspiration to be the chief minister of Jharkhand — a state he helped form — with the UPA leadership successfully persuading incumbent Madhu Koda to step down for 'Guruji'.

Koda is expected to announce his resignation on Saturday. The agreement with Koda capped hectic parleys among UPA partners to facilitate Soren's ascension.

A power-sharing arrangement has been worked out which centres on maintaining the status quo with the significant exception of change at the helm.

All members of the Koda ministry — the two deputy chief ministers and the seven Independents who play 'kingmaker' — are proposed to be retained while the outgoing CM may be given charge of the UPA steering committee.

The committee will not be mere cosmetic as RJD, which was loath to support Soren and came around only at the instance of the Congress leadership, expects it to protect its interests in the state.

While Soren's decision to pull out of the coalition government had looked as ill-timed bravado, he managed to pull it off with the help of the Congress leadership which needs his five votes in the Lok Sabha and is keen to repeat the alliance with the JMM and RJD which helped it sweep all but one of the 14 seats Jharkhand has in the Lower House.

Stephen Marandi, who was till recently a Soren loyalist, remains a holdout, but the UPA managers are confident of bringing him around.

Fears of early assembly polls — a certain prospect if Soren is not made the chief minister — may prove the calculation right. The Koda government failed to perform and those associated with it are likely to pay a heavy price at the hustings. Jharkhand watchers don't expect the change to ring in anything different, but are apprehensive that the arrival of a new chief minister and the proximity of polls may lead to a fresh scramble for mining leases in the resource-rich state.


Source : Times Of India

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BJP calls Cong, SP, BSP 'cheerleaders of terror'

NEW DELHI: Opposition BJP on Friday lashed out at Congress, SP and BSP for sympathizing with Ahmedabad blast accused and SIMI activist Abu Bashar and accused them of playing the "minority appeasement" card, following the visit of MPs from the three parties to Bashar's village in Uttar Pradesh, from where he was picked up by Gujarat police.

BJP called the three parties "cheerleaders of terrorism" for coming out in support of the SIMI activist arrested in connection with Ahmedabad serial blasts. "The BJP's charge that the UPA and its allies are soft on terror now witnesses conclusive evidence with the visit of MPs Ram Naresh Yadav (Congress), Akbar Ahmad Dumpy (BSP) and Abu Azmi (SP) to the Azamgarh village of Mufti Abu Bashar, the terrorist responsible for blasts in Ahmedabad," BJP spokesperson Rajiv Pratap Rudy told reporters here.

The party was also critical of Syed Ahmad Bukhari, Imam of Delhi's Jama Masjid, for accompanying the MPs on their visit. "Congress, BSP and SP have become cheerleaders of terror organizations, groups and individuals who are mercilessly targeting and killing innocents," Rudy said. "Is this overt, disgusting, display of support to elements of terror an attempt to influence the judicial process?" he asked.


Source : Times Of India

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Polls in mind, Cong & SP form panel

NEW DELHI: Samajwadi Party and Congress have set up a coordination panel aimed at providing a mechanism to regulate relations and sort out issues with both parties viewing each other as allies who will face the next general elections as part of the same political formation.

The coordination panel will have Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Congress president Sonia Gandhi, foreign minister Pranab Mukherjee and defence minister A K Antony while the SP will be represented by its chief Mulayam Singh Yadav and his associate and party general secretary Amar Singh. The panel is expected to meet when necessary.

To start with, the two parties will have to tackle the seat-sharing in Uttar Pradesh where Congress will have to leave a lion's share to the SP. But besides the numerical split, identifying constituencies will be a task as both eye favourite boroughs. With the two now committed to taking on BSP chief Mayawati and BJP, the newly aligned partners have to settle their claims.

Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi and Amar Singh are scheduled to meet on Monday to discuss seat-sharing in UP. The two are also likely to discuss a pre-poll alliance that the new-found allies are keen to forge to counter Mayawati's threat.

There are policy issues regarding the government that may need to be sorted out as well. The SP has a definite laundry list that it will expect the government to respond to. The Samajwadis have not been shy of pointing out that they "need power" to oppose a rampaging Mayawati in UP besides also dealing with investigations launched by the courts against the SP leaders.

Source : Times Of India

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Advani using Kashmir to be PM: Yasin Malik

SRINAGAR: Yasin Malik, a Kashmir faction leader who has never supported the pro-Pakistan sentiments in the valley, says Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader L K Advani has been "exploiting" the Amarnath land row to secure his vote bank and be the next prime minister of India.

"Advani, powered by other Hindu extremists in the Sangh Parivar, wants to be the next prime minister of India and he is exploiting the situation to come to power by giving a communal tone to the Amarnath land row," Malik said.

