Monday, May 16, 2011

Rangarajan favours law-backed autonomy for RBI but the pillars of modern economy -- liberalisation , privatisation and globalisation -- have come under sharp criticism from the Supreme Court which has favoured a relook into the functioning of free ma

Rangarajan favours law-backed autonomy for RBI but the pillars of modern economy -- liberalisation , privatisation and globalisation -- have come under sharp criticism from the Supreme Court which has favoured a relook into the functioning of free markets and suggested its regulation.Resisting from any sort of RESISTANCE against Extra Constitutional LPG Mafia Rule, The Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) vowed to bounce back in West Bengal where it has been routed after for 34 long years. I have meanwhile interaction with Cross section  of Society and NO Body seems top buy the Idea!Though friends believe that the Marxist Ideology has the most Valuable INNER STRENGTH of IDEOLOGY which may help TURNAROUND! But the ideology is VICTIMISED by the BRAHMIN leadership and the situation remains unchanged!A New York judge denied IMF chief Strauss-Kahn bail, despite an offer from his defense team to put up $1 mn in cash and surrender all his travel documents.But White House Expressed faith in IMF! How the Marxists would face the Challeges Global while remaining quite INACTIVE at HOME. Mind you, Mamata banked on Marxist Betrayal and led the Mass Movement against Neo Liberal Monopolistic Aggression. The Resistance was Hijacked by Mamata and the LEFT kept on Running Blind on the super Highway of FREE Market Capitalism! Will this situation would ever change? No way seem to open either for the SUFFERING EXCLUDED Majority ABORIGIN INDIGENOUS Humanscape as AMBEDKARITES fail to address the CRISIS and Devite form AMBEDKARITE  Ideology!


Indian Holocaust My Father`s Life and Time - SIX HUNDRED THIRTY NINE

Palash Biswas

http://indianholocaustmyfatherslifeandtime.blogspot.com/

http://basantipurtimes.blogspot.com/

Ads

  1. RBI Exchange Rates 

    Search for RBI Exchange Rates
    Find RBI Exchange Rates

See your ad here »

16/05/2011

GoM meet to decide on diesel, LPG prices next week

Kolkata: A day after oil firms hiked petrol rates by a steep Rs 5 per litre, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee today said a ministerial panel will decide on raising diesel, LPG and kerosene prices next week.

An Empowered Group of Ministers (EGoM) headed by Finance Minister is likely to deliberate on oil ministry's demand for a minimum Rs 4 a litre hike in diesel price and Rs 25 per cylinder increase in LPG rates to partly bridge the gulf between domestic prices and their international cost.

"A decision will be taken on raising prices of these items when the EGoM meets next week," Mukherjee told reporters here after meeting Congress MLAs elected in the West Bengal Assembly elections.

He, however, neither gave the date of the EGoM meeting nor the quantum of hike the panel may consider.

EGoM was originally scheduled to meet on May 11, a day after polling in West Bengal ended but the panel meeting was postponed and no new dates have been intimated yet.

Oil companies are losing Rs 18.19 on sale of every litre of diesel at current price of Rs 37.75 per litre in Delhi.

Besides, state oil firms lose Rs 29.69 a litre on kerosene and Rs 329.73 per 14.2-kg domestic LPG cylinder.

On the biggest ever hike in petrol prices, Mukherjee said the decision was taken by the oil companies as the government had deregulated petrol pricing in June last year.

Though Indian Oil, Bharat Petroleum and Hindustan Petroleum had been given freedom to decide on retail selling price of petrol, they informally consulted oil ministry on every revision.

The three had not revised rates since January as five crucial states including West Bengal, Tamil Nadu and Kerala went to polls.

A day after state assembly results, the firms hiked petrol price by Rs 5 per litre which was less than half of Rs 10.50 a litre increase need to cover for cost of crude oil which had touched a two-and-half year high of $110 per barrel.

"Decision on petrol prices is taken by oil marketing companies," Mukherjee said. "For other petroleum products like diesel, LPG and kerosene there is the EGoM."

The Finance Minister said crude oil was ruling at $68 per barrel when diesel, LPG and kerosene rates were last revised in June 2010. Crude is now above $110 a barrel.

Source: PTI


Rangarajan favours law-backed autonomy for RBI but the pillars of modern economy -- liberalisation , privatisation and globalisation -- have come under sharp criticism from the Supreme Court which has favoured a relook into the functioning of free markets and suggested its regulation.Resisting from any sort of RESISTANCE against Extra Constitutional LPG Mafia Rule, The Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) vowed to bounce back in West Bengal where it has been routed after for 34 long years. I have meanwhile interaction with Cross section  of Society and NO Body seems top buy the Idea!Though friends believe that the Marxist Ideology has the most Valuable INNER STRENGTH of IDEOLOGY which may help TURNAROUND! But the ideology is VICTIMISED by the BRAHMIN leadership and the situation remains unchanged!A New York judge denied IMF chief Strauss-Kahn bail, despite an offer from his defense team to put up $1 mn in cash and surrender all his travel documents.But White House Expressed faith in IMF! How the Marxists would face the Challeges Global while remaining quite INACTIVE at HOME. Mind you, Mamata banked on Marxist Betrayal and led the Mass Movement against Neo Liberal Monopolistic Aggression. The Resistance was Hijacked by Mamata and the LEFT kept on Running Blind on the super Highway of FREE Market Capitalism! Will this situation would ever change? No way seem to open either for the SUFFERING EXCLUDED Majority ABORIGIN INDIGENOUS Humanscape as AMBEDKARITES fail to address the CRISIS and Devite form AMBEDKARITE  Ideology!

I have been writing and speaking that PRANAB`s budget this year is an INTRODUTION to Second Phase of Neo Liberalism. He proposed Financial Reforms!RBI Autonomy would prove the Final Nail!
Union Minister for Labour and Employment M Mallikarjun Kharge today said the government was looking at further hiking the interest rate on Provident Fund from the present 9.5 per cent. 

"We are contemplating further increasing the interest rate on Provident Fund from the present 9.5 per cent. The interest rate on EPF ( Employees Provident Fund )) was increased to 9.5 per cent recently. 

"This time also we want to give more to the employees. We are working towards it", he said while inaugurating the Southern Zonal Office of Director General of Mines Safety here. 

Kharge also said the Ministry was bringing in 32 amendments to the Mines Safety Act formulated in 1952 wherein a number of stringent steps would be introduced for the safety of mine workers. 

"The steps include increasing the penalty for violating mines safety norms from Rs 1,000 to Rs 1 lakh. In cases where a penalty of Rs 5,000 was being imposed, it will be increased to Rs 5 lakh. 

"Similarly the punishment (for violating safety norms) will be increased from one year to five years imprisonment and in cases where the person was sentenced to three years, it will go up to seven", he said. 

Kharge said the main objective of bringing the amendments was to make "all those concerned with the mines-- from the owner to the agent to the director-- accountable for the safety of mine workers". 

The industry also had to be alert and take precautions to avert any disaster instead of acting only after the disaster takes place, he said. 

"The proposed amendments have already been introduced in the Rajya Sabha and are now before the Standing Committee", Kharge said. 

The minister appealed to Union Minister of state for Mines, Dhinsha J Patel, who was present on the occasion to instruct the officials in his department to direct mining lease holders to accord top priority to the safety of mine workers. 

Kharge said Karnataka, which was under the control and jurisdiction of earlier Southern Zonal Office based at Hyderabad, would now come under the new zonal office. 

"We are also thinking of opening a regional office and also a sub-regional office here provided we get the required sites for it. We will be writing to the Bangalore Development Authority and Karnataka Housing Board on this issue", he said. 

Earlier, Patel said the Central government provides the guidelines for mining and it was for the state government to enforce it stringently. 

He said granting of mining leases also comes under the purview of the state. "It is the state which earns royalty from it (mines)," he said. 

Apart from bringing in amendments to the Mines Safety Act, the ministry was also considering reviving the mines which have been closed, he said.
Giving relief to 4.71 crore subscribers of EPFO, the government has allowed tax exemption on the 9.5 per cent interest income on PF deposits for 2010-11. 

The Finance Ministry notification last week raises the income tax exemption to 9.5 per cent interest income from 8.5 per cent. 

The decision clears the air for the EPFO subscribers who were given increased interest rate by one percentage point for 2010-11, but the Finance Ministry had not matched the interest hike with a commensurate tax exemption. 

In the absence of the commensurate income tax exemption, the subscribers were earning higher returns even as it was liable to income tax. 

EPFO had decided to provide 9.5 per cent interest rate on PF deposits for 2010-11 after which it was endorsed by the Finance Ministry in March this year. 

In 2001, Finance Ministry had allowed tax exemption on interest income of up to 12 per cent on PF deposits. This exemption prevailed till August 31,2010. 

In August last year, Finance Ministry had notified tax exemption of upto 8.5 per cent tax on interest income on PF deposits from September 1, 2010, onwards which now stands superseded. 

EPFO had decided to pay 9.5 per cent rate of return for 2010-11 after it found a surplus of Rs 1,731 crore. But the rate was stagnant at 8.5 per cent for five years since 2005-06. 

EPFO had also maintained interest rate of 9.5 percent for three consecutive fiscals from 2002-03. The rate of return was 11 and 11.25 percent in 2000-01 and 2001-02 respectively. 

The interest income was even higher at 12 per cent 10 years during 1989-90 to 1999-2000.

Expectations high as Jayalalithaa sworn in as CM

IBNLive.com - ‎52 minutes ago‎

Chennai: AIADMK chief J Jayalalithaa took over as the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu for the third time on Monday. Jayalalithaa and her Cabinet colleagues were administered the oath of office and secrecy by Governor Surjit Singh Barnala in Chennai.

Video: Jayalalithaa sworn in as Tamil Nadu Chief Minister NewsX

Jaya changes police officials, implements poll promises Sify
Economic Times - Indian Express - Daily News & Analysis - iNewsOne
all 1,068 news articles »Email this story

Nothing unconstitutional will be done in Karnataka: PM

Times of India - ‎21 minutes ago‎
PTI | May 16, 2011, 10.52pm IST NEW DELHI/BANGALORE: The BJP on Monday launched a campaign seeking rejection of governor HR Bhardwaj's report recommending imposition of President's rule in Karnataka and his immediate recall, knocking at the doors of ...
Video: Karnataka: BJP wins over 11 rebel MLAs NDTV.com
HR Bhardwaj, the man who loves controversies IBNLive.com
Indian Express - Hindustan Times - The Hindu - indiablo

Expressing serious concern over the sudden spurt in post-poll violence in several districts, West BengalGovernor M K Narayanan today sought a detailed report from the state Chief Secretary on how to preventsuch incidents and restore peace.

Later speaking to newsmen, Chief Secretary Samar Ghosh said he had already asked every District Magistrate and Superintendent of Police to take all necessary steps, including sudden raids to recover illegal arms and ammunition from hideouts to prevent recurrence of violence among the supporters of rival political parties.

They had also been asked to maintain round-the-clock vigil in sensitive and trouble-prone areas.

As a result, he said a huge cache of illegal arms and ammunition had been recovered and seized by police from different areas and several people arrested since the poll results were delcared on May 13.

West Bengal Governor M.K. Narayanan on Monday sent a letter to Mamata Banerjee, leader of the Trinamool Congress Legislature Party, inviting her to form the next government in the State, sources in Raj Bhavan here said on Monday. The oath-taking ceremony will take place on May 20.
A Trinamool delegation met Mr. Narayanan on Sunday to formally stake the claim to form a government after electing Ms. Banerjee as the legislature party leader at a meeting. A copy of a resolution adopted at the meeting of the 184 newly-elected party candidates on Ms. Banerjee's election was submitted to him.
The Congress had submitted a letter pledging its support to the new government to the Governor.


At least three people, two belonging to the CPI(M) and one to the Trinamool Congress, had so far been killed and scores injured in incidents of post-poll violence in West Midnapore, South 24 Parganas, Bankura and Murshidabad districts.

"While acknowledging this defeat, there are some who are claiming the epitaph had been written for the Left in West Bengal. I am afraid they are mistaken," CPI-M general secretary Prakash Karat said here.

Karat pointed out that despite losing power, the Left Front led by his party had got 41 percent of all votes polled and indeed its vote share had gone up by 1.1 million since the 2009 Lok Sabha election.

"We will discuss how to expand this base, recover lost ground. This means a long period of work, taking up people's issues and struggles, and rebuilding organizational influence," he said.

He said the CPI-M would study what shortcomings had crept in, and "how we can reconnect with people who have been alienated".

Karat said the CPI-M would await detailed reports from its state units before analysing what had gone wrong in West Bengal and Kerala, where the Left Democratic Front (LDF) lost the election very narrowly.

He said that in Kerala, the Left lost by just 155,000 votes. "The LDF has already decided that we shall be in the opposition and we shall continue to work for the pro-people policies."

"Unregulated laissez faire free markets would only lead to massive market failures, even with respect to those aspects in which markets are supposed to function efficiently," a bench of Justices B Sudershan Reddy and S S Nijjar said.

"The falsity of the knee-jerk beliefs that markets are necessarily efficient, and will necessarily find optimal and just solutions for all problems, was again provided by the recent global financial crisis," the bench further said.

The apex court said that unthinking and extreme beliefs in liberalisation, privatisation and globalisation have led to many deleterious impacts globally which cannot be ignored.

"It is not a completely well accepted principle that liberalisation, privatisation and globalisation has led to the welfare or that it has been an unalloyed good of everyone," the court said.

It said the government needs to regulate free market, otherwise it would benefit only a few people leading to increased inequalities in the society.

"With respect to other social values and goals, it has also been shown that the complete evisceration of the power of the State to regulate the private sector would lead to massive redistributions of incomes, assets and resources in favour of the few, as against the multitude, thereby generating even greater inequalities.

"This would also suppress the ability of the State to exercise moral authority, and force, to keep competing interests, spread across groups, regions, and classes, from degenerating into a war of all against all," the apex court said.

The court passed the order while quashing notification of the Delhi government permitting Army Medical College to allocate 100 per cent seats for the children of Army personnel.

It said that the government cannot shy away from its constitutional responsibility to work for the welfare of people in the name of free markets.

"The necessity of such a role for the State should not be doubted, nor its Constitutional duty whittled down. This potential danger, and consequences, of evisceration of the role of the State was anticipated by the farmers of our Constitution," the court said.

Chairman of the Prime Minister's economic advisory panel and former RBI chief C Rangarajan has strongly supported Reserve Bank Governor D Subbarao's demand for law-backed autonomy to the central bank.

"I think we really need to move towards a situation in which the central bank of the country acts according to what it considers to be the right thing to do. Therefore, autonomy for the RBI is a good thing and we should work towards it", Rangarajan, Chairman of the Prime Minister's Economic Advisory Council (PMEAC) told PTI.

However, he said the RBI autonomy should be "reconciled" with the Finance Minister's accountability to Parliament.

"The Finance Minister is ultimately responsible for management of the economy. Therefore, we need to work out an arrangement by which the responsibility of the Finance Minister towards Parliament and the autonomy of the central bank are reconciled", Rangarajan said.

Subbarao recently pitched for a legally-backed formal autonomy for the apex bank to be able to deal more effectively with monetary issues, while maintaining that the Government has not interfered so far with the Reserve Bank's functional autonomy.

"...the central bank should be given legally-backed, formal autonomy", Subbarao said while addressing a meeting of the Central Bank Governance Group in Basel , Switzerland .

Although the RBI Act empowers the Government to give directions to the central bank in public interest, the Centre has thus far refrained from doing so.

India is expected to grow around 8.2 percent in the eleventh five-year plan, said Montek Singh Ahluwalia , the deputy chairman of the Planning Commission on Monday. The adviser was speaking at an event at the Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research in Mumbai.April inflation of 8.66% was high and RBI needs to manage the growth and inflation trade-off for faster growth, the RBI's chief said.

The recent hike in petrol prices by over Rs 5 per litre by state-run oil marketing companies will hit the common man by increasing cost of living leading to cost push inflation, says experts. Although the direct impact of fuel price hike on headline inflation will be low, the increase will have a bearing on prices of other items with rise in transportation cost.

"Since petroleum is an intermediary product, it enters into transportation cost. It will increase transportation cost and living cost. It will also result in cost push inflation leading to further price hike," C P Chandrashekhar, professor of economics, JNU told media.

The oil marketing companies on Saturday raised the price of petrol by over Rs 5 per litre evoking sharp reaction from political parties.

As regards the direct impact of price hike on inflation based on movement in the wholesale prices, CRISIL chief economist D K Joshi said, "It will increase inflation by around 10 bps."

The rate of headline, based on monthly WPI, for April was 8.66 per cent, down from 9.04 per cent a month ago.

Inflation can reach double digit any time this year, Chandrashekhar said, adding "the government is trying to defend the rise in petrol prices by saying that it can't do anything because the decision is taken by oil marketing companies."

Commenting on the decision to raise petrol prices, Yes Bank Chief Economist Shubhada M Rao said, "based on the April inflation numbers, the direct impact of the petrol price hike on headline WPI inflation would be around 10 bps."

Given the current inflation level which is likely to remain elevated until November closer to 9 per cent levels, Rao said, "we do expect the RBI to hike repo rate by another 50-75 bps during the course of the year."

Echoing views, Joshi said, "The RBI will have to increase the interest rates by 50 basis points in the course of year."

The Reserve Bank on May 3 raised its key lending rates by 50 basis points, for the ninth time since March 2010, to tame rising prices. Despite repeated increase in key policy rates, the inflation has remained much above the RBI's comfort level of 5-6 per cent.
Home>> About Us - Organisation and Functions
RBI - Brochure explaining RBI's Role and Functions in brief
Reserve Bank of India : Functions and Working

Organisation and Functions

Establishment

The Reserve Bank of India was established on April 1, 1935 in accordance with the provisions of theReserve Bank of India Act, 1934.

The Central Office of the Reserve Bank was initially established in Calcutta but was permanently moved to Mumbai in 1937. The Central Office is where the Governor sits and where policies are formulated.

Though originally privately owned, since nationalisation in 1949, the Reserve Bank is fully owned by the Government of India.

Preamble

The Preamble of the Reserve Bank of India describes the basic functions of the Reserve Bank as:

"...to regulate the issue of Bank Notes and keeping of reserves with a view to securing monetary stability in India and generally to operate the currency and credit system of the country to its advantage." 

Top   

Central Board

The Reserve Bank's affairs are governed by a central board of directors. The board is appointed by the Government of India in keeping with the Reserve Bank of India Act.

  • Appointed/nominated for a period of four years
  • Constitution:
    • Official Directors
      • Full-time : Governor and not more than four Deputy Governors
    • Non-Official Directors
      • Nominated by Government: ten Directors from various fields and one government Official
      • Others: four Directors - one each from four local boards

Functions : General superintendence and direction of the Bank's affairs


Top   

Local Boards

  • One each for the four regions of the country in Mumbai, Calcutta, Chennai and New Delhi
  • Membership:
  • consist of five members each
  • appointed by the Central Government
  • for a term of four years

Functions : To advise the Central Board on local matters and to represent territorial and economic interests of local cooperative and indigenous banks; to perform such other functions as delegated by Central Board from time to time.


Top   

Financial Supervision

The Reserve Bank of India performs this function under the guidance of the Board for Financial Supervision (BFS). The Board was constituted in November 1994 as a committee of the Central Board of Directors of the Reserve Bank of India.

Objective

Primary objective of BFS is to undertake consolidated supervision of the financial sector comprising commercial banks, financial institutions and non-banking finance companies.

Constitution

The Board is constituted by co-opting four Directors from the Central Board as members for a term of two years and is chaired by the Governor. The Deputy Governors of the Reserve Bank are ex-officio members. One Deputy Governor, usually, the Deputy Governor in charge of banking regulation and supervision, is nominated as the Vice-Chairman of the Board.

BFS meetings

The Board is required to meet normally once every month. It considers inspection reports and other supervisory issues placed before it by the supervisory departments.

BFS through the Audit Sub-Committee also aims at upgrading the quality of the statutory audit and internal audit functions in banks and financial institutions. The audit sub-committee includes Deputy Governor as the chairman and two Directors of the Central Board as members.

The BFS oversees the functioning of Department of Banking Supervision (DBS), Department of Non-Banking Supervision (DNBS) and Financial Institutions Division (FID) and gives directions on the regulatory and supervisory issues.

Functions

Some of the initiatives taken by BFS include:

  1. restructuring of the system of bank inspections
  2. introduction of off-site surveillance,
  3. strengthening of the role of statutory auditors and
  4. strengthening of the internal defences of supervised institutions.

The Audit Sub-committee of BFS has reviewed the current system of concurrent audit, norms of empanelment and appointment of statutory auditors, the quality and coverage of statutory audit reports, and the important issue of greater transparency and disclosure in the published accounts of supervised institutions.

Current Focus

  • supervision of financial institutions
  • consolidated accounting
  • legal issues in bank frauds
  • divergence in assessments of non-performing assets and
  • supervisory rating model for banks.

    Top   

    Legal Framework

    Umbrella Acts

    Acts governing specific functions

    • Public Debt Act, 1944/Government Securities Act (Proposed): Governs government debt market
    • Securities Contract (Regulation) Act, 1956: Regulates government securities market
    • Indian Coinage Act, 1906:Governs currency and coins
    • Foreign Exchange Regulation Act, 1973/Foreign Exchange Management Act, 1999Governs trade and foreign exchange market
    • "Payment and Settlement Systems Act, 2007Provides for regulation and supervision of payment systems in India"

    Acts governing Banking Operations

    • Companies Act, 1956:Governs banks as companies
    • Banking Companies (Acquisition and Transfer of Undertakings) Act, 1970/1980: Relates to nationalisation of banks
    • Bankers' Books Evidence Act
    • Banking Secrecy Act
    • Negotiable Instruments Act, 1881

    Acts governing Individual Institutions

    • State Bank of India Act, 1954
    • The Industrial Development Bank (Transfer of Undertaking and Repeal) Act, 2003
    • The Industrial Finance Corporation (Transfer of Undertaking and Repeal) Act, 1993
    • National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development Act
    • National Housing Bank Act
    • Deposit Insurance and Credit Guarantee Corporation Act

    Top   

    Main Functions

    Monetary Authority:

    • Formulates, implements and monitors the monetary policy.
    • Objective: maintaining price stability and ensuring adequate flow of credit to productive sectors.

    Regulator and supervisor of the financial system:

    • Prescribes broad parameters of banking operations within which the country's banking and financial system functions.
    • Objective: maintain public confidence in the system, protect depositors' interest and provide cost-effective banking services to the public.

    Manager of Foreign Exchange

    • Manages the Foreign Exchange Management Act, 1999.
    • Objective: to facilitate external trade and payment and promote orderly development and maintenance of foreign exchange market in India.

    Issuer of currency:

    • Issues and exchanges or destroys currency and coins not fit for circulation.
    • Objective: to give the public adequate quantity of supplies of currency notes and coins and in good quality.

    Developmental role

    • Performs a wide range of promotional functions to support national objectives.

    Related Functions

    • Banker to the Government: performs merchant banking function for the central and the state governments; also acts as their banker.
    • Banker to banks: maintains banking accounts of all scheduled banks.

    Top   

    Offices

    Training Establishments

    Has six training establishments

    • Three, namely, College of Agricultural Banking, Bankers Training College and Reserve Bank of India Staff College are part of the Reserve Bank
    • Others are autonomous, such as, National Institute for Bank Management, Indira Gandhi Institute for Development Research (IGIDR), Institute for Development and Research in Banking Technology (IDRBT)

    For details on training establishments, please check their websites links for which are available in Other Links.

    Subsidiaries

    Fully owned: National Housing Bank(NHB)Deposit Insurance and Credit Guarantee Corporation of India(DICGC)Bharatiya Reserve Bank Note Mudran Private Limited(BRBNMPL)

    Majority stake: National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD)
    The Reserve Bank of India has recently divested its stake in State Bank of India to the Government of India.

     
    http://www.rbi.org.in/scripts/AboutusDisplay.aspx

    1. [PDF] 

      Monetary and Financial Sector Reforms in India:

      File Format: PDF/Adobe Acrobat - Quick View
      Monetary and Financial Sector Reforms in India: A Practitioner's Perspective. •. Y.V. Reddy. Reserve Bank of India. The objectives of this paper are to ...
      www.arts.cornell.edu/econ/indiaconf/Y.V.%20Reddy%20Paper.pdfSimilar
    2. Economic liberalisation in India - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

       - 5 visits - 14 May
      Jump to Impact of reforms‎: The impact of these reforms may be gauged from the fact that ... financial circles to consider India at par with China. ...
      en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_liberalisation_in_India -Cached - Similar
    3. Financial And Banking Sector Reforms

      The last decade witnessed the maturity of India's financialmarkets. Since 1991, every governments of India took major steps in reforming the financial ...
      finance.indiamart.com/...india/financial_banking_sector.html -Cached - Similar
    4. [PDF] 

      Financial Sector Reforms in India

      File Format: PDF/Adobe Acrobat - Quick View
      by R Mohan - Cited by 3 - Related articles
      India has had more than a decade of financial sector reforms ...From the beginning of financial reformsIndia has resolved to attain ...
      220.227.161.86/10463feb05962-972.pdf
    5. Financial Reforms in India

      Financial Reforms in India : Ansari, Saghir Ahmad, Price US$ 11.25.
      www.easternbookcorporation.com/moreinfo.php?txt... -Cached - Similar
    6. [PDF] 

      Indian Financial Sector Reforms: A Corporate Perspective

      File Format: PDF/Adobe Acrobat - Quick View
      by JR Varma - 1998 - Cited by 6 - Related articles
      Financial Sector Reforms: A Summary. Financial sector reformsare at the centre stage of the economic liberalization that was initiated in India in mid 1991 ...
      www.iimahd.ernet.in/~jrvarma/papers/vik23-1.pdf - Similar
    7. [PDF] 

      Next Generation Financial Reforms for India – Finance ...

      File Format: PDF/Adobe Acrobat - Quick View
      looked into specific aspects of India's financial reforms, but this is the first committee mandated to "outline a comprehen- sive agenda for the evolution ...
      www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/fandd/2008/09/pdf/prasad.pdf -Similar
    8. Accelerating India's growth through financial systemreform ...

      Comprehensive financial system reforms have the potential to generate significantly more wealth creation and faster growth inIndia...
      www.mckinsey.com › Home › Publications - Cached - Similar
    9. [PDF] 

      Next Generation Financial Reforms for IndiaRaghuram Rajan and ...

      File Format: PDF/Adobe Acrobat - Quick View
      by R Rajan - Cited by 4 - Related articles
      Next Generation Financial Reforms for India. Raghuram Rajan and Eswar Prasad. India's financial system holds one of the keys, if not the key, ...
      faculty.chicagobooth.edu/raghuram.../PrasadRajanopedonFSRC.pdfSimilar
    10. Planning Commission : About Us - Planning Commission

      20 Feb 2005 ... Financial Sector Reforms in India : An Assessment, [ MS Word ] - [ PDF ]. 42. Financing Private Infrastructure: Lessons from India ...
      planningcommission.nic.in/aboutus/history/spemsabody.htm -Cached

    Government distances itself from decision to hike petrol prices

    PTI
    SHARE  ·   PRINT   ·   T+  
    PTIFinance Minister Pranab Mukherjee has said the decision to increase petrol prices was taken by the oil marketing companies (OMCs). File photo
    Amid protests from political parties over the hike in petrol prices, the government said the product was deregulated and the revision in the fuel rate was done by the oil marketing companies (OMCs).
    It, however, admitted that the hike would have "some impact" on overall inflation.
    "It was for the petroleum companies to decide at what point of time they will do so. When we deregulate it, then we have to leave it to the judgement of the OMCs," Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee told reporters here.
    Later in a statement, he said the "international scenario on commodity prices does not appear good at present.... We will continue to monitor the situation and take necessary measures to address the inflationary pressures on the economy".
    On the impact of the hike in petrol prices on inflation, he said, "There will be some impact on overall inflation due to the adjustment in the petrol prices effected by the oil marketing companies in the coming months."
    OMCs on Saturday decided on the steepest ever hike of Rs 5 a litre in petrol prices.
    Inflation in April stood at 8.66 per cent, as per data released on Monday.
    Experts said the hike in petrol prices would impact the headline inflation and the numbers would become evident in the data for May, which will be released next month.
    Chief Economic Adviser Kaushik Basu said the petrol pricing was decontrolled. "It's not something that the government is using as an instrument of fiscal policy management," he said.
    He cited the international situation as a justification for the price revision.
    "You have to understand that international commodity prices... The petrol prices are part of the global situation," Mr. Basu said.
    Last month, crude oil had reached the two-and-a-half-year high of over USD 120 a barrel due to the ongoing political unrest in parts of the Middle East and North Africa which led to speculative buying. It is, however, trading at over USD 100 per barrel in global markets now.
    Mr. Mukherjee had raised concerns on the issue of high global commodity prices at a recent meeting of the Asian Development Bank in Vietnam.
    Meanwhile, the Bharatiya Janata Party blocked traffic in many parts of the national capital to protest against the hike in petrol prices. Other parties, including the Left and the Samajwadi Party, have also condemned the hike.
    Keywords: petrol prices

    Oil falls to below $99 as dollar rallies

    PTI
    SHARE  ·   PRINT   ·   T+  
    Oil prices fell below $99 a barrel on Monday in Asia as crude became more expensive for investors with other currencies amid a U.S. dollar rally.
    Benchmark crude for June delivery was down 84 cents to $98.81 a barrel at midday Singapore time in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract settled at $99.65 per barrel on Friday, up 68 cents.
    In London, Brent crude for June delivery was down 44 cents to $113.39 a barrel on the ICE Futures exchange.
    Oil has retreated from a 30-month high near $115 at the beginning of the month as the dollar has strengthened.
    "Crude oil continues to shadow the dollar to a large degree," Ritterbusch and Associates said in a report. "We still look for high negative correlation between the dollar and oil."
    The euro fell to $1.4089 from $1.4110 late Friday. The euro reached $1.49 earlier this month.
    Analysts are also closely watching for signs that soaring U.S. fuel costs gasoline tops $4 a gallon in some areas are undermining crude consumption.
    Keywords: Crude prices, New York Mercantile Exchange, Brent crude

    Big push to deregulation of savings rate

    OOMMEN A. NINAN
    SHARE  ·   COMMENT   ·   PRINT   ·   T+  
    FILE PHOTOBank customers have something to rejoice as the Reserve Bank of India raised the savings bank account interest rate by 50 basis points to 4 per cent in its annual policy for 2011-12. The picture shows a busy day at a nationalised bank branch in Chennai.
    In most countries, interest rates on savings bank accounts are set by commercial banks based on market conditions
    Freeing savings bank rate is a complex issue in India. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) recently launched a debate on this issue by presenting a discussion paper prior to its Annual Monetary Policy for 2011-12.
    While announcing the policy, the RBI has also raised the savings bank rate from 3.5 per cent fixed in 2003 to 4 per cent. The spread between savings deposit and term deposit rates has widened significantly in recent times. This was why the RBI raised the savings bank rate, while a decision on freeing these rates was pending before the central bank for a final decision.
    "We want to be sure that it contributes to financial inclusion. So that it does not militate against financial inclusion," said the RBI Governor, D. Subbarao, in his post-policy press conference, referring to the deregulation of savings bank rate.
    On raising the savings rate his deputy Subir Gokarn said that this rate had been at 3.5 per cent since 2003 all other rates have been deregulated, rates have moved up and down in the last eight years but this one had not and so as part of the overall adjustment, deregulation was still a debated proposition whether "we should let it go or not". But given the differential that had emerged between this rate and all the other rates, particularly in this upward cycle, the RBI thought that an adjustment was necessary.
    With regard to all other interest rates, Dr. Subbarao has pointed out that "We moved away from regulation". Almost all interest rates, except the one on savings bank and NRI deposits which are administered as of now, are deregulated. So, "we believe that that is the way to move forward but again I want to say that we are open-minded and we would certainly respect and are being open to all the feedback that we get".
    Now banks have complete freedom in fixing their domestic deposit rates, except interest rate on savings deposits, which continues to be regulated. In pursuance of the announcement made in the Annual Policy Statement for 2009-10, the Reserve Bank advised scheduled commercial banks to pay interest on savings bank accounts on a daily product basis with effect from April 1, 2010.
    Prior to the introduction of a daily product method, interest on savings deposit account was calculated based on the minimum balance maintained in the account between the 10th day and the last day of each calendar month and credited to the depositor's account only when the interest due was at least Re.1 or more. After this change, the effective interest rate on savings bank deposits increased, benefiting the depositors.
    Savings accounts are maintained for both transaction and savings purposes mostly by individuals and households. A savings account, being a hybrid product, provides the convenience of easy withdrawals, writing/collection of cheques and other payment facilities as well as an avenue for parking short-term funds which earn interest. The maintenance of savings bank deposit accounts, however, entails transaction costs. In fact, a term deposit doesn't involve transaction cost for banks.
    Savings deposits are an important component of bank deposits. The average annual growth of savings deposits, which decelerated in the 1990s compared with that of the 1980s, accelerated sharply in the decade of the 2000s. In this decade, the average growth rate of savings deposits exceeded that of demand and term deposits, notwithstanding the growth in term deposits outpacing that of savings deposits during 2005-10. The RBI had raised several questions on this issue. Should savings deposit interest rate be deregulated at this point of time? Should savings deposit interest rate be deregulated completely or in a phased manner, subject to a minimum floor for some time? How can the concerns with regard to savers (senior citizens, pensioners, small savers, particularly in rural and semi-urban areas) be addressed in case savings deposit interest rate is deregulated? How serious are concerns relating to a possible intense competition among banks and asset-liability mismatches if savings deposit interest rate is deregulated? Should higher interest rate be paid on savings deposits without a cheque book facility?
    Global experience
    In sum, deregulation of savings deposit interest rates has both pros and cons. The RBI's view, as reflected in the discussion paper, was that savings deposit interest rate could not be regulated for all times to come when all other interest rates have already been deregulated as it created distortions in the system. International experience suggests, according to the RBI, that in most countries, interest rates on savings bank accounts are set by the commercial banks based on market interest rates.
    Most countries in Asia experimented with interest rate deregulation to support overall development and growth policies. These resulted in positive real interest rates, which in turn contributed to an increase in financial savings.
    Further the RBI argues that deregulation of savings bank deposit interest rate also led to product innovations.
    The flowery points of the RBI are likely to give a push for a de-regulation. However, unlike many other countries in Asia as well as other parts of the world, the Indian situation is different. A large number of people in India are from the rural background with less saving.
    The urban poor, migrated from the remote rural areas of the country too are having small savings.
    The urban labourers send their weekly earnings through public sector banks (PSBs) to their dependants living in villages.
    Further, with larger presence in rural and semi-urban areas, the PSBs would be having maximum number of small savings bank account holders. Generally, the PSBs were attracting small customers along with other high value depositors, who trust PSBs compared to other private sector banks.
    Maintaining an account with huge balance in savings bank would be cheaper for banks than maintaining an account with small balances as transaction cost of banks would be higher in the case of small account holders. In the case of salaried employees, their salaries would be credited to a particular bank. As the regulator frees the savings bank rate, the private sector and foreign banks will offer boutique products and fascinating interest rates to attract these huge accounts from corporates as well as government organisations.
    Deregulation of savings bank rate would work against financial inclusion as public sector banks saddle with all un-remunerative accounts and all high value accounts would migrate to the new generation private sector banks and the foreign banks. Always the small customer is at the receiving end.
    Keywords: savings bank rate, savings account, RBI monetary policy
    http://www.thehindu.com/business/Economy/article2021329.ece
    1. <B>Q&A:</B> D Swarup, FinancialPlanning Standards Board India


      Business Standard - 2 hours ago
      In his latest avatar, D Swarup is Chairman,Financial Planning Standards Board India, and Member Convenor, Financial Sector LegislatureReforms Commission. ...

      Business Standard
    2. FACTBOX - Possible successors if Strauss-Kahn leaves IMF


      IBNLive.com - 5 hours ago
      ... a disastrous 2001 financial crisis, by pushing through tough reforms and helping ... of the Planning Commission of India, a post he has held since 2004. ...
      IMF Boss's Arrest Risks Euro Fall-Out‎ - Wall Street Journal
      FACTBOX-Possible successors if Strauss-Kahn leaves IMF‎ - Reuters
      The Hindu National Post (registration) 
      all 8193 news articles » हिंदी में

      CTV.ca
    3. G-20 can push financial reforms


      Hindu Business Line - Ashima Goyal - 4 days ago
      Meanwhile, emerging economies like India, which have been more... stimulus and in working out the direction of financial reform after the crisis. ...
    4. Pending criminal cases against 13 new MLAs


      Assam Tribune - Kalyan Barooah - 58 minutes ago
      ... with All India United Democratic Front (AIUDF) leading the pack with six MLAs ... In 2006, there were only 16 MLAs who had similarfinancial background. ...
    5. Government plans major reforms in MSCB


      Daily News & Analysis - Shubhangi Khapre - 5 days ago
      ... Agency: DNA The state government plans major reforms to bring financial ... are likely to hold discussions with the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and the ...
    6. New regulations for spot exchanges


      Business Standard - Rajesh Bhayani - 3 hours ago
      Anjani Sinha, CEO of the National Spot Exchange (a FinancialTechnologies Group company) said, "The new regulations are a move in the direction of reforms ...
    7. Agenda for Bengal


      Daily Pioneer - 1 day ago
      ... Front took remarkable initiatives towards governance reformsduring its first ... First, the financial mess in which the State finds itself needs to be ...
    8. Election results 2011: GST rollout may face hiccups after Asim ...


      Economic Times - 2 days ago
      NEW DELHI: The rout of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) in West Bengal could set ... that BJPruled states have not yet endorsed the reforms fully. ...
    9. Polls over, action on petrol prices likely


      Business Standard - 3 days ago
      Similarly, the finance ministry will expedite action on implementingfinancial sector reforms. The price of diesel has not been raised for nearly 11 months, ...
    10. PFC fresh issue for long-term investor Expert


      Moneycontrol.com - 6 days ago
      Incorporated in 1986, the New Delhi-registered PFC is a non-deposit taking, non-banking financial company (NBFC) promoted by the government of India to ...
       BOM:532810



    2G: Supreme Court pulls up IT dept

    "We are sure they (IT Dept) would have slept over it otherwise (if it had not intervened). There is no doubt about it," a bench comprising Justices G.S. Singhvi and A.K. Ganguly said. »

    Related: CBI team to go to Mauritius to track 2G scam money trail

    Related: CBI to complete 2G probe by July 31

    NDA wants Bhardwaj dismissed

    The NDA leadership has also asked B.S. Yeddyurappa to bring MLAs backing him to the capital and parade them in front of President Pratibha Patil to prove that he has the numbers. »

    Related: Bhardwaj 'misfit' for Governor's post: Gadkari

    Related: Governor's report jolts BJP

    BREAKING NEWS

    Advani wanted Mamata to win, says BJP 11 min. ago

    Sarangi is new Chief Secretary, Tripathy Chennai Police Commissioner 1 hr. 23 min. ago

    Baburam Bhattarai receives death threat 1 hr. 46 min. ago

    French society polarised on Strauss-Khan 1 hr. 48 min. ago

    BJP steps up offensive against Karnataka Governor 2 hr. 6 min. ago

    Pak-U.S. to conduct joint operations against high value targets 2 hr. 28 min. ago

    War crimes prosecutors seek Qadhafi's arrest

    SC seeks Rajya Sabha panel's view on Dinakaran's charges

    Perfect lift-off by NASA's Endeavour

    Disproportionate assets case against Jayalalithaa adjourned

    HISTORY & CULTURE

    In China, a rediscovery of Sanskrit

    The Sanskrit programme at Peking University has a long history, set up in the 1960s and subsequently expanded by renowned Indologist Ji Xianlin, who translated dozens of works »

    video: In China, a rediscovery of Sanskrit

    TAMIL NADU

    Modi visits Rajinikanth in hospital

    "I wished him all the best, very soon he will be busy with his work. I told him if he wants to enjoy a vacation, he can come to Gujarat, I will take care," said Gujarat Chief Minister Chief Minister Narendra Modi. »

    MOST POPULARMOST COMMENTED

    Jayalalithaa sworn in, gives clearance to new proposalsNew Cabinet has fresh faces, notable omissionsLoyalty, stellar show rewarded"Jayalalithaa's victory will impact national politics"Targets inside India have been identified: ISIVijayakant to be the Leader of the OppositionJayalalithaa to be sworn in todayIf found guilty, IMF chief could face upto 25 years in prisonModi visits Rajinikanth in hospitalGovernor's report jolts BJP


    OPINION

    Hero for some, hate figure for many

    While West Asia has officially condemned Osama bin Laden after his killing, his supporters and sympathisers have paid rich tributes to him publicly. »

    Related: Hunt for Osama's donors

    Related: Osama is wanted in India!

    Manmohan Singh resets Afghan policy

    New Delhi made a leap of faith with regard to the controversial issue of reconciliation with the Taliban. Implicit in this is the awareness that Pakistan enjoys a close relationship with the Taliban. »

    Related: We are not the U.S.: Manmohan

    Editorial

    Big Brother rules

    Editorial

    A dark day for Europe

    LIFE & STYLE

    Destiny's daughter

    India's first woman photojournalist Homai Vyarawalla doesn't make a fuss about being a woman in a male bastion. She tells Bhumika K. such small things didn't bother her »

    Dressed to the tee

    A fun place for food

    Lord Siva as messenger

    Hundreds take darshan of Raahu Bhagawan

    More Life & Style »

    ARTS

    Foray into English

    Big names in their respective vernaculars, three women writers who are into the eighth decade of their lives are debuting in English this year. Meet Dhiruben Patel, Gouri Dash and Ambika Sirkar »

    Bharatanatyam in Beijing

    Madras Miscellany

    Videowatch - Scarface (1983)

    Romance with ragas

    More Arts »

    SCI-TECH

    Perfect lift-off by NASA's Endeavour

    Endeavour blasted off on NASA's next-to-last shuttle flight, thundering through clouds into orbit on Monday morning as the mission commander's wounded wife, U.S. congresswoman Ga... »

    Nokia's Symbian: The deposed king of the smartphone market

    Mars landing sites narrowed down to final four

    Stephen Hawking on supersymmetry, the afterlife and more

    A new kind of touch and feel

    More Sci-Tech »

    BUSINESS

    Inflation down to 8.66% in April

    Headline inflation has been above 8 per cent since January, 2010. »

    Government distances itself from decision to hike petrol prices

    Sensex dips 186 pts on fuel price hike and inflation fears

    Oil falls to below $99 as dollar rallies

    Weak economic signals steer Asian markets down

    More Business »

    SPORT

    RCB can spike Kings' aspirations

    Gayle's savage attack upfront could well dictate the course of the match »

    Novak Djokovic's dominant run continues

    Diego Maradona to coach U.A.E. club Al Wasl

    Olympic marathon champ Sammy Wanjiru dies

    Australia regains Azlan Shah Cup

    More Sport »

    HEALTH

    Treadmill workouts can help prevent blocked arteries in legs

    Legs that ache after just a few minutes of walking are a symptom of impaired circulation. Skin that appears pale or feels cool to the touch are further symptoms. »

    Bloodline

    Radiating worries

    When eating becomes a disease

    96% reduction in HIV transmission seen with early oral ART

    More Health »


    http://www.thehindu.com/

    IMF head denied bail on attempted rape charge

    Washington Post - Zachary A. Goldfarb, Brady Dennis - ‎22 minutes ago‎

    A Manhattan criminal court judge denied bail to Dominique Strauss-Kahn, head of the International Monetary Fund, after he was charged with attempting to rape a housekeeper at a hotel in midtown Manhattan. ...

    Judge Denies Bail to IMF Chief in Sexual Assault Case

    New York Times - John Eligon - ‎1 hour ago‎

    Dominique Strauss-Kahn, second from left, with his lawyer, Benjamin Brafman, appeared in court before Judge Melissa C. Jackson, who denied him bail. By JOHN ELIGON Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the leader of the International Monetary Fund, was ordered on ...

    At scandal-hit IMF, HQ staff is stoic and silent

    Reuters - Margaret Chadbourn, Mary Milliken - ‎27 minutes ago‎

    WASHINGTON, May 16 (Reuters) - With a downward gaze and a brisk walk past the line of camera crews, International Monetary Fund staff stoically reported for work on Monday after their charismatic boss landed in jail on sex charges ...

    French writer to lay sex assault claim against Strauss-Kahn

    IBNLive.com - ‎47 minutes ago‎

    PTI | 10:05 PM,May 16,2011 As the IMF boss prepares to answer the charges here, a French journalist-writer back home said she was working to slap a similar complaint against the likely candidate for 2012 presidential race in France. ...

    Strauss-Kahn did not flee hotel: defense lawyer

    Economic Times - ‎53 minutes ago‎

    NEW YORK: IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn did not flee his hotel after an alleged assault but was rushing to a lunch appointment with a witness who will testify to that affect, his defense lawyer said Monday. "The reason he was rushing was because he ...

    French society polarised on Strauss-Khan

    The Hindu - ‎1 hour ago‎

    France on Monday woke up to shocking pictures of the usually well-groomed and dapper IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn being led away, handcuffed, unshaven, tie-less and grim faced from the Harlem police lock-up where he spent the night for DNA tests ...

    IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn involved in other such incidents: court told

    Economic Times - ‎58 minutes ago‎

    NEW YORK: IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn , who has been charged with sexual assault and attempted rape, had been involved in similar incidents "at least once," a New York court was told Monday. There were "reports that he has engaged in conduct ...

    FACTBOX-Possible successors if Strauss-Kahn leaves IMF

    Reuters - ‎57 minutes ago‎

    May 16 (Reuters) - Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the head of the International Monetary Fund, may be forced to leave his post after being accused of trying to rape a maid in his New York hotel room. Below is a list of potential candidates to succeed the ...

    NY prosecutors say IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn should be remanded

    Economic Times - ‎1 hour ago‎

    NEW YORK: New York prosecutors said on Monday that IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn , who is facing charges he sexually assaulted a hotel maid, may have engaged in similar conduct once before and they are investigating. ...

    All 8,068 related articles »

    Related

    Dominique Strauss-Kahn

    International Monetary Fund

    US Crime

    Nicolas Sarkozy

    Timeline of articles

    Number of sources covering this story

    IMF head denied bail on attempted rape charge

    ‎22 minutes ago‎ - Washington Post

    Soul-Searching in France After Official's Arrest Jolts Nation

    ‎8 hours ago‎ - New York Times

    IMF can't allow leadership vacuum -ECB's Nowotny

    ‎8 hours ago‎ - Reuters

    Strauss-Kahn to have body tests

    ‎15 hours ago‎ - BBC News

    IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn's arrest puts debt talks in crisis

    ‎22 hours ago‎ - The Guardian

    IMF may be tougher on Europe after Strauss-Kahn

    ‎May 15, 2011‎ - National Post (registration)

    IMF chief charged with attempted rape of maid

    ‎May 15, 2011‎ - Sydney Morning Herald

    France in shock as IMF chief charged with sex assault

    ‎May 14, 2011‎ - Reuters



    Images

    CTV.ca

    Financial Times

    Aljazeera.net

    Telegraph.co.uk...

    Newsday (subscr...

    Financial Times...

    Telegraph.co.uk

    Politico

    The Canadian Pr...

    All related images »

    Videos

    IMF Chief to Remain Jailed in NYC Sex-assault

    The Associated Press  - 49 minutes ago

    Watch video



    IMF boss Strauss-Kahn in court on sex charges

    euronews  - 57 minutes ago

    Watch video



    Strauss-Kahn appears in New York court to face sex assault charges

    France 24  -  2 hours ago

    Watch video



    Greeks voice concern over IMF boss arrest

    euronews  -  3 hours ago

    Watch video



    France reels in wake of DSK arrest

    euronews  -  3 hours ago

    Watch video



    All related videos »

    16/05/2011

    Ram mandir will be built at Ayodhya despite legal hurdles: VHP

    Indore, May 16 (PTI) VHP today claimed the Ram mandir will be built at Ayodhya despite the legal hurdles involved.
    "A time will come when Muslim fraternity will itself ask Hindus to construct Ram mandir at Ayodhya," VHP international president Ashok Singhal Singhal told reporters here.
    Singhal''s comments came in the backdrop of the recent status quo granted by the Supreme Court on the disputed site of the Ramjanambhoomi-Babri Masjid in Ayodhya and stay on the judgement of the Allahabad High Court.
    He accused the Congress of deliberately implicating Hindu organisations like RSS and VHP.
    On the alleged involvement of Hindu organisations in bomb blasts in the recent past in the country, Singhal said, "These are all manipulated and fabricated...It is a deliberate attempt to malign RSS leaders by the so-called secular Congress government."
    Singhal said VHP will soon launch a tirade against "black money" stashed in foreign bank accounts.

    16/05/2011

    Rahul Gandhi takes farmers to meet PM

    New Delhi: Congress MP Rahul Gandhi Monday took a delegation of farmers from Bhatta Parsaul village in Greater Noida Monday to meet Prime Minister Manmohan Singh over controversial land acquisition and alleged atrocities were committed on the villagers by the Uttar Pradesh government.

    Rahul Gandhi takes farmers to meet PM

    "The farmers wanted to meet the prime minister and I facilitated it. People are being killed, women raped, I am quite concerned about the situation and it is still pretty bad," Gandhi told reporters outside the Prime Minister's Residence at 7 Race Course Road here.

    The Congress general secretary, who took eight farmers with him to meet Manmohan Singh, said the prime minister gave them a "patient hearing".

    Four people, including two policemen, were killed May 7 when villagers clashed with policemen for higher compensation for their lands acquired by the Uttar Pradesh government for development projects.

    "The issues are more fundamental with regard to these villages. In large number of villages in Uttar Pradesh, all down the Agra highway where state oppression is being used, people are being murdered, women being raped, people have been thrashed and houses destroyed," he said.

    Rahul Gandhi takes farmers to meet PM

    Gandhi also handed over pictures of burnt bodies, ashes with bones and ransacked houses to the prime minister and later to the media.

    "What I am concerned about is that how are we treating our own people. Most of the people said that they are more than happy to give land for development. Most poor people wanted development in the country and they are ready to sacrifice. The question is how we treat them - do we treat them fairly or we brutalise (them)," he said.

    Replying to questions about delay in passage of the Land Acquisition Act, Rahul Gandhi said: "We are committed to the act and it is a complicated piece of legislation and we are working on it. We are confident that it will be passed in the next session."

    Seeking a judicial inquiry into atrocities on farmers in the state, Gandhi demanded release of all jailed people.

    Gandhi visited Bhatta Parsaul village last week, surprising the Mayawati government. He was later arrested and released.

    The Congress has also announced a rally in Mayawati's native village Badalpur next month to keep up the momentum of its agitation against the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) government on issues concerning the farmers.

    Source: IANS

    Preparation on for Mamata's swearing-in ceremony at Raj Bhavan

    Press Trust of India, Updated: May 16, 2011 22:01 IST
    Ads by Google
    1.45Crore L I C's Plan – You Could be Crorepati @ 55. Invest Today.Best limited offer frm 46 Cos
    PolicyBazaar.com/Pension-Plans
    Kolkata:  West Bengal Governor M K Narayanan today discussed the arrangements of the swearing-in-ceremony of Mamata Banerjee-led government at Raj Bhavan premises with the state administration.

    State Chief Secretary Samar Ghosh said he was yet to be informed of the date for the purpose as well as the confirmation regarding the presence of Congress President Sonia Gandhi and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

    Apart from Ghosh, Home Secretary G D Gautama, DGP Naparajit Mukherjee, City Police Commissioner R K Pachnannda and ADG (IB) Banibrata Basu were also present in the meeting.

    "While preparations have already started for the swearing-in venue, printing of invitation cards are yet to be done due to non-availability of the date," Ghosh said.TwitterNDTV SocialLive MessengerGmail BuzzPrint

    The state secretariat of Writers' Buildings is being given a new look with necessary renovation and decoration before the new government takes over.

    Work is on to renovate the chambers of the chief minister and other ministers while sniffer dog continued its security drill in the empty chamber of the chief minister.

    To a question about complaints on removal of important files, Ghosh said he had asked the secretaries of Land and Land Reforms, Finance and Backward Class Welfare departments to look into the complaints.

    For NDTV Updates, follow us on Twitter or join us on Facebook

    Story first published:
    May 16, 2011 21:57 IST

    Tags: Mamata's swearing-in, Raj Bhavan, West Bengal Chief Minister

    • Also See

    Comments: Read|Post




    Read more at: http://www.ndtv.com/article/india/preparation-on-for-mamatas-swearing-in-ceremony-at-raj-bhavan-106202?cp

    By R Shankar, India Syndicate, 13/05/2011

    Six tough challenges before Mamata

    The Marxists may not believe in superstitions, but Friday the 13th is a date that will remain etched in their bitter memories for a long time. After 34 years in power, the Mamata Banerjee storm has not just cracked the Red bastion, but also crushed it in what is described as a landslide win for the Trinamool –Congress combine.

    Six tough challenges before Mamata

    Writers Building will now don a fresh coat of green paint as the Trinamool Congress is all set to start a new era in Bengal politics.

    Kolkata is often battered by a storm called Norwester - it cools the city but leaves behind ugly scars. Well, the same fate probably awaits the feisty Trinamool chief. After all the euphoria dies down and a smooth sailing in the elections, Mamata will face rough seas ahead. 

    Here are six challenges before the stormy petrel of Bengal.

    Law and order

    The CPM cadres in the rural areas and hinterland are armed to their teeth. There is bound to be violent clashes between the CPM cadres and the new folks in power. It is a matter of debate whether violence will be triggered by the CPM cadres or the Trinamool partymen. There is no doubt that the CPM will make matters very tough for the new government and will not allow it to settle down for the first 100 days.

    Six tough challenges before Mamata

    In places like Nandigram, Keshpur and Jangalmahal, the TMC cadres may unleash a war of reprisal as many in the area were victims of state-sponsored violence. Will Mamata be able to rein in her partymen?

    On the one hand there would be violence unleashed by the CPM and on the other by the TMC. Political analysts point out that Mamata has been following an eye for an eye policy while in the opposition. What the Marxists did, she outdid. Now the rules of the game will change.

    Senior retired police officials and IPS officers had joined the TMC before the elections and are candidates of the party. If they win, Mamata will have to bank on them for advice and strategy to cap violence. 

    Revamping the police department

    The police in Bengal will need a drastic change and overhaul. It is a well-known fact that the police in Bengal, especially in the rural areas, were used to taking orders from the local CPM bosses. In Writers Building, even Buddhadeb Bhattacharya did not have his way; his partymen gave orders behind his back to the police. These leaders were known to order the police not to arrest or act on people with Red leanings. Now this culture will have to change. Mamata will not only have to change this culture, but also make the police force neutral and efficient. 
    Again, the new dispensation cannot afford to make this change in the police at one shot. But Mamata cannot afford to wait for long too. The change has to be swift, smooth and efficient. Otherwise it may lead to a spiral of violence and anarchy.

    Six tough challenges before Mamata

    Inviting Business

    The way Mamata chased and booted out Tata Nano out of Singur has not gone down well with the industry. No doubt, she has people like Amit Mitra around. But inviting industries to set shop in Bengal will be an uphill task. 
    Even before the results were out, Mamata had sent her trusted lieutenants to industry majors and superstars like Aamir Khan. They were all given the TMC's vision document for Bengal and the lieutenants had pleaded with the industry heads to look at Bengal in a new light.

    But a vision document alone will not provide light or confidence among industries to set shop in Mamata's new-look Bengal as the Tata episode is still fresh in the minds of many. 

    Derek O'Brien, Banerjee's trusted man for image-building exercises, was quoted in the Business Standard as saying: "Mamata Banerjee believes the rest of India wants to look at West Bengal differently now. We want to share our vision with toppers in various sectors like the industry, entertainment, education, health, etc. We wanted to reach out to them while people voted for change in Bengal." The list of recipients include the likes of Infosys, ITC, Bengal Ambuja, Indian Institutes of Management, Yashraj films, Aamir Khan productions and even Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupati's sports companies. "Altogether 500 copies of the twin documents were distributed. Around 400 copies were distributed inside the state and the rest across India," said O'Brien.

    Six tough challenges before Mamata

    The inherent message was simple: Think about investing in Banerjee's Bengal. The Left Front, however, is confident that opportunity will never arise for the industries and it would retain power.
    The 55-page vision document is divided in two parts.

    The first part, consisting of 20 pages - printed in red - shows the dismal state of Bengal during the Left rule. The following part deals with what Didi wants to do if voted to power. Easier said than done.
    But as bloggers said: Mamata cannot run Bengal the way she ran the Railways.

    Cleaning Administration

    For 34 years, the CPM had ruled Bengal and the administration is full of their men, deeply entrenched and politicised. Cleaning up the administration is going to be a big challenge for the TMC. Mamata cannot afford to violently shake up the administration and send everyone out. She will have to be careful in where she strikes, when and how. A surgical excision of one or two heads of departments and high-ranking secretaries could be the initial message. But when she goes down the ladder, the task is bound to be tough.

    Six tough challenges before Mamata

    Economy

    There can be no two opinions -- the state's economy is in shambles. With no industries for wealth generation, with agriculture not performing well, there is hardly any factor to prop up the sagging economy; it is in a state of inertia, some would say it is in a state of coma. The state's total debts have surpassed Rs 2 lakh crore, according to the TMC. Most of the money from the Treasuries is used to just pay salaries and pension. 

    Apart from attracting industries, Mamata will have to hard-bargain from the Centre to release more funds for her state. But how long can the Centre support her, unless she comes up with a plan of her own to generate wealth from within?

    Cabinet formation

    Since the TMC is a one-man (rather one woman) show, Mamata may not find it difficult to choose a cabinet of her liking. But accommodating the Congress will be a tough task. This will be easier than the other tasks before her.
    The first 100 days are going to be crucial for Mamata and Bengal. Will she be able to bring an all-round paribarthan? Watch this space.

    By R Shankar, India Syndicate, 13/05/2011

    Why the Left lost West Bengal

    One need not hunt for many reasons for the huge loss of face for the Left Front in West Bengal. Just two factors would sum up the reasons for the rout: Singur and Nandigram. Of course the ghosts of Singur and Nandigaram would come to haunt Mamata Banerjee too very soon.

    Why the Left lost West Bengal


    So, why did the Left parties get mauled by the 'Bengal Tigress'?

    The Left parties had laid a strong and impregnable foundation through massive and revolutionary land reforms after storming to power in 1977. The Left handed over power to the panchayats (rural bodies), thus empowering the people.

    The Left could afford that move in the later part of 1970s to early 2000. But the economy started changing all over with the crumbling of state control and the licence raj. The economy's DNA underwent a massive change with a sharp focus on industrialisation and the role played by private parties. But Bengal found itself caught between two stools. On the one hand the State needed massive influx of funds as the Treasury was doing just two things - distributing salaries and pensions; on the other, the State did not have lands in its hand.

    For industrialisation, the State needed to attract private players, but the land was with the people. Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee tried to change the rules of the game in 2000 by trying to rope in big industries and forcefully taking over land. That is when trouble started; the land reforms that the Left parties heralded in 1977 became its nemesis 34 years later.

    Why the Left lost West Bengal

    "Forcible land acquisitions were not accepted by the people. We went for industrialisation without any land map and land bank," said Revolutionary Socialist Party (RSP) leader and state Public Works Minister Kshiti Goswami.

    Does he blame Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee for pushing hard his dream of industrialisation and thus leading to a string of electoral losses for the Front since 2008?

    "It's not about blaming someone but the decisions were wrong. There was no clear planning, people were forced to leave their land...this is not right. The Left Front base was cemented by land reforms and distribution of land to the landless," he said.

    Goswami feels "Nandigram, Singur were blunders. Our government went there without any plan and roadmap. People were against it and that is why we are all paying a heavy price," said Goswami.

    Nandigram in East Midnapore district witnessed widespread violence in January 2007 when the region erupted in protest over proposed land acquisition for a special economic zone (SEZ).
    Since then, a turf battle between the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) and the anti-acquisition grouping of farmland supporters backed by the Trinamool Congress led to repeated violence in the region.

    Why the Left lost West Bengal

    Singur in Hooghly district too saw violent stirs against land acquired for Tata Motor's Nano small car project, forcing the company to shift its plant to Gujarat.

    These two agitations reversed the state's electoral script. The Left Front, which has been winning all elections since 1977, was battered in the 2009 Lok Sabha elections and last year's civic polls, besides losing a series of assembly by-elections.

    Goswami said the main reason behind the Left Front's elephantine majority in the 2006 assembly elections was division of opposition votes.

    "Last time the difference of votes between us and opposition was less than 1.5 percent, but we gained because of division of opposition votes," he said. But he feels that justice was not done to the massive mandate.

    "Sections that had earlier supported the Left turned against them," analyst Mahesh Rangarajan told IANS, referring to the results of the 2009 Lok Sabha polls and the civic elections last year.

    While 14 people lost their lives in March 2007's police firing in East Midnapore's Nandigram during a protest against land acquisition for an economic zone, a sustained Trinamool-led farmer agitation in Singur in Hooghly forced Tata Motors to shift its small car Nano factory to Gujarat.

    Why the Left lost West Bengal

    Two years earlier, when the Left suffered its biggest setback till date, in the Lok Sabha election, it bled heavily in nine districts: Murshidabad, Nadia, North 24 Parganas, Kolkata, South 24 Parganas, East Midnapore, Howrah, Hooghly and Burdwan. In 2009, of 24 Lok Sabha seats, the Left was defeated in 22 seats by the TMC in this area.

    This is a prime agricultural area, with small per capita land holding. The population comprises mostly farmers with modest income. This densely populated region has a majority of farmers from either scheduled castes or the minority community and since 2006, four major anti-Left peasant movements -- Singur (Hooghly district), Nandigram (East Midnapore), Bhangar (South 24 Parganas) and Katwa (Burdwan) - took place in this area. Scheduled castes and Muslims together form more than half the state's total voting population and their growing discontent had started eroding the support base of the Left in rural Bengal.

    According to the internal assessment by the CPM, the "electoral killing field" had spread further with the Left clueless on what to do. The anti-Left sentiment made inroads in Burdwan, Hooghly and Birbhum, otherwise known as traditional strongholds of the Left. In the municipal elections of 2010, the Left had lost a number of municipalities in this area to the TMC.

    Why the Left lost West Bengal

    Centre for Media Studies chairperson N. Bhaskara Rao said the Left had a better understanding than the Congress of people's issues when they came to power in 1977.

    "They gave impetus to land reforms and distribution of wealth. These programmes touched a large section of people. They had better organisation at the grassroots," he said. Rao added that the Left Front used organisational strategies to gain support and retain control but did not reorient these strategies to the changing situation. He said Nandigram and Singur were the turning points in fostering anti-Left sentiment.

    Shakeel Ahmed, the Congress in-charge of West Bengal, alleged that the Left Front had won so long by resorting to rigging and terror tactics and the 2011 polls "marked the beginning of its end in the national polity".

    Nilotpal Basu of the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M), however, disagreed. According to him, the CPI-M-led coalition has survived seven terms because its rule has benefited an overwhelming majority, particularly the poor. "The government attained success in agrarian reforms, land distribution and recording of land of sharecroppers. Majority of beneficiaries are poor," he said. He has accused the Trinamool of confusing the people and stopping industrialisation.

    Source: India Syndicate, IANS and Business Standard 

    Sensex dips 186 pts on fuel price hike and inflation fears

    PTI
    SHARE  ·   PRINT   ·   T+  
    PTIInvestors react as they watch the stock prices on a screen at a facade of Bombay Stock Exchange in Mumbai. File photo
    The BSE Sensex dipped 186 points to 18,345 today following the steep rise in petrol prices, fuelling investor concerns that it would fan inflation and lead to further hike in interest rates that have already been hitting corporate margins.
    Brokers said investors were also apprehensive that diesel rates, likely to be revised upwards within a few days, may be steep and add to inflationary pressures even more.
    Although overall inflation slipped marginally during April, it is still high for comfort, they said.
    Moderation in prices of food and manufactured items brought inflation marginally down to 8.66 per cent during the month, but experts have said that fuel rate hikes will impact overall prices in the near future.
    Besides, brokers said FIIs continued to put pressure on the market amid weak global cues. FIIs sold shares nearly worth Rs 4,583 crore in the last two trading sessions.
    The 30—share Bombay Stock Exchange index, Sensex, opened on a feeble note and remained in the negative terrain all through the day before ending at 18,345.03, a fall of 186.25 points or 1.01 per cent.
    Similarly, NSE 50—issue index, Nifty, dropped by 45.75 points or 0.83 per cent to close at 5,499.00.
    In all, 11 of the 13 sectoral indices closed in the red.
    Realty, metal, banking, FMCG and refinery sectors were the major losers.
    State—owned oil companies raised petrol prices by Rs 5 per litre with effect from Saturday midnight, the steepest hike since December 2008.
    Meanwhile, Asian stock markets dipped after reports that Goldman Sachs downgraded Japanese and Korean shares. The key benchmark indices in Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, China, Hong Kong and Singapore settled down between 0.73 per cent and 1.36 per cent.
    European stocks too were trading lower in afternoon deals. The CAC and DAX were down by about 1.4 per cent each, while the FTSE lost 0.9 per cent.
    "The market players are worried that the petrol price hike and an imminent revision in diesel prices shortly will add to the inflationary pressures, triggering more rate hikes from the RBI. A weak trend across global markets also weighed on the sentiment on local bourses today," said Amar Ambani, Head of Research (India Private Clients), IIFL.
    "FII selling remains a cause for concern for the Indian market as well. The market has turned volatile of late and thus it calls for extra caution on the part of the market players," Ambani added.
    Overall, 26 out of 30 index—based counters finished with losses, while Hero Honda, Bharti Airtel, BHEL and TCS closed with gains.
    The major losers were Jaipra Asso (3.20 pc), Bajaj Auto (2.72 pc), M&M (2.71 pc), Tata Steel (2.64 pc), DLF (2.58 pc), ONGC (2.36 pc), REL Infra (2.10 pc), HDFC (2.01 pc), Jindal Steel (1.87 pc), ITC (1.79 pc), ICICI Bank (1.70 pc), Hindalco (1.66 pc), REL Com (1.54 pc), SBI (1.20 pc), Infosys Tech (1.05 pc) and RIL (0.46 pc).
    Among the sectoral indices, BSE—Realty dipped 1.47 per cent, Metal (1.45 pc), Bankex (1.18 pc), FMCG (1.02 pc) and Oil & Gas (0.97 pc).
    The total BSE market breadth was negative with 1,713 stocks losing ground, while 1,052 finished with gains. The total turnover dropped to Rs 2,112.54 crore from Rs 2,840.44 crore last Friday.
    Keywords: Sensex, markets, BSE

    Farmers killed, women raped in UP villages: Rahul to PM

    PTI | May 16, 2011, 09.30pm IST
    NEW DELHI: Taking the land acquisition issue in Uttar Pradesh to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's door, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Monday complained to him about alleged "repression" and "murder" of farmers in the Mayawati-ruled state.

    Emerging from a half-an-hour meeting, Gandhi alleged huge heaps of ash carrying burnt bodies have been found in the villages where farmers were agitating for better compensation for their land acquired by Mayawati government.

    Gandhi also showed the Prime Minister pictures purportedly of bodies burnt and other forms of violence against farmers and their family members.

    "The issue here is a more fundamental one with regard to these villages in particular and a large number of villages in UP all down the Agra highway, where state repression is being used, where people are being murdered.

    "Quite severe atrocities taking place there....There is a set of large 74 heaps of ash there with dead bodies inside. Everybody in the village knows it. We can give you pictures. Women have been raped, people have been thrashed. Houses have been destroyed," Gandhi told reporters.

    The AICC general secretary said he was "very concerned" about what was going on in the villages there and facilitated the meeting of farmers with the Prime Minister so that they can put forward their views and the PM listened to it. It was a delegation of eight persons.

    To a question why the Centre is yet to amend the Land Acquisition Act even as he had met the Prime Minister even last year with the same demand, Gandhi said it was taking time as the legislation was a complex one.

    "We are committed to Land Acquistion Act. Land Acquisition is a complicated piece of legislation that we are working at. We are confident that in the coming session, the Act will be passed," Rahul said.

    He said the amendment is under consideration and "we are committed to it and realize that it is a complex piece of legislation. And that is why it is taking some time", Gandhi said adding the issue was a larger one.

    "What I am concerned about how we are treating our people. Most of the people (farmers) said that they are more than happy to give their land for development. They said if a road is being built, they have no problem.

    "Most poor people want development in the country and they are ready for the sacrifice. The question is how we treat those poor people. Do we treat them fairly or do we brutalize them? And that is why I brought these people to the PM because after all they are Indian people and we have to look after their interests as well," Gandhi said.

    He said Singh listened "quite patiently" to the farmers who had good a conversation with them.

    Uttar Pradesh goes to assembly polls next year and Congress, which is buoyant after an impressive performance in 2009 Lok Sabha elections in the state, is hoping to regain power in the state. Congress has been taking up the farmers'issues in a big way for quite a few years.
    Indian politics: Changing dynamics
    Can Mamata Banerjee remake West Bengal?

    Centre, UP govt shadow boxing over farmers' issue: BJP

    TNN | May 13, 2011, 04.03am IST
    NEW DELHI: The BJP sideshow in the Congress-BSP game of one-upmanship over land acquisition and agitation by farmers continued on Thursday with the party alleging that the Centre and UP government were merely "shadow boxing" over the issue. Senior leaders including Arun Jaitley, Rajnath Singh and Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi were arrested as they staged protests and accused CM Mayawati of behaving like a dictator.

    The BJP leaders were arrested for breach of peace under Section 151 CrPC which empowers police to arrest people without warrant or order from magistrate. Singh had started his 24-hour fast in the morning at Ambedkar Park to protest against atrocities on farmers by the UP government. He was later joined by Jaitley and other leaders.

    Singh said if BJP government came to power it would form a commission to investigate all corruption cases against the Mayawati government. He continued his fast during detention in a Vasundhara guest house.

    "Farmers' land is being forcibly occupied, they are not being paid compensation and as if that were not enough, they are now being shot," Jaitley said.

    "The situation in UP is such that even legitimate protest is prohibited. This is an intolerant government. Our protest will continue irrespective of repression," Jaitley said, adding that Congress and BSP were together on the issue of corruption as evident in the 2G spectrum case in which BSP supported Congress and saved the UPA government.

    Senior BJP leader L K Advani, however, seemed to have struck a discordant note when he indirectly praised Rahul Gandhi for his role. Asked if there was Congress-BSP connivance in allowing Rahul to visit Bhatta Parsaul village in Greater Noida, Advani said, "Whoever is supporting the cause of farmers is doing a good deed." The party has officially maintained that Rahul's presence in the village was "drama".

    Advani demanded that the Land Acquisition Bill be amended at the earliest. "I feel the issue of land acquisition not only in Uttar Pradesh but in different parts of the country is a serious problem for farmers. Land is their only source of income. Some legal system should be there so that they do not have to face these problems," he said.
    http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Centre-UP-govt-shadow-boxing-over-farmers-issue-BJP/articleshow/8283828.cms

    SC suspicious of ED's 'abrupt' chargesheet against Hasan Ali

    Dhananjay Mahapatra, TNN | May 13, 2011, 04.06am IST

    NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Thursday expressed suspicion about Enforcement Directorate's "abrupt" chargesheet against alleged money launderer Hasan Ali Khan, and asked the agency why it was filed without informing the government's High Powered Committee (HPC) supervising the multi-dimensional probe to unearth black money.

    "Just a week ago, the government told us that it has constituted a 10-member HPC headed by revenue secretary. Why was the chargesheet not placed for scrutiny before it? If the ED thinks it was not necessary, then what is the utility of the HPC," asked a bench comprising Justices B Sudershan Reddy and S S Nijjar.

    The bench, which has been monitoring the ED probe into Khan's activities and black money issue, referred to ED's May 4 status report and said, "The ED informed us that the investigations were going on. There was not a word about filing of chargesheet. But two days later, we to our surprise find from the newspapers that a 900-page chargesheet has been filed. Why were we not informed about it when we are monitoring the investigations?"

    An embarrassed solicitor general Gopal Subramaniam did some frenetic in-court consultation with ED officials and conceded that the chargesheet was not shown to the HPC, which was constituted on April 25.

    "We will pass appropriate orders," the bench said, a remark which was interpreted to suggest that unhappiness with ED's conduct may lead the court to consider exploring a few options -- setting up of an SIT, putting a judge on the HPC or appointing experts to the committee – while pronouncing the order on July 4.

    "We must express our reservations. When we asked what should be the mechanism to monitor the investigations into black money issue, you told us that the HPC was the answer to the court's apprehension. You said they have already started monitoring the investigations. Then why was the committee not shown the chargesheet. Why were we not informed about it," the bench asked.

    "ED says it is difficult for the court or a judge to monitor a complex investigation like this. But it is making it difficult for the HPC to monitor the investigation by not showing it the chargesheet," it said.

    The SG on May 4 had stoutly resisted setting up of a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to probe the trail of black money stashed abroad. In fact, the setting up of the HPC, which includes heads of CBI, Intelligence Bureau, Directorate of Revenue Intelligence and Central Board of Direct Taxes, was seen as a government maneuver to pre-empt an SIT.

    Petitioner Ram Jethmalani's counsel and senior advocate Anil Divan said ED's action indicated its lack of faith in the HPC.

    Divan also stuck to his demand for an SIT while taking exception to government referring to SC as "overseer" in the context of the demand that the apex court exercise oversight over the investigation. The bench agreed with him, saying use of the term "overseer" for SC judge was undignified.

    The bench had suggested that the government weigh the option of HPC's work being supervised by a retired or sitting judge of the apex court.

    What miffed the bench of Justices Reddy and Nijjar was the secretive approach of ED in filing the chargesheet. When Subramaniam said that it should ideally have been placed before the HPC for scrutiny before being lodged in the special court, the bench said, "We are surprised. What ideally, you had told us that the HPC was the best monitoring mechanism created to take into account every possible aspect, and the very same HPC is not shown the chargesheet before it was filed."

    Left leaders meet Governor over post-poll clashes

    PTI
    SHARE  ·   PRINT   ·   T+  
    The HinduA delegation of leaders of the Left Front after meeting West Bengal Governor M. K. Narayanan at Raj Bhavan in Kolkata on Monday. Photo: Sushanta Patronobish
    Left leaders met Governor M.K. Narayanan and sought his intervention in ending what they described as a "reign of terror" unleashed by the Trinamool cadres against Left activists and organisations after the Friday poll results.
    The CPI(M) has alleged that three of its activists have been killed in the clashes that were reported from some parts of West Bengal after the announcement of Assembly poll results.
    A report from Howrah district said some police vehicles were damaged when police went to Chandrapur village to disperse activists of TC and CPI(M), who fought a pitched battle late last night.
    "Today representatives of nine Left Front constituents and Workers' Party met the Governor and sought his intervention in ending the reign of terror unleashed by the Trinamool Congress on Left activists and organisations," CPI(M) central committee member Md Selim told newsmen after meeting Narayanan.
    Mr. Selim alleged that three CPI(M) activists were killed and five injured since the announcement of the results but no FIR had been lodged or any arrests made.
    He alleged that armed goons backed by TC were raiding the Left party offices and dropping the arms there to justify the attack. They are also dictating the police to book the Left workers under the arms case, he claimed.
    Elected Left representatives in various panchayats and civic bodies are being ordered at gunpoint to resign, he said, adding thousands of Left workers and supporters along with women and children, were forcibly evicted from their homes.
    Medical students of NRS Medical College hostel in the city were being evicted by the Trinamool Congress, he claimed.
    "We have given the Governor a CD of the atrocities being committed by Trinamool Congress. We have requested him to take action within 48 hours. He has assured us that he will do it," Mr. Selim said.
    Before meeting the Left Front delegation, the Governor also held a meeting with state DGP Naparajit Mukherjee and city Police Commissioner R.K. Pachnanda.
    On hearing about clashes between TC and CPI(M) supporters at Chandrapur village under Amta police station in Howrah district, policemen rushed to the spot but the supporters of the two rival political parties attacked the police vehicles and damaged them, police sources said.
    CPI(M) leader Pratush Mukherjee alleged that 15 houses of Marxist supporters were damaged by TC activists at Chandrapur village.
    TC leader Biswanath Laha denied the CPI(M) allegations and instead claimed that CPI(M) activists attacked their supporters.
    Prohibitory orders under section 144 CRPC were also clamped in some areas in two West Bengal districts — Paschim Medinipur and Howrah — following seizure of a huge quantity of illegal arms by villagers from alleged Marxist workers since conclusion of counting of votes on Friday, police said.
    Keywords: Left Front, Trinamool-Left clash, post-poll violence, West Bengal Assembly polls
    16/05/2011

    Bengal has maximum tainted legislators, says study

    Among the states whose assembly results were declared last week, West Bengal has the maximum number of legislators with criminal cases pending against them -- at 35 percent, a study said Monday.

    Bengal has maximum tainted legislators, says study

    "Around 35 percent of MLAs (members of legislative assembly) of West Bengal, 29 percent of Tamil Nadu, 10 percent of Assam and 30 percent of MLAs from Puducherry have criminal cases pending against them," a statement from Election Watch, the election analysis wing of think tank Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), said.

    The organisation did not analyse the fifth state, Kerala.

    West Bengal has a total of 102 legislators with pending cases, as per their own declaration. At least 75 of them face serious charges like murder, attempt to murder, theft and kidnapping.

    "All major parties have MLAs with pending criminal cases. Trinamool Congress has 69 MLAs out of 183 analysed (38 percent), Congress has 17 out of 42 (41 percent) and CPI-M (Communist PArty of India-Marxist) has 7 out of 40 (18 percent) MLAs analysed with pending criminal cases," the report said.

    Bengal has maximum tainted legislators, says study

    Ranking second among the four, union territory Puducherry has nine legislators with pending charges.

    "Two MLAs out of these have declared serious IPC (Indian Penal Code) charges like voluntarily causing hurt by dangerous weapons," ADR said.

    In Tamil Nadu, 66 legislators have criminal cases pending against them, with the victorious AIADMK having highest number of 46 tainted legislators, 31 percent of its assembly strength.

    DMK has seven out of 23 lawmakers (30 percent) with pending charges, CPI-M three out of 10 (30 percent) and PMK two out of its three legislators (67 percent).

    "Thirty six MLAs out of these 66 analyzed have declared serious IPC charges like
    murder, attempt to murder, robbery and extortion against them," said ADR.

    Bengal has maximum tainted legislators, says study

    In Assam, 13 of its 126 legislators have criminal cases pending against them.

    Congress, which won the polls, has only four such legislators out of its assembly strength of 78 (five percent).

    The Assam United Democratic Front (AUDF) has six lawmakers with pending cases, out of its strength of 18 (33 percent), while Trinamool Congress, Assom Gana Parishad and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) have one each.

    In addition, 37 percent of lawmakers in Assam, 52 percent in Tamil Nadu, 16 percent in West Bengal and 63 percent in Puducherry are multi-millionaires, the report said.

    Source: IANS


    By Neerja Chowdhury/DNA-Daily News & Analysis, 14/05/2011

    Mamata's win is a tribute to our democracy

    The five assembly election results have been on expected and yet not-so-expected lines. While the tide in favour of Mamata Banerjee in West Bengal was apparent and visible, the Jayalalithaa-led killer wave against the DMK in Tamil Nadu was a much more silent one, though equally significant.

    Mamata's win is a tribute to our democracy

    It brings to power two women in two large states in the country. Women, if you take Mayawati in UP and Sheila Dikshit in Delhi, will now be ruling just under one third of the country, in terms of the Lok Sabha seats they control.

    It goes without saying that Mamata's win was historic, bringing to an end a 34-year-old Left rule in the eastern state. In the last 15 years, Mamata, who parted company with the Congress in 1997, to form her own Trinamool Congress, managed not only to take that Congress' place in West Bengal, but also to oust an entrenched Left front government. The significance of her victory, also a tribute to our democracy, however faulty, lies in the fact that as a woman, functioning in a male-dominated society and polity, she could do this without a godfather and without belonging to a political family.

    Mamata had been working hard for this day. The turning point had come in the 2008 local elections in which her party fared well. But it was her performance in the 2009 general elections which convinced people that she could emerge as a viable alternative to the Left Front.

    Unlike Mamata, Jayalalithaa, on the other hand, was relatively dormant during the last years. However, with the alliance she stitched up with the DMDK, she managed to emerge as an alternative to the DMK and emerge as the beneficiary of the aspiration for change in Tamil Nadu, which was as strong in the southern state, as it was in West Bengal, and not confined only to the urban centres, as had been expected.(As it always happens, there was a spill-off effect of Tamil Nadu in Puducherry where the AIDMK-led alliance will form the government.)

    Corruption was obviously a major issue in these elections. With the mega 2G spectrum scam pointing to the involvement of DMK leaders A Raja and Karunanidhi's daughter Kanimozhi, the landslide for Jayalalithaa showed that there was silent and seething anger against the DMK which had been building up.

    Mamata's win is a tribute to our democracy

    In Tamil Nadu, it manifested itself in a vote against the first family, and this was repeatedly asserted by Jayalalithaa all through the campaign -- it is a development which should alert political families in other states. 
    At public meetings the AIDMK chief addressed, people repeatedly made the point that while her earlier regime was also marked by corruption, she might do more for the state, since she did not have a family!
    In Kerala too, the impeccable credentials of CPM's octogenarian CM VS Achutananandan was one of the reasons why the Left revived enough in the state to almost knock at the doors of power again. Though the Congress-led UDF is all set to form the government in Kerala, it was such a close call that had the Left managed just 3 seats more, it would have continued in power.

    Going by the results of the 2009 general elections and the local elections held last year, the Congress-led UDF should have swept in Kerala. That this would happen was taken for granted till last year. Instead, the Congress won by the skin of its teeth. The various scams in Kerala involving the UDF's leaders in recent months obviously took a toll.

    Tarun Gogoi's clean image was also responsible for giving the Assam chief minister a third term, as was his handling of the insurgency in the state, and his decision to open dialogue with the ULFA, and to initiate action in cases of corruption. He was helped in no small measure by a divided opposition. The AGP, as also the BJP, are trailing way behind in Assam. It would be enlightening to study the fineprint on why the Congress did well in Assam and not as well in Kerala as was expected.

    The BJP was a hardly a player in these elections (which account for around 125 Lok Sabha seats) and the ascent of Mamata and Jayalalithaa in such a decisive way, also marks a strengthening of regional parties, which should worry both the mainline parties.

    The results pose no immediate threat to the UPA government. A chastened DMK will stick with the Congress. Given a hostile state government, headed by Jayalalithaa, it will need a friendly Centre, as it has to deal with serious graft charges against some of its important functionaries, including the CM's daughter.

    Mamata's win is a tribute to our democracy

    But the Congress will have to contend with a more assertive Mamata, flushed with her victory as a giant killer. This will, for instance, have a bearing on legislations like the Land Acquisition Act, which had been put on the backburner because of her reservations -- even as P Chidambaram has declared that the government planned to bring it in the monsoon session of Parliament.

    She is not likely to rock the boat in Delhi, knowing that she will need the support, monetary or otherwise, of the central government in order to try and deliver on the promises she made. Conscious of her aam admi credentials, she may well come to play the role in UPA II that the Left parties played in UPA I. It is her Left-of-Centre politics which enabled her to replace the Left Front and she is not likely to forget that.

    The victory of the Congress in Assam and Kerala, and in West Bengal, as the junior partner of the Trinamool Congress, should give the party a psychological boost, beleagured as it has been by scams. It could give the Congress a window of opportunity to do course correction.

    It remains to be seen whether the prime minister seizes this opportunity to go in for a decisive reshuffle of his Cabinet that he has been talking about, but unable to effect, to bring in dynamism, and get rid of the deadwood.
    While the results give the Congress cause for some satisfaction, it should not overlook the sub-text of the verdict, and that is the erosion in its base in the southern states.

    In Tamil Nadu, it was reduced to five seats; it has not done as well in Kerala as it should have; it is out of power in Karnataka; and rebel Jagan Mohan Reddy's runaway 5.4 lakh victory in the Kadappa bypoll, and the continuing agitation for a separate Telangana state, is bad news for the party in Andhra Pradesh.

    Copyright restricted. Under license from www.3dsyndication.com

    16/05/2011

    Chief minister again, Jayalalithaa rolls out freebies

    Chennai: AIADMK leader J. Jayalalithaa Monday became Tamil Nadu's chief minister for the third time since 1991, and immediately unleashed a barrage of sops for women and others from the poor families.

    Chief minister again, Jayalalithaa rolls out freebies

    Back at Fort St. George, which houses the government secretariat, one of her first decisions was to order 20 kg of free rice for the poor and 35 kg for the very poor through the public distribution system.

    Jayalalithaa ordered that educated poor women be presented free four-gram gold 'mangalsutra' in addition to the Rs.25,000 marriage assistance which is now given.

    She doubled the marriage assistance for women with degree or diploma to Rs.50,000, besides also gifting them free mangalsutra.

    While pension for the old, destitute, widows and differently abled women has been doubled to Rs.1,000, compensation paid to fishermen during the 45-day fishing ban period has also been hiked.

    Women in state government service will now get six months of maternity leave.

    Chief minister again, Jayalalithaa rolls out freebies

    The actor-turned-politician was clearly giving a big Thank You to the mass of poor for giving a huge mandate to her AIADMK-led alliance, virtually crushing the DMK.

    A new department to be headed by a minister was established to monitor the implementation of the promises made in the AIADMK manifesto.

    Earlier, she was administered the oath of office and secrecy by Governor Surjit Singh Barnala at the University Centenary Hall. She will head a 34-member government.

    Barnala also administered oath to the council of ministers.

    All those present at the event, including Jayalalithaa, had a hearty laugh when C. Karuppasamy took oath rhythmically in a loud voice as the minister for animal husbandry.

    Chief minister again, Jayalalithaa rolls out freebies

    Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi, former Andhra Pradesh chief minister N. Chandrababu Naidu, Communist leader A.B. Bardhan, DMDK leader A. Vijayakanth and many Tamil film personalities were among the VIPs at the event.

    Outside, thousands lined up on both sides of the road starting from Jayalalithaa's residence at Poes Garden and along the entire stretch of Kamaraj Salai on the Marina till the Madras University campus.

    Two giant screens were installed outside the venue so that people could view the swearing in ceremony.

    The AIADMK-led front won 203 seats in the 234-member Tamil Nadu assembly. The AIADMK itself won 150 seats -- 146 on its own and four by smaller parties who fought under its election symbol.

    Jayalalithaa first became chief minister in 1991, in the wake of former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi's assassination, and again 10 years later.

    Source: IANS

    16/05/2011

    Yeddyurappa slams Governor's action, to sit on dharna

    Bangalore: Slamming the Karnataka Governor for recommending dismissal of his government, Chief Minister B.S. Yeddyurappa on Monday said the action amounted to an "affront" to the pride of the people of the State and the mandate given to the Bharatiya Janata Party.

    Yeddyurappa slams Governor's action, to sit on dharna

    "The Congress bosses in Delhi are using the Governor to commit anti-Constitutional acts. I will not allow the murder of democracy," he told reporters in Bangalore.

    Mr. Yeddyurappa said, "The Governor's action amounts to an affront to the pride of the people of Karnataka and also the mandate of people given to BJP."

    The Chief Minister said that he along with his ministerial colleagues and MLAs will stage a dharna in front of Raj Bhavan at noon to protest Governor H.R. Bhardwaj's decision to recommend dismissal of the BJP government.

    He also lashed out the Governor for declining to meet 10 BJP MLAs when they went to Raj Bhavan to submit their letters of support and described it as an "insult" to elected representatives.

    "The Governor's action in recommending dismissal of my government was anti-democratic as it enjoyed the support of 121 members," he said, adding, "Even now I am ready to prove my majority, if the Governor asks me."

    He said he would also lead a delegation of MLAs and MPs to Delhi on Monday or Tuesday to meet Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to protest against the Governor's action.

    Mr. Yeddyurappa said the emergent Cabinet meeting called for Monday afternoon would take some important decisions.

    The official residence of Mr. Yeddyurappa was abuzz with activity with Ministers, MLAs and BJP leaders thronging it. 
    --- 1

    BJP fears central rule in Karnataka, writes to president

    Karnataka's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) late Sunday said it apprehends that Governor H.R. Bhardwaj has sought the dismissal of its government here and urged President Pratibha Patil to reject "the unconstitutional move".

    "We apprehend from media reports and activities of opposition parties that the governor might have recommended dismissal of our government," BJP spokesperson and former union minister V. Dhananjaya Kumar told reporters.

    Yeddyurappa slams Governor's action, to sit on dharna

    Chief Minister B.S. Yeddyurappa shot off a letter to Patil asserting "there is no constitutional crisis in the state".

    He also said that he "enjoys majority in the assembly" and hence Patil should not accept Bhardwaj's recommendations.

    The governor's office late Sunday released a one-line communique stating Bhardwaj had sent "a special report" to the central government on the developments following the May 13 Supreme Court verdict restoring membership of 16 rebel law makers.

    Of the 16, 11 were from BJP and five Independents.

    The communique said: "In the context of recent judgment of the Hon'ble Supreme Court in the matter of disqualification of MLAs delivered on 13.05.2011 and its implication to the developments in the State, His Excellency the Governor of Karnataka has submitted a special report to Government of India this evening."

    Yeddyurappa, who released to the media his letter to President Patil, said copies had been sent to Manmohan Singh and union Home Minister P. Chidambaram.

    He announced an emergency meeting of his cabinet Monday to take stock of the situation.

    The BJP legislators will also meet Monday to decide the party's next step to save the government.

    Source: PTI, IANS

    By R Shankar, India Syndicate, 16/05/2011

    Bhardwaj – Governor or Congressman?

    Bangalore: Karnataka Governor H R Bhardwaj seems to be an expert in blurring the line between that of being the Constitutional head of State and that of a Congressman. He also has a single point agenda – to see the back of Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa. And towards that agenda, he is known to bend the rules, interpret the Constitution to his liking and send the State into a political turmoil.

    Bhardwaj – Governor or Congressman?

    The talk in Bangalore is that with Bhardwaj in the Raj Bhavan, there is no need for two posts - that of Opposition leader and Congress chief. The Governor is playing the role of Opposition leader much better than Siddaramaiah and is more a true Congressman than G Parameshwara, the Karnataka Congress Party chief.

    The Governor has been committing one Constitutional blunder after another, giving the BJP enough handle to operate political lever in Delhi to embarrass the Centre.

    Here are Bhardwaj's blunders (some say he acted under instructions - read Congress):

    On Friday, May 13, the Supreme Court dismissed the Karnataka High Court order upholding the disqualification of 11 BJP MLAs who had revolted against Yeddyurappa. This decision helped the BJP up its numbers in the Assembly. On the same day, the BJP won three Assembly seats in a bypoll by a huge margin that saw the Congress and JD(S) candidates losing their deposit.

    The strength of the BJP went up from 105 to 120 in the 225 member Legislative Assembly.

    Bhardwaj had expected the 11 rebel MLAs to go against Yeddyurappa. But when that did not happen, he decided to recommend President's rule. This move goes against the well-laid judgment of the Supreme Court in the Bommai case where the court had ruled that the strength of the government must be tested on the floor of the House. If Bhardwaj had any doubt, he should have asked Yeddyurappa to prove his strength on the floor of the Assembly.

    Bhardwaj – Governor or Congressman?

    But the Governor seems to have taken a strange stand saying that the voting is always manipulated in Karnataka Assembly. One could ask the question: Is voting not manipulated in the Lok Sabha or in the recent Public Accounts Committee that went into the 2G Spectrum scam?

    The recommendation is bound to put the Centre in a spot, especially since Bhardwaj met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh just before taking the decision on recommending President's rule.

    This is not the first time that Bhardwaj is trying to manipulate the provisions of the Constitution. In October last year, he had recommended President's rule soon after Yeddyurappa won a confidence vote after disqualifying 11 rebel MLAs and five independents. But the Centre did not go by his recommendations.

    The Governor is known to commit major Constitutional blunders. A man who sat over the file of Italian businessman Ottavio Quattrocchi and allowed him to escape when he was the law minister, Bhardwaj seems to be a man in great hurry in Bangalore and, in the process, has always been stepping into blunderland. Here are a few instances:

    Last year, Bhardwaj had instructed and then warned Legislative Assembly Speaker K G Bopaiah on maintaining the status of the House as it existed before October 11. In effect, he told the Speaker that he cannot disqualify the rebel MLAs under the Anti-Defection Act.

    Constitutionally speaking, the Speaker is the final authority in deciding on the Anti-Defection Act. The office of the Governor cannot issue any instructions. It is like President Prathiba Patil instructing Manmohan on the character of the Lok Sabha.

    Bhardwaj – Governor or Congressman?

    In October last year, the Governor first recommended President's rule over Karnataka and then did a U-turn by giving Yeddyurappa one more chance to prove his majority. Why? If he was convinced that the trust vote was not valid, what made him change his mind the next day?

    The Governor was seen hobnobbing with Opposition leaders and the rebel BJP MLAs, entertaining them in the Raj Bhavan when the Supreme Court had made it clear through various rulings that the strength of the government should be decided on the floor of the House.

    Whenever he received a memorandum from the Opposition Congress leaders, Bhardwaj used to directly write to the ministers concerned to give an explanation. He had summoned the then Tourism Minister Janardhan Reddy (who refused to go) and former Higher Education Minister Ramachandra Gowda.

    This is the duty of the CM. Ideally, the Governor should have forwarded the letter to the CM seeking his opinion. It is like the BJP in Delhi petitioning the President over the Spectrum scam and the President summoning Raja to the Rashtrapathi Bhavan, ignoring the PM.

    The Governor has also been seen showing a keen interest in the mining scandal and had issued instructions on certain files.

    Meanwhile, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has gone hammer and tongs at Bhardwaj saying he had lost all impartiality and there is no constitutional crisis except for the one created by the gubernatorial office.

    Bhardwaj – Governor or Congressman?

    "The governor has completely lost his impartiality," senior BJP leader Arun Jaitley told the media in Delhi.

    "We are of the considered opinion that there is neither a political crisis, nor any constitutional crisis in the state. It is a crisis being deliberately generated by the governor of the state. I will give you five facts, which clearly demonstrate that the governor of the state acted beyond the constitution. He has defied all norms of politics," said the leader of the Opposition in Rajya Sabha during the last crisis triggered by Bhardwaj.

    Jaitley said the governor has allowed the Raj Bhavan to be used for political purposes, for the purposes of destabilising the state government and indulge in horse-trading.

    "The constitutional mandate says (which late Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi introduced) that a defector would be immediately disqualified. It is unprecedented that a constitution authority [governor] writing to the Speaker directing him not to exercise power under defection law.

    "The governor almost threatened the Speaker and said that if he acted against him, his verdict will be not acceptable if he acts against the defectors," said Jaitley.

    Politically, however, the reported move of Bhardwaj to recommend President's rule would be a boon for the beleaguered Yeddyurappa.

    The BJP, including the increasing number of dissidents in the party against him, will now have to rally behind Yeddyurappa in spite of charges of corruption and illegal land deals hurled at him.

    Source: India Syndicate

    Also read:
    Sack Yeddyurappa: Governor to Centre
    Yeddyurappa slams Governor's action

    16/05/2011

    IMF chief picked out of lineup in sexual assault case

    New York: The maid who has accused Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the head of the International Monetary Fund, of sexually assaulting her in his luxury hotel room picked the Frenchman out of a lineup.

    IMF chief picked out of lineup in sexual assault case

    Mr. Strauss-Kahn was picked out of a police line up by the hotel maid on Sunday night, according to media reports.

    Mr. Strauss-Kahn, a likely candidate for 2012 Presidential race in France, has been charged with attempted rape, sexual assault and unlawful imprisonment.

    The IMF chief has denied the charges against him.

    "Strauss-Kahn will plead not guilty," William W. Taylor III, his lawyer, said in a statement.

    Mr. Strauss-Kahn allegedly sexually assaulted the 32-year-old maid, who happened to be in his $3,000 a night suite at the Hotel Sofitel in Times Square on Saturday afternoon, thinking it was empty.

    He also allegedly tried to lock her in the bathroom.

    IMF chief picked out of lineup in sexual assault case

    Before the incident, it was being widely speculated that Mr. Strauss-Kahn, a Socialist politician, had a chance at beating incumbent President Nicholas Sarkozy, who is plagued with all time low ratings.

    Observers and rivals have said that the alleged charges will ruin Mr. Strauss-Kahn's chances at a political career.

    AP reports from New York:

    Hearing delayed

    The arraignment for the IMF head who's accused of sexually assaulting a hotel maid has been delayed.

    Mr. Strauss-Kahn's lawyer says Mr. Strauss-Kahn agreed to an examination requested by prosecutors to obtain evidence in the case.

    William Taylor says an arraignment set for Sunday night will now happen on Monday.

    Source: PTI/ AP


    16/05/2011

    PM reviews security threat from Pakistan, China

    New Delhi: A day after Pakistan's spy chief threatened reprisal attacks in case New Delhi attempted a special operation against terror suspects on its soil, India Monday carried out a comprehensive review of its security preparedness amidst reports of the presence of Chinese soldiers in Pakistani Kashmir.

    PM reviews security threat from Pakistan, China

    Prime Minister Manmohan Singh chaired the review with the three armed forces chiefs providing their inputs to the assessment of the security situation against the back drop of the killing of Al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden by US special forces at Abbottabad in the heart of Pakistan May 2, sources said here.

    Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) chief Ahmed Shuja Pasha had warned India that an Abbottabad-like operation by New Delhi would invite a fitting response, with Pakistani armed forces having "identified" specific targets and carried out "rehearsals" to attack them.

    The 90-minute meeting held at the Prime Minister's house was attended by Defence Minister A.K. Antony, National Security Adviser Shivshankar Menon, Air Force Chief Air Chief Marshal P.V. Naik, Navy Chief Admiral Nirmal Verma, Army Chief General V.K. Singh and Defence Secretary Pradeep Kumar, the sources said.

    At the meeting, the armed forces' preparedness to meet any security challenge that may be posed by terror networks in the region and conventional threats from Pakistan's armed forces came up for review.

    PM reviews security threat from Pakistan, China

    "The prime minister was briefed on the overall security measures and the general preparedness of the defence forces. Issues like changing security situation in Pakistan and the situation along the Sino-Indian border were discussed," defence ministry officials said here.

    This meeting comes less than a week after Antony held a similar two-day review of overall security of the country and coastal security in particular with maritime agencies and two days after the prime minister returned from Kabul, where he had discussed the latest developments with Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai.

    The Indian Army has also raised its alertness level in the wake of reports that Pakistan may try to infiltrate militants into Jammu and Kashmir.

    It has also raised an alarm over Chinese military personnel's presence in Pakistani Kashmir in the guise of engineering workers and the threat posed by the large neighbour to the security of Jammu and Kashmir.

    Source: IANS

    16/05/2011

    2G no issue, Congress won't embrace AIADMK, says DMK

    New Delhi: The 2G corruption row was "not a factor" in the Tamil Nadu polls, says DMK leader T.K.S. Elangovan, adding the Congress would not embrace the AIADMK that Monday took power in the state.

    2G no issue, Congress won't embrace AIADMK, says DMK

    "It was not a factor or (even) a minor factor," Elangovan, the DMK spokesman, told IANS on telephone from Chennai, when asked if teh spectrum allocation scandal played a role in the DMK's crushing defeat.

    A veteran of Tamil Nadu politics, Elangovan said he had no clue why the DMK was trounced so badly in the assembly election.

    "It is difficult to find out the reasons. I don't know why it happened. People need a performing government and we performed well. All sections (of the society) benefited while people had suffered a lot during the (earlier) governments led by Jayalalithaa," he said.

    The AIADMK-led coalition's sweeping win -- party leader J. Jayalalitha has become chief minister for a third time -- has led to speculation about new political alignments.

    Congress president Sonia Gandhi has already called up Jayalalithaa to congratulate her.

    2G no issue, Congress won't embrace AIADMK, says DMK

    Asked about a possible realignment of forces in Tamil Nadu, Elangovan expressed confidence that the Congress would not go with the AIADMK.

    "I don't think the Congress will prefer the AIADMK. She (Jayalalithaa) is the most unreliable ally," he said.

    Asked if the party was feeling let down by the Congress, whose ally the DMK is at the centre, Elangovan said the polls were for the state assembly and not for parliament.

    "It was not an election for the central government, (it was to be decided) how our leaders performed and how Jayalalithaa performed," he said.

    Elangovan said the spectrum controversy had little or no impact.

    2G no issue, Congress won't embrace AIADMK, says DMK

    Former union communications minister A. Raja of the DMK is in jail in connection with the scam. DMK MP Kanimozhi, who is also the daughter of outgoing chief minister M. Karunanidhi, has been named an accused by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).

    "Even in Raja's Lok Sabha constituency of Nilgiris, we won two of the four assembly seats. (2G) was not a reason. Beyond that what happened, we will find out," he said.

    Elangovan, who is an MP from Chennai North, said party leaders would be exonerated in the 2G case.

    But he insisted that his party's image was "tarnished by the media".

    He also said that corruption was not an issue in the Tamil Nadu elecltion as Jayalalithaa had herself faced corruption cases.

    2G no issue, Congress won't embrace AIADMK, says DMK

    Elangovan evaded a direct reply when asked if the poll outcome would make it difficult to herald a generational change in the DMK's top echelons.

    "That is a different question. We will see," he said, adding the party would not let Karunanidhi retire.

    He said DMK cadres were upset with the election result but not demoralised.

    "The results were surprising even for the people of Tamil Nadu."

    Elangovan said DMK will call a meeting of its candidates to know their feedback on "how we failed".

    He said the party expected to win 75-80 seats and its alliance to win about 140 seats. DMK could win only 23 of the 119 seats it contested while its ally Congress got five seats and the PMK three.

    The AIADMK alliance swept the polls, winning 203 of 234 assembly seats.

    Source: IANS

    New hurdles for Posco's land acquisition plans

    BHUBANESWAR: Orissa's plans to resume land acquisition for the Posco project in the state faced new trouble with project's supporters Monday refusing to cooperate unless their demands were met. 

    The state government earlier this month announced it would resume land acquisition for the steel and port project in Jagatsinghpur district May 18 despite local opposition. 

    Now United Action Committee , which has been supporting the project, said they will extend their cooperation to the local authorities only after fulfilment of their 29 demands. 

    These include more compensation for those who will lose their betel vines and lands and assurance of one job in the company for each of the proposed displaced families.

    "We support the project. That does not mean people will accept whatever the government and the company decides," UAC president Anadi Rout said. 

    Senior district officials Monday held a meeting with the pro-Posco group members but it ended without any fruitful result. 

    "If the government starts the land acquisition process without settling the impending issues, we will not cooperate," Rout told IANS. 

    Posco had signed a memorandum of understanding June 22, 2005, for a 12 million tonne steel plant near the port town of Paradip in Jagatsinghpur district, some 100 km from Bhubaneswar. 

    The project has been touted as the largest foreign investment in India. There has been however no progress on ground yet because of local opposition. 

    The environment ministry earlier this month gave a final green clearance to the $12 billion project after the state government reiterated that no traditional forest dwellers were dependent on or cultivating land in the proposed project area. 

    The state government also has to renew its pact or sign a fresh pact with the company for the project. The five-year pact it signed in 2005 expired in June 2010.

    Ready to name more witnesses, Gujarat cop tells probe panel

    AHMEDABAD: Gujarat's senior IPS officer Sanjeev Bhatt told the Nanavati-Mehta commission that he could name other witnesses who would vouchsafe his presence at a crucial meeting called by Chief Minister Narendra Modi Feb 27,2002 in addition to the names he mentioned in his affidavit made before the Supreme Court. 

    "I will give the names of the witnesses only when asked by the Supreme Court since the issue was pending before the apex court", he said in his disposition before the judicial enquiry committee probing the 2002 riots. 

    Bhatt, who stated that at the meeting Modi had not only "directed" top police officers to "allow the Hindus to vent their anger", but also failed to issue any instruction even in the two subsequent meetings held on the next day. 

    The meeting was held at the chief minister's residence Feb 27, 2002 evening after the train carnage at the Godhra railway station early in the morning that left 58 people dead. 

    Bhatt was emphatic that he had attended all three meetings. 

    "The chief minister had called two meetings on February 28, the day of the bandh call, one in the forenoon and the other in late afternoon and I had attended booth the meetings in the company of my superior, the additional director general of police and state intelligence chief G.C. Raigar." 

    He claimed that by the time the second meeting was held, the intelligence department had "real-time information" about the mob build-up and the tense situation in the Gulberg Society in Ahmedabad. 

    Bhtt said that he had personally informed the chief minister about the build-up in Gulberg Society, the threat to the residents there, including to the former Congress member of the Lok Sabha, Ehsan Jafri, and the "complete police inaction" across the city. 

    But the chief minister did not give any instruction for protective action, Bhatt said. 

    He also claimed that the state director general of police (DGP), K. Chakravarthi, was present when he informed the chief minister about the situation in Gulberg. 

    Referring to the Feb 27 meeting, Bhatt stated that both the then state DGP and the Ahmedabad police commissioner, P.C. Pande, tried to convince the chief minister about the inherent dangers in the BJP supporting the Viswa Hindu Parishad's protest bandh call given for the next day as it would amount to the government supporting it. 

    Similarly the two top officers also tried to dissuade the chief minister from bringing the bodies of the train carnage victims from Godhra to Ahmedabad and from taking out the funeral procession with the bodies. 

    Pande even told the chief minister that this could lead to an incendiary situation, Bhatt said. 

    He added that he had also briefed the chief minister about the large scale mobilisation by the Sangh Parivar even in interior areas and the possibility of large scale violence. 

    The chief minister was also briefed about the paucity of police force to deal with the situation emerging out of such a course of action, Bhatt said. 

    Bhatt Monday moved an application seeking directions to authorities to allow him access to requisite and relevant information, records and documents of the state control room and the Intelligence Bureau, and the offices of the director general and inspector general of police for the period from Feb-Sept 17, 2002.


    Mamata Banerjee to pursue mixed economy model in West Bengal

    KOLKATA: Mamata Banerjee is likely to pursue a mixed economic model as she ventures to reconstruct a state in a deep financial mess. There will be a dash of socialism and sprinkling of capitalism motifs. Maximum priority will be given on growth in both farm and manufacturing sectors. 

    Amixed economy nurtures a market economy with strong regulatory control. It also has a variety of government sponsored schemes. Mamata, who rode on the success of one of the most protracted land battles in recent times to win the election, has quite expectedly promised steps to raise the state's agricultural productivity by focusing on agro research and improving farm mechanisation. 

    The chief minister-in-waiting has also promised to usher in quantum private investment in engineering, steel, tea, jute, textiles and food processing and to revive a chunk of the 58,000 closed but prospective industrial units. She plans to free the state's small-scale sector from inspection raj, which according to Trinamool Congress , had restricted its growth. "It can safely be assumed that Banerjee will follow a people-centric hybrid economic model. However, the focus will be focus on overall growth," a source in Trinamool said. In her avatar as railway minister, she has carefully nurtured a propoor image but this did not stop her from inviting private investment for railway development projects.. 

    "We will attract large private investments in engineering, tea, jute, manufacturing and in all the fields which require such investments. We will focus on MSME and labour-intensive sectors to generate employment," Banerjee had told ETon May 13. 

    Trinamool has prepared a vision document on how the new government should rebuild the state, which over the past 34 years had been abused by an Alimuddin Street-controlled administration and decayed in every respect, be it social sectors like health and education or economic parameters like industrialisation and farm productivity. The vision statement will serve as the Bible for the new ministers after the Banerjee government takes oath possibly on May 18. 

    In the health and education sector, Banerjee plans strong government control. She has proposed a hub-and-spoke model in healthcare by connecting sub centres, primary health centres, district hospitals and super speciality hospitals in Kolkata. In education, she plans to overhaul the vocational programmes with emphasis on industrial training institutes to train industrial labour and improve their employability. 

    The populist leader as she is known to the world, quite expectedly plans special focus on labour intensive sectors such as textiles, apparel, leather, jute, tea, handicrafts, gems & jewellery and agrobased industries.


    Can Mamata Banerjee remake West Bengal?

    Here's the first critical question that Mamata Banerjee, chief minister-elect of Bengal, faces: should her government's swearing-in ceremony be held in the relative privacy of Kolkata's sprawling Governor's House or should she and her ministers take oath among lakhs of adoring supporters in Kolkata's Brigade Parade grounds? 

    The only factor militating against the second option, which she prefers, is the utter bankruptcy of Bengal's finances. Can Mamata's freshly minted government afford the luxury of hiring thousands of chairs and erecting a giant shamiana at the Brigade grounds? Does, in other words, Bengal's exchequer afford a party? 

    In booming India, there's no other regime that's stumped by a question like this. So, to understand what the Trinamool-Congress administration is really up against in their mandate to rebuild Bengal, it's important to understand the rot in a system gnawed away by the communist party-state for 34 years. 

    Brain Drain 

    For starters, there's been a massive erosion of human capital and skills through 30 years that's become a major drag on the entire economy. It'll be one of Mamata's greatest challenges. "If she can boost education, health care and the work culture of the state, a lot of the work will be done," says economist Abhirup Sarkar of the Indian Statistical Institute. Bengal's fall from grace, in fact, goes back a long way. 

    The British Raj had made the then Calcutta a manufacturing hub. Less than two decades after the British left India, large manufacturing projects turned away from Bengal. Its first chief minister, Bidhan Chandra Roy, set up practically the only large post-Independence projects in the state between 1948 and 1962, the Chittaranjan Locomotive Works, Durgapur Steel and the massive Damodar Valley Corporation, modelled after America's Tennessee Valley Authority. 

    Apart from the sputtering Haldia Petrochemicals and a clutch of IT projects, the Left has nothing to show for the past 34 years. Compared to fast-industrialising states like Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra and Gujarat, Bengal is a laggard. That shows in the numbers: from 1980, three years after the Left came to power, the state's share of India's manufacturing has fallen off a cliff. The state's share in the national manufacturing has dwindled to 2.9% in 2007-08 from 11.5% in 1980-81. 

    Mamata Banerjee

    One big reason for the flight of capital was political violence in Bengal from the late 1960s to the mid-1970s. Another was the Left's agitation, while in Opposition, against the Congress, which it termed "Tata-Birla's government". In power, the Left continued its politics of strikes and agitation. 

    West Bengal

    Recently, as ex-chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee tried to woo businesses back to the state, the red unions went about shutting down work: in 2006, of the 20 million man days lost in labour disputes across India, Bengal accounted for 12.5 million, or 62%. The next year was worse: 27 million man days were lost across India, with Bengal alone snatching away 24 million man days, or 87% of the total. Capital, which had voted with its feet, has preferred to stay out. 

    Buddha's course correction wasn't enough to halt poribartan

    KOLKATA: Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee , the Deng Xiaoping of Bengal politics, will go down as the last chief minister of an elected communist government that had long outlived its utility. 

    The signs were there since the late nineties. The communist government was fast losing its core support base among the urban poor - the class the party used to swear by. Even its rural base, won through land reforms, had reached saturation. The delivery mechanism was failing, leading to a massive exodus of rural and urban work force. 

    Bhattacharjee inherited this suffocating status quo that had given way to a system built on political patronage. 
    Buddhababu broke out of the old Left mindset and shook hands with the Tatas and the Indonesian Salim Group to put the state back on the industry map. But in doing so, he snapped the social equilibrium that had held the diverse interest groups together. Feeling let down by the CPM's callous land acquisition methods, a huge section of marginal farmers and bargadars switched loyalties and embraced Mamata Banerjee as the new messiah of entitlement politics. 

    And the genteel upwardly mobile middle class that backed him in 2006 with a hope that Brand Buddha would chart out a seamless growth path for a tech-savvy , shining Bengal, lost confidence in him when he failed to tackle the rising Mamata surge in Singur. What's more, Bhattacharjee could not carry on with the party ranks as some felt his steps deviated from Left politics. 

    In the social churn that followed, the ruling Marxists - once champions of path-breaking land reforms such as Operation Barga - lost their profarmer legacy nourished from the pre-Independence days of the Tebhaga peasant movement. The disintegration also bared the rot within the Left ranks. Singur and Nandigram thus became a rallying point for the dissenting millions and a sizable section of the intelligentsia who raised their voice against the Left despite the Big Brothers watching them. That fear was gone in the 2009 Lok Sabha polls with Mamata Banerjee turning the tables, with her raw courage, against the CPM hegemony. 

    Prodded by CPM general secretary Prakash Karat , the Bengal unit went on a course correction hoping that it would help tide over the poribartan. It didn't, despite the heavily loaded verbosity of the CPM's newfound hero Gautam Deb. 

    Frequent flip-flops by the CM and his party colleagues - especially Nirupam Sen and Gautam Deb - on policy issues such as setting up a chemical hub in Nandigram, and then at Nayachar, and then back to Nandigram, added to the confusion among public and eroded the government's authority it badly needed to tackle the problems of adivasis in Jangalmahal, the tea gardens in the Dooars and the Gorkhas in the Hills. Sensing what was imminent, a large chunk of bureaucrats sought transfer to Delhi and elsewhere. 

    Bhattacharjee chose to tread the rough road in a winall-lose-all charge. He skipped politburo meets to reach out to the districts and reassure the poor that his government hadn't dumped them. The playwright in him was yearning to script a comeback story.


    Industrialists will be hoping for a reversal of policies in West Bengal

    NEW DELHI: With Mamata Banerjee coming to power in West Bengal, industrialists in the state and elsewhere will be hoping for a reversal of policies that has made the state, once a vibrant industrial hub, a wasteland of capitalism. 

    Trinamool's advisors are planning to invite every major industrialist in the country, including Tata Group chairman Ratan Tata, to the swearing-in ceremony of Banerjee, who will go down in history as the person who almost single-handedly dislodged the longest Communist government in the world. 

    Banerjee has shown little by way of track record to gauge that she will run an industry-friendly government. After all, she fought tooth and nail against the Tata Nano factory that was coming up in Singur and Indonesia's Salim group's proposed chemical hub in Nandigram. But things will be different now. One of the biggest components of the massive anti-Left Front sentiment that swept the state and brought her to power is the utter lack of industrial development and the consequent lack of employment opportunities. Trinamool Congress will have to work to remedy the situation and attract capital flow. 

    Banerjee has maintained that she is pro-farmer, but not anti-industry. The message is that she opposed projects in Nandigram and Singur because the state was taking away land from the farmer to hand over to large industrial groups. 
    She is yet to express a coherent alternate policy paradigm, however. As Cabinet minister of the Union, she was the chief dissenter to the Land Acquisitions Bill. Now with her moving to run the state with her own compulsions to facilitate large industrial projects, her militant stand against land acquisition might undergo a change. 

    Another factor that will give industry hope about doing business in West Bengal will be the persuasion of some of her close advisors like former Ficci chairman Amit Mitra and economist Bibek Debroy. 

    Banerjee will need friends in the industry as she runs the government. 

    She and the party has been backed by the old business families of Kolkata, most of who do business outside. In effect, more money has flowed from Mumbai to finance Banerjee's campaign than from Bengal.


    Mamata Banerjee walks full distance from log cabin to Writer's Building

    KOLKATA: She stormed into national politics in 1984 defeating CPM's Somnath Chatterjee and earning the 'giant killer' tag. With her party Trinamool Congress' triumph in the West Bengal Assembly elections, more than 26 years later, Mamata Banerjee has achieved what many considered impossible even a few years back. It is not everyday that a feisty politician embarks on a laborious struggle to take on a 34-year regime single-handedly and still manages to win. 

    Life has come close to imitating it now. With Bengal voting for a historic change, the foreign media is camping outside the narrow by-lanes of 30B Harish Chatterjee Street, to understand the 'Mamata' phenomenon. Her ouster of the world's oldest elected Communist government is being covered by The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, the National Public Radio of Washington, BBC, France 24 and Al Jazeera. Global media interest is focused on this one Indian state where Communists have been thrown out of power by a lone woman. 

    Busy with campaigning for her party in Bengal's six-phase elections between April 18 and May 10, Didi has largely remained out of bounds for the foreign media. However, requests and reminders have been pouring in. Most media queries seem to revolve around what is so special about this petite woman clad in a white sari, who wears rubber slippers and who dwells in a nondescript 6X6 dwelling. How has she managed to throw out the Communist? How does she move millions from grassroots to board rooms? How does Mamata manage to inspire people in almost all walks of life, despite being a woman? 

    "The fact that she seems to inspire some kind of cult following among supporters and is perhaps one of the most unlikely figures to acquire such a status, is what has attracted the world media," said Derek O' Brien, Trinamool's spokesperson. 

    But it was not always so. "In my childhood, I never thought that I would enter politics, become an MP, find a place in the Union Cabinet or organise public meetings at Kolkata's Brigade Parade grounds," Mamata said. She joined politics while doing a BEd course at Shree Shiksayatan College in Kolkata. 

    It was her father Promileswar Banerjee who inspired her to get into public life. "My belief in humanitarianism is all because of my father's outlook," she said. Losing him, when she was barely 15, was perhaps the most shocking event in her life. 

    If her father had ushered her into public life, Rajiv Gandhi inspired her to take up a bigger role in politics. "Rajivji protected me like an elder brother and also surprised me one day by saying: 'Some selfish giants are trying to malign you. Don't be scared. I am making you the general secretary of the All India Youth Congress," she said.

    On August 16, 1990, four days later after taking charge of Youth Congress in Bengal, she survived perhaps, the worst attack on her life, when Marxist buttonmen bludgeoned her almost to death. She severed ties with Congress in 1998 and floated the Trinamool Congress , which did not do too well in 2004 and 2006. It was the Singur agitation in 2007 that acted as the catalyst. The rest is history.


    Decks cleared for biggest ever Indo-US defence deal of $4.1 billion 10 C-17 Globemaster-III aircraft

    NEW DELHI: India may have ejected American fighters out of the $10.4 billion race to supply 126 medium multi-role combat aircraft (MMRCA) but US really has no reason to crib. Decks have now been cleared for the biggest-ever Indo-US defence deal: the $4.1 billion contract for 10 C-17 Globemaster-III giant strategic airlift aircraft. 

    Defence ministry sources on Thursday said the Globemaster deal, a direct government-to-government contract under the American FMS (foreign military sales) programme, should get the "final nod" from the Cabinet Committee on Security "within this month". 

    "All issues connected to costing and offsets (under which Globemaster-manufacturer Boeing will plough back 30% of the contract value into India) have been resolved," said a source. 

    IAF certainly needs to augment its strategic airlift capability to swiftly move combat systems and troops over large national and international distances, given that it has just over a dozen Russian-origin IL-76 `Gajraj' aircraft. Capable of carrying a payload of almost 170,000 pounds and landing even at small forward airbases with semi-prepared runways, the four-engine rugged C-17s can transport tanks and troops over 2,400 nautical miles. 

    With mid-air refueling, C-17s can go even longer distances. Along with the C-130J `Super Hercules' aircraft already being inducted, the C-17s will play a significant role in countering China's massive build-up of military infrastructure all along the 4,057-km Line of Actual Control, which includes five fully-operational airbases in Tibet. 

    That's not all on the US arms deals front. India is already conducting commercial negotiations for the around $1 billion "follow-on contract" for four more P-8I Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft, eight of which were earlier ordered for $2.1 billion in 2009. 

    Similarly, negotiations for six more C-130J `Super Hercules' heavy-lift aircraft will begin soon. "IAF has already inducted two of the earlier six C-130Js ordered for $1.2 billion in 2008. Two more will come around July, with the last two in September-October," said the MoD source. 

    So, if all this is taken into account, US has notched up sales worth around $9 billion to India in the arena of military transport and reconnaissance aircraft alone. 

    If one adds other deals connected to military aviation, like the $822 million for 99 GE F-414 engines for Mark-II version of the indigenous Tejas Light Combat Aircraft and the $170 million for Harpoon Block-II anti-ship missiles, as well as the proposed ones for attack and heavy-lift helicopters, the overall figure will jump to well over $11 billion. 

    Consequently, all the brouhaha over India choosing a fighter over "a strategic partnership" in the MMRCA project has not gone down well. "We went purely by IAF's technical and flight evaluation in the MMRCA project," said the MoD source. 

    "While Eurofighter Typhoon and French Rafale were right up there in the laid-down 643 test-points, the others (American F/A-18 and F-16, Russian MiG-35 and Swedish Gripen) were not fully compliant. So, now Typhoon and Rafale will compete commercially for the project," he added. 


    FROM US, WITH LOVE 
    C-17 Globemaster-III: 10 of these rugged giant strategic airlift aircraft to be inducted from 2013-14 onwards under a $4.1 billion contract. Capable of carrying a payload of 164,900 pounds after taking off even from makeshift airstrips, C-17s will give India swift power projection capabilities. Another six C-17s likely to be ordered at a later stage. 

    P-8I Poseidon: 12 of these long-range maritime patrol aircraft to be inducted from early-2013 onwards, costing upwards of $3 billion, to plug surveillance gaps over Indian Ocean. Armed with torpedoes, depth bombs and Harpoon missiles, P-8Is will also boost anti-warship and anti-submarine warfare capabilities. 

    C-130J "Super Hercules": Six of these tactical airlift aircraft, customised for "special and covert operations", to be inducted within this year under a $1.2 billion contract. Negotiations in progress for another six C-130Js.


    Assembly poll results to have big impact at Centre

    NEW DELHI: UPA-2 and its rivals are tensely bracing for poll results in five states with the outcome on Friday likely to impact its grip on the Centre and recast its leverage with key allies for the rest of the term. 

    Optimism in the Congress camp is singed by conflicting exit polls results as well as the assessment that battles in swing states like Tamil Nadu and Kerala might hang by slim margins. Apart from unanimity over the CPM-led regime's exit in Kolkata, there is no certitude about other states that include tiny Puducherry and Assam. 

    Under siege over corruption scandals and Opposition attacks, Congress keenly anticipates a winning score line. It expects to claw back to power in Assam, ride the Mamata storm in West Bengal, turn tables on the Left in Kerala and pip AIADMK's J Jayalalitha with DMK as lead partner in Tamil Nadu. 

    An electoral lift will restore a missing bounce and Congress leadership will try and seize the reprieve to move on anti-corruption legislation and snip deadwood from a Cabinet that looks more than a touch moribund. It will strenuously counter the impression that the government is a hapless victim of avaricious allies and internal sloth. 

    A 5-0 margin is a thumping win but with some exit polls pointing to a late Left surge in Kerala and Jayalalitha nosing ahead in Tamil Nadu, it could well be 3-2. A faction-ridden Left winning in Kerala will be a huge disappointment for Congress. A DMK sunset will be less so although the southern ally promises to turn the tables on Amma. 

    Main Opposition BJP has low expectations, except in Assam. But while saffronites will be happy if Congress hits a bump, regional parties like AIADMK, Asom Gana Parishad and Left face an acid test. A historic win for Mamata will end 34 years of uninterrupted Left hegemony. If Amma loses, she may never quite recover. If AGP fails, it faces an unappealing future. 

    A net positive result is vital for Congress which hopes that a good showing will be a launching pad for a major overhaul of the Union Cabinet and top bureaucracy. If Puducherry - where an ex-CM poses a headache - and Assam slip out of its grasp, UPA-2 will experience a sinking feeling. 

    The Opposition scoring a 3-2 or 4-1 win - although not very likely - will deepen the perception of decline and paralysis. But in any other scenario, Congress's allies have more to worry about. West Bengal is a must win election for Mamata while DMK chief M Karunanidhi is fighting the fight of his life. 

    The fallout for the Centre is clear enough. Barring a negative score, the Manmohan Singh government will not be badly off. If Karunanidhi loses, he will be even more dependent on the Centre given the 2G scam cases involving former minister A Raja and his daughter Kanimozhi. If he wins, his power will be curbed as Supreme Court monitors 2G investigations. 

    A landslide will see Mamata extract her terms which will almost certainly include retaining Trinamool Congress control over railways, which she sees as a means to deliver electoral goodies to her state. This may temper jubilation over her exit from Rail Bhawan. 

    Congress is confident that old war horse Tarun Gogoi is set to pull off a remarkable win in Assam. Even if he does not get a majority, he will be able to rope in the Bodo Front and Badruddin Ajmal's Assam United Democratic Front, it is felt. AGP needs to claim that number one spot from Congress to do the same in company of BJP or the Bodos.


    The Bengal loss is a big setback and throws up many challenges: Prakash Karat

    CPM General Secretary Prakash Karat spoke to Sunday ET on how he and the party will respond to their biggest poll set back in years and where the CPM went wrong 

    Post-poll crisis for CPM 

    The Bengal loss is a big setback and throws up many challenges. We were in power for 34 years. A generation of CPM members and supporters have never been in Opposition. In Kerala, we are used to winning and losing elections. 

    Plans to step down as CPM chief. 

    I am going to make a proposal to the party about a retirement plan for the general secretary. There has to be a cap on the number of terms the general secretary can have. It can be two or three or four terms. The leadership will decide it. (Karat is on his second term as CPM general secretary now. The coming CPM party congress will decide on whether he gets a third term). 

    Retirement before or during the CPM party congress 

    I have certain views on the matter. I think it is proper the general secretary steps aside after a period to pave the way for a new leader. That will help the party prepare a new line of leadership in a time-bound manner. And the person who steps down can always continue as a member of the politburo, party secretariat, etc. 

    Communist Party of India (Marxist)

    From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
    Communist Party of India (Marxist)
    Secretary-GeneralPrakash Karat
    Leader in Lok SabhaBasudev Acharia[1]
    Leader in Rajya SabhaSitaram Yechuri[1]
    Founded1964
    HeadquartersNew DelhiIndia
    NewspaperPeople's Democracy(English),
    Lok Lehar (Hindi),
    Ganashakti (bengali),
    Deshabhimani'' (Malayalam),
    Theekathir (Tamil)
    Student wingStudents Federation of India
    Youth wingDemocratic Youth Federation of India
    Women's wingAll India Democratic Womens Association
    Labour wingCentre of Indian Trade Unions
    Peasant's wingAll India Kisan Sabha
    Ideology Communism
    Marxism-Leninism
    ECI Status Recognised Party
    AllianceLeft Front
    Seats in Lok Sabha 16
    Seats in Rajya Sabha 14
    Election symbol
    ECI-hammer-sickle-star.svg
    Website
    Official Website
    Politics of India
    Political parties
    Elections

    The Communist Party of India (Marxist) (abbreviated CPI(M) or CPM) is a political party inIndia. It has a strong presence in the states of KeralaWest Bengal and Tripura. As of 2011, CPI(M) is leading the state government only in Tripura. It leads the Left Front coalition of leftist parties in various states and the national parliament of India. It was voted out after 34 years in power in West Bengal in elections whose results were declared in May 2011. The party emerged out of a split from the Communist Party of India in 1964. CPI(M) claimed to have 982,155 members in 2007.[2]

    Contents

     [hide]

    [edit]History

    [edit]Split in the Communist Party of India and formation of CPI(M)

    CPI(M) emerged out of a division within the Communist Party of India (CPI). The undivided CPI had experienced a period of upsurge during the years following the Second World War. The CPI led armed rebellions in TelanganaTripura and Kerala. However, it soon abandoned the strategy of armed revolution in favour of working within the parliamentary framework. In 1950 B.T. Ranadive, the CPI general secretary and a prominent representative of the radical sector inside the party, was demoted on grounds of left-adventurism.

    AKG Bhavan, the CPI(M) national headquarters in Delhi28°37′53.6″N77°12′17.9″E
    Campaign vehicle in Ernakulam
    Bengali mural for the CPI(M) candidate in the Kolkata North West constituency in the 2004 Lok Sabha election, Sudhangshu Seal
    18th CPI(M) West Bengal state conference mural

    Under the government of the Indian National Congressparty of Jawaharlal Nehru, independent India developed close relations and a strategic partnership with theSoviet Union. The Soviet government consequently wished that the Indian communists moderate their criticism towards the Indian state and assume a supportive role towards the Congress governments. However, large sections of the CPI claimed that India remained a semi-feudal country, and that class strugglecould not be put on the back-burner for the sake of guarding the interests of Soviet trade and foreign policy. Moreover, the Indian National Congress appeared to be generally hostile towards political competition. In 1959 the central government intervened to impose President's Rule in Kerala, toppling the E.M.S. Namboodiripad cabinet (the sole non-Congress state government in the country).

    Simultaneously, the relations between the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and theCommunist Party of China soured. In the early 1960s the Communist Party of China began criticising the CPSU of turning revisionist and of deviating from the path of Marxism-Leninism.Sino-Indian relations also deteriorated, as border disputes between the two countries erupted into the Sino-Indian war of 1962.

    During the war with China, a faction of the Indian Communists backed the position of the Indian government, while other sections of the party claimed that it was a conflict between a socialist and a capitalist state. Hundreds of CPI leaders, accused of being pro-Chinese, were imprisoned. Some of the nationalists were also imprisoned, as they used to express their opinion only in party forums, and CPI's official stand was pro-China. Thousands of Communists were detained without trial.[3] Those targeted by the state accused the pro-Soviet leadership of the CPI of conspiring with the Congress government to ensure their own hegemony over the control of the party.

    In 1962 Ajoy Ghosh, the general secretary of the CPI, died. After his death, S.A. Dange was installed as the party chairman (a new position) and E.M.S. Namboodiripad as general secretary. This was an attempt to achieve a compromise. Dange represented the rightist faction of the party and E.M.S. the leftist faction.

    At a CPI National Council meeting held on April 11, 1964, 32 Council members walked out in protest, accusing Dange and his followers of "anti-unity and anti-Communist policies".[4]

    The leftist section, to which the 32 National Council members belonged, organised a convention in TenaliAndhra Pradesh July 7 to 11. In this convention the issues of the internal disputes in the party were discussed. 146 delegates, claiming to represent 100,000 CPI members, took part in the proceedings. The convention decided to convene the 7th Party Congress of CPI in Calcutta later the same year.[5]

    Marking a difference from the Dangeite sector of CPI, the Tenali convention was marked by the display of a large portrait of the Chinese Communist leader Mao Zedong.[5]

    Communism in India
    Indicom.PNG

    Communist Party of India
    AITUC - AIKS - AIYF
    AISF - NFIW - BKMU

    Communist Party of India (Marxist)

    CITU - AIKS - DYFI
    SFI - AIDWA - GMP

    Communist Ghadar Party of India
    Naxalbari uprising
    Communist Party of India (M-L)
    Liberation - New Democracy
    Janashakti - PCC - 2nd CC
    Red Flag - Class Struggle
    Communist Party of India (Maoist)

    Socialist Unity Centre of India (Communist)
    AIUTUC - AIMSS
    AIDYO - AIDSO

    M. N. Roy
    Abani Mukherji
    A. K. Gopalan
    P. Krishna Pillai
    P. C. Joshi
    P. Sundarayya
    Ajoy Ghosh
    K. Damodaran
    E. M. S. Namboodiripad
    Azhikodan Raghavan
    V. S. Achuthanandan
    E. K. Nayanar
    E. K. Imbichi Bava
    B. T. Ranadive
    Charu Majumdar
    Jyoti Basu
    S. A. Dange
    Shibdas Ghosh
    T. Nagi Reddy

    Tebhaga movement
    CCOMPOSA
    Telangana Rebellion
    Comrades Association

    Communism
    World Communist Movement

    Communism Portal

    This box: view · talk · edit

    At the Tenali convention a Bengal-based pro-Chinese group, representing one of the most radical streams of the CPI left wing, presented a draft programme proposal of their own. These radicals criticised the draft programme proposal prepared by M. Basavapunniah for undermining class struggle and failing to take a clear pro-Chinese position in the ideological conflict between the CPSU and CPC.[6]

    After the Tenali convention the CPI left wing organised party district and state conferences. In West Bengal, a few of these meetings became battlegrounds between the most radical elements and the more moderate leadership. At the Calcutta Party District Conference an alternative draft programme was presented to the leadership by Parimal Das Gupta (a leading figure amongst far-left intellectuals in the party). Another alternative proposal was brought forward to the Calcutta Party District Conference by Azizul Haque, but Haque was initially banned from presenting it by the conference organisers. At the Calcutta Party District Conference 42 delegates opposed M. Basavapunniah's official draft programme proposal.

    At the Siliguri Party District Conference, the main draft proposal for a party programme was accepted, but with some additional points suggested by the far-left North Bengal cadre Charu Majumdar. However, Harekrishna Konar (representing the leadership of the CPI left wing) forbade the raising of the slogan Mao Tse-Tung Zindabad (Long live Mao Tse-Tung) at the conference.

    Parimal Das Gupta's document was also presented to the leadership at the West Bengal State Conference of the CPI leftwing. Das Gupta and a few other spoke at the conference, demanding the party ought to adopt the class analysis of the Indian state of the 1951 CPI conference. His proposal was, however, voted down.[7]

    The Calcutta Congress was held between October 31 and November 7, at Tyagraja Hall in southern Calcutta. Simultaneously, the Dange group convened a Party Congress of CPI in Bombay. Thus, the CPI divided into two separate parties. The group which assembled in Calcutta would later adopt the name 'Communist Party of India (Marxist)', in order to differentiate themselves from the Dange group. The CPI(M) also adopted its own political programme. P. Sundarayya was elected general secretary of the party.

    In total 422 delegates took part in the Calcutta Congress. CPI(M) claimed that they represented 104,421 CPI members, 60% of the total party membership.

    At the Calcutta conference the party adopted a class analysis of the character of the Indian state, that claimed the Indian big bourgeoisie was increasingly collaborating with imperialism.[8]

    Parimal Das Gupta's alternative draft programme was not circulated at the Calcutta conference. However, Souren Basu, a delegate from the far-left stronghold Darjeeling, spoke at the conference asking why no portrait had been raised of Mao Tse-Tung along the portraits of other communist stalwarts. His intervention met with huge applauses from the delegates of the conference.[8]

    [edit]Name

    CPI(M) is offically known as भारत की कम्युनिस्ट पार्टी मार्क्सवादी(Bharat ki Kamyunist Party Marksvadi) in hindi, but it is often known as मार्क्सवादी कम्युनिस्ट पार्टी (Marksvadi Kamyunist Party, abbreviatedMaKaPa) in press and media circles. This name though has a very interesting story to tell. During its initial years after the split, the party was often referred by different names such as 'Left Communist Party' or 'Communist Party of India(Left)'. The party has used the name 'Left' because CPI people were dubbed as rightist in nature for their support to Congress-Nehru regime. During Kerala Legislative Assembly elections of 1965 the party has adopted the name 'Communist Party of India(Marxist)' in order to obtain its election symbol from the Election Commission of India.[9]

    [edit]Early years of CPI (M)

    The CPI (M) was born into a hostile political climate. At the time of the holding of its Calcutta Congress, large sections of its leaders and cadres were jailed without trial. Again on December 29–30, over a thousand CPI (M) cadres were arrested, and held in jail without trial. In 1965 new waves of arrests of CPI(M) cadres took place in West Bengal, as the party launched agitations against the rise in fares in the Calcutta Tramways and against the then prevailing food crisis. State-wide general strikes and hartalswere observed on August 5, 1965, March 10–11, 1966 and April 6, 1966. The March 1966 general strike results in several deaths in confrontations with police forces.

    Also in Kerala, mass arrests of CPI(M) cadres were carried out during 1965. In Bihar, the party called for a Bandh (general strike) in Patna on August 9, 1965 in protest against the Congress state government. During the strike, police resorted to violent actions against the organisers of the strike. The strike was followed by agitations in other parts of the state.

    P. Sundaraiah, after being released from jail, spent the period of September 1965-February 1966 in Moscow for medical treatment. In Moscow he also held talks with the CPSU.[10]

    The Central Committee of CPI(M) held its first meeting on June 12–19, 1966. The reason for delaying the holding of a regular CC meeting was the fact that several of the persons elected as CC members at the Calcutta Congress were jailed at the time.[11] A CC meeting had been scheduled to have been held in Trichur during the last days of 1964, but had been cancelled due to the wave of arrests against the party. The meeting discussed tactics for electoral alliances, and concluded that the party should seek to form a broad electoral alliances with all non-reactionary opposition parties in West Bengal (i.e. all parties except Jan Sangh and Swatantra Party). This decision was strongly criticised by the Communist Party of China, the Party of Labour of Albania, the Communist Party of New Zealand and the radicals within the party itself. The line was changed at a National Council meeting in Jullunder in October 1966, were it was decided that the party should only form alliances with selected left parties.[12]

    [edit]Naxalbari uprising

    At this point the party stood at crossroads. There were radical sections of the party who were wary of the increasing parliamentary focus of the party leadership, especially after the electoral victories in West Bengal and Kerala. Developments in China also affected the situation inside the party. In West Bengal two separate internal dissident tendencies emerged, which both could be identified as supporting the Chinese line.[13] In 1967 a peasant uprising broke out in Naxalbari, in northern West Bengal. The insurgency was led by hardline district-level CPI(M) leaders Charu Majumdar and Kanu Sanyal. The hardliners within CPI(M) saw the Naxalbari uprising as the spark that would ignite the Indian revolution. The Communist Party of China hailed the Naxalbari movement, causing an abrupt break in CPI(M)-CPC relations.[14] The Naxalbari movement was violently repressed by the West Bengal government, of which CPI(M) was a major partner. Within the party, the hardliners rallied around an All India Coordination Committee of Communist Revolutionaries. Following the 1968 Burdwan plenum of CPI(M) (held on April 5–12, 1968), the AICCCR separated themselves from CPI(M). This split divided the party throughout the country. But notably in West Bengal, which was the centre of the violent radicalist stream, no prominent leading figure left the party. The party and the Naxalites (as the rebels were called) were soon to get into a bloody feud.

    In Andhra Pradesh another revolt was taking place. There the pro-Naxalbari dissidents had not established any presence. But in the party organisation there were many veterans from the Telangana armed struggle, who rallied against the central party leadership. In Andhra Pradesh the radicals had a strong base even amongst the state-level leadership. The main leader of the radical tendency was T. Nagi Reddy, a member of the state legislative assembly. On June 15, 1968 the leaders of the radical tendency published a press statement outlining the critique of the development of CPI(M). It was signed by T. Nagi Reddy, D.V. RaoKolla Venkaiah and Chandra Pulla Reddy.[15] In total around 50% of the party cadres in Andhra Pradesh left the party to form the Andhra Pradesh Coordination Committee of Communist Revolutionaries, under the leadership of T. Nagi Reddy.[16]

    [edit]Dismissal of United Front governments in West Bengal and Kerala

    In November 1967, the West Bengal United Front government was dismissed by the central government. Initially the Indian National Congress formed a minority government led by Prafulla Chandra Ghosh, but that cabinet did not last long. Following the proclamation that the United Front government had been dislodged, a 48-hour hartal was effective throughout the state. After the fall of the Ghosh cabinet, the state was but under President's Rule. CPI(M) launched agitations against the interventions of the central government in West Bengal.

    The 8th Party Congress of CPI(M) was held in Cochin, Kerala, on December 23–29, 1968. On December 25, 1968, whilst the congress was held, 42 Dalits were burned alive in the Tamil village of Kilavenmani. The massacre was a retaliation from landlords after Dalit labourers had taken part in a CPI(M)-led agitation for higher wages.[17][18]

    The United Front government in Kerala was forced out of office in October 1969, as the CPI, RSP, KTP and Muslim League ministers resigned. E.M.S. Namboodiripad handed in his resignation on October 24.[19] A coalition government led by CPI leader C. Achutha Menonwas formed, with the outside support of the Indian National Congress.

    [edit]Elections in West Bengal and Kerala

    Fresh elections were held in West Bengal in 1969. CPI(M) contested 97 seats, and won 80. The party was now the largest in the West Bengal legislative.[20] But with the active support of CPI and the Bangla Congress, Ajoy Mukherjee was returned as Chief Minister of the state. Mukherjee resigned on March 16, 1970, after a pact had been reached between CPI, Bangla Congress and the Indian National Congress against CPI(M). CPI(M) strove to form a new government, instead but the central government put the state under President's Rule.

    In Kerala fresh elections were held in 1970. CPI(M) contested 73 seats and won 29. After the election Achutha Menon formed a new ministry, including ministers from the Indian National Congress.

    [edit]Formation of CITU

    2004 election mural for CPI(M) candidateSujan Chakraborty in Jadavpur

    Following the 1964 split, CPI(M) cadres had remained active with the All India Trade Union Congress. But as relations between CPI and CPI(M) soured, with the backdrop of confrontations in West Bengal and Kerala, a split also surfaced in the AITUC. In December 1969, eight CPI(M) members walked out of an AITUC Working Committee meeting. The eight called for an All India Trade Union Convention, which was held in Goa April 9–10, 1970. The convention decided that an All India Trade Union Conference be held on May 28–31 in Calcutta. The Calcutta conference would be the founding conference of the Centre of Indian Trade Unions, a new pro-CPI(M) trade union movement.[21]

    [edit]Outbreak of war in East Pakistan

    In 1971 Bangladesh (formerly East Pakistan) declared its independence from Pakistan. The Pakistani military tried to quell the uprising. India intervened militarily and gave active backing to the Bangladeshi resistance. Millions of Bangladeshi refugees sought shelter in India, especially in West Bengal.

    At the time the radical sections of the Bangladeshi communist movement was divided into many factions. Whilst the pro-Soviet Communist Party of Bangladesh actively participated in the resistance struggle, the pro-China communist tendency found itself in a peculiar situation as China had sided with Pakistan in the war. In Calcutta, where many Bangladeshi leftists had sought refuge, CPI(M) worked to coordinate the efforts to create a new political organization. In the fall of 1971 three small groups, which were all hosted by the CPI(M), came together to form the Bangladesh Communist Party (Leninist). The new party became the sister party of CPI(M) in Bangladesh.[22]

    [edit]Party organization

    CPI(M) got 5.66% of votes polled in last parliamentary election (May 2004) and it has 43 MPs. It won 42.31% on an average in the 69 seats it contested. It supported the new Indian National Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government, but without becoming a part of it. On 9 July 2008 it formally withdrew support from the UPA government explaining this by differences about the Indo-US nuclear deal and the IAEA Safeguards Agreement in particular.[23]

    In West Bengal and Tripura it participates in the Left Front. In Kerala the party is part of the Left Democratic Front. In Tamil Nadu it was part of the ruling Democratic Progressive Alliance led by the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK). However, it has since withdrawn support.

    Its members in Great Britain are in the electoral front Unity for Peace and Socialism with the Communist Party of Britain and the British domiciled sections of the Communist Party of Bangladesh and the Communist Party of Greece (KKE). It is standing 13 candidates in the London-wide list section of the London Assembly elections in May 2008.[24]

    [edit]The structure

    1. The Politburo (PB)
    2. The Central Committee (CC)
    3. State Committees
    4. District Committees

    [edit]Membership

    CPI(M) 18th Congress rally in Delhi
    CPI(M) rally in Agartala
    A tableaux in a CPI(M) rally inKeralaIndiashowing two farmers forming thehammer and sickle, the most famous communist symbol.

    As of 2004, the party claimed a membership of 867 763.[25]

    State 2001 2002 2003 2004 % of party
    members in
    electorate
    Andhra Pradesh 40785 41879 45516 46742 0.0914
    Assam 10480 11207 11122 10901 0.0726
    Andaman & Nicobar 172 140 124 90 0.0372
    Bihar 17672 17469 16924 17353 0.0343
    Chhattisgarh 1211 1364 1079 1054 0.0077
    Delhi 1162 1360 1417 1408 0.0161
    Goa 172 35 40 67 0.0071
    Gujarat 2799 3214 3383 3398 0.0101
    Haryana 1357 1478 1477 1608 0.0131
    Himachal Pradesh 1005 1006 1014 1024 0.0245
    Jammu & Kashmir 625 720 830 850 0.0133
    Jharkhand 2552 2819 3097 3292 0.0200
    Karnataka 6574 7216 6893 6492 0.0168
    Kerala 301562 313652 318969 316305 1.4973
    Madhya Pradesh 2243 2862 2488 2320 0.0060
    Maharashtra 8545 9080 9796 10256 0.0163
    Manipur 340 330 270 300 0.0195
    Orissa 3091 3425 3502 3658 0.0143
    Punjab 14328 11000 11000 10050 0.0586
    Rajasthan 2602 3200 3507 3120 0.0090
    Sikkim 200 180 65 75 0.0266
    Tamil Nadu 86868 90777 91709 94343 0.1970
    Tripura 38737 41588 46277 51343 2.5954
    Uttaranchal 700 720 740 829 0.0149
    Uttar Pradesh 5169 5541 5477 5877 0.0053
    West Bengal 245026 262882 258682 274921 0.579
    CC staff 96 95 95 87
    Total 796073 835239 843896 867763 0.1292

    [edit]Leadership

    CPI(M) leaders at the 18th party congress

    The current general secretary of CPI(M) is Prakash Karat. The 19th party congress of CPI(M), held in CoimbatoreMarch 29-April 3, 2008 elected a Central Committee with 87 members. The Central Committee later elected a 15-member Politburo:

    The senior most member, V.S. Achuthanandan was removed from the Polit Bureau on July 12, 2009.

    The 19th congress saw the departure of the last two members of the Polit Bureau who had been on the original Polit Bureau in 1964, Harkishen Singh Surjeet and Jyoti Basu.[26]

    [edit]State Committee secretaries

    [edit]The principal mass organizations of CPI(M)

    In Tripura, the Ganamukti Parishad is a major mass organization amongst the tribal peoples of the state. In Kerala the Adivasi Kshema Samithi, a tribal organisation is controlled by CPI(M).

    This apart, on the cultural front as many as 12 major organisations are led by CPI(M).

    [edit]Party publications

    From the Centre, two weekly newspapers are published, People's Democracy (English) and Lok Lehar (Hindi). The central theoretical organ of the party is The Marxist, published quarterly in English.

    [edit]Daily newspapers

    [edit]Weeklies

    [edit]Fortnightlies

    [edit]Monthlies

    [edit]Theoretical publications

    [edit]Publishing houses

    [edit]State governments

    As of 2011, CPI(M) heads the state government in TripuraManik Sarkar is a chief minister belonging to the party. In Tripura, the party has a majority of its own in the state assemblies, but governs together with Left Front partners.

    [edit]Splits and offshoots

    A large number of parties have been formed as a result of splits from the CPI(M), such as Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist),Marxist Communist Party of IndiaMarxist Coordination Committee in JharkhandJanathipathiya Samrakshana SamithyCommunist Marxist Party and BTR-EMS-AKG Janakeeya Vedi in KeralaParty of Democratic Socialism in West BengalJanganotantrik Morcha in Tripura, theRam Pasla group in PunjabOrissa Communist Party in Orissa, etc.

    [edit]Elections

    [edit]Lok-Sabha Elections

    [edit]1967 General Election

    1967 CPI(M) election results
    (seats won / seats contested / seats total / votes / % of total vote)
    Lok Sabha: 19 / 59 / 520 / 6246522 / 4.28%
    Elections to State Legislative Assemblies:
    Andhra Pradesh 9 / 83 / 287 / 1053855 / 7.61%
    Assam 0 / 14 / 126 / 61165 / 1.97%
    Bihar 4 / 32 / 318 / 173656 / 1.28%
    Haryana 0 / 8 / 81 / 16379 / 0.54%
    Himachal Pradesh 0 / 6 / 60 / 3019 / 0.39%
    Kerala 52 / 59 / 133 / 1476456 / 23.51%
    Madhya Pradesh 0 / 9 / 296 / 20728 / 0.23%
    Maharashtra 1 / 11 / 270 / 145083 / 1.08%
    Manipur 0 / 5 / 30 / 2093 / 0.67%
    Mysore 1 / 10 / 216 / 82531 / 1.10%
    Orissa 1 / 10 / 140 / 46597 / 1.16%
    Punjab 3 / 13 / 104 / 138857 / 3.26%
    Rajasthan 0 / 22 / 184 / 79826 / 1.18%
    Tamil Nadu 11 / 22 / 234 / 623114 / 4.07%
    Tripura 2 / 16 / 30 / 93739 / 21.61%
    Uttar Pradesh 1 / 57 / 425 / 272565 / 1.27%
    West Bengal 43 / 135 / 280 / 2293026 / 18.11%

    In the 1967 Lok Sabha elections CPI(M) nominated 59 candidates. In total 19 of them were elected. The party received 6.2 million votes (4.28% of the nationwide vote). By comparison, CPI won 23 seats and got 5.11% of the nation-wide vote. In the state legistative elections held simultaneously, the CPI(M) emerged as a major party in Kerala and West Bengal. In Kerala a United Front government led by E.M.S. Namboodiripad was formed.[29] In West Bengal, CPI(M) was the main force behind theUnited Front government formed. The Chief Ministership was given to Ajoy Mukherjeeof the Bangla Congress (a regional splinter