Malik, who advocates the Gandhian philosophy of non-violence for the "freedom" struggle in Kashmir, is chairperson of the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF), which he says is a secular separatist movement for an independent state.

The wave of unrest that has engulfed Jammu and Kashmir has killed at least 40 people, most of them in firings by police and paramilitary troopers, in almost three months since the government first allotted land to the Amarnath shrine board in May and then revoked the decision on July 1 - triggering protests first in Muslim-majority Kashmir and then in Hindu-dominated Jammu.

The row over the land for pilgrims headed to the shrine dedicated to Lord Shiva in the valley has snowballed into a major controversy and re-ignited the separatist sentiment in the Kashmir valley that till some weeks ago was enjoying peace with hotels full of tourists and filmmakers too.

The Hindu pilgrimage to the Amarnath cave "has been going on for more than a century-and-a-half", Malik said, asking: "Why do we suddenly need land transfer in the name of the shrine board?"

"The pilgrimage," Malik said, "is a Muslim legacy and shouldn't have been tampered with."

The JKLF leader, who had been on a hunger strike for five days from Aug 5 onwards to protest the "economic blockade" by Jammu, said that the entire valley "was being used to enable Hindu pilgrims camp and Muslims would dutifully offer their services for the peaceful conclusion of the pilgrimage".

"Even during the current crisis the pilgrimage concluded peacefully," he said from his home in Maisuma near the city centre Lal Chowk.

Describing the Amarnath row as a "tip of iceberg", he said: "New Delhi is adamant to overlook the writing on the wall. Kashmiris are fighting for their rights and their identity."

Regretting the violence over the issue, he added that the issue needed to be looked at "from a conflict paradigm not just through the prism of statecraft".

"I had warned India and Pakistan that the anger in Kashmiris has not died. It was hidden there and now it has erupted like a volcano."

"The Indian government," he said, "mistook the silence in Kashmir as a return of peace."

Stressing that dialogue was the only way out, he asserted that the authorities avoided serious talks with the Kashmiris and now the result was before them.

"India and Pakistan sooner or later will have to talk to the Kashmiris and solve the dispute. Our aspirations have to be taken into consideration."

Malik had a round of talks with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in 2006 during which he advocated inclusion of Kashmiris in the India-Pakistan dialogue over the state, which is ruled in parts but claimed in full by the two South Asian nuclear-armed neighbours.

Source : Times Of India

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Mayawati's social engineering not worrying Cong

NEW DELHI: BSP making inroads into the Congress base in the national Capital does not seem to have shaken the grand old party with its leadership exuding confidence that Mayawati's social engineering will not cut much ice here.

Congress' Delhi unit chief Jaiprakash Aggarwal said his party has a "strong base" in the city and expressed confidence that the party-led government will return to power for the third successive term in the coming Assembly elections.

"BSP winning seats in municipal elections last year has not affected our strength. They have not won any seats reserved for Dalits. They won some seats in the MCD because we were a little weak then," he said.

"I see no threat from BSP and we are not disturbed by their rise. They will not be able to pose any threat to our traditional vote-bank," Aggarwal, also a Rajya Sabha member from Delhi, said.

He also made light of BSP announcing candidates for 66 Assembly seats in Delhi. "This is not going to help BSP. I am confident that we will emerge victorious for the third consecutive term in the polls," he said.

When pointed out that BSP garnered 9.9 per cent of the votes in the MCD election in April 2007, he said "it does not mean that BSP is powerful. The fact was that Congress was weak at that time. Now our party has strengthened itself."

The BSP has announced its intention to replicate the "social engineering", which helped them to win the 2007 Uttar Pradesh Assembly election, in the national capital.

Of the 66 candidates whose names have been announced so far, over 20 belong to upper castes while about 20 are from the backward classes.

Source : Times Of India

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Informal talks for LS polls have begun: BJP

BJP has already begun informal talks with political parties in Tamil Nadu on the possibility of forging alliance for the coming Lok Sabha elections, party state president L Ganesan said on Thursday.

Barring Congress, DMK and Left, BJP has number of options to choose its ally or allies for the polls and final shape would be taken at the right time, Ganesan told reporters in Coimbatore.

Stating that both PMK and Left were 'vulnerable,' due to recent developments--PMK going out of DPA and latter withdrawing support to UPA government, he said "BJP is open and made its stand clear that it would welcome the parties, which supported candidature of LK Advani for Prime Minister's post.

There was political compulsion for not allying with Congress, ideological compulsion with Left parties and 'the situation in Tamil Nadu' for not allying with DMK, he said.

He lashed out at the Congress-led UPA government for the "neglect of Hindus" in Jammu & Kashmir and said that there was nothing communal in the Amarnath issue.

Source : Hindustan Times

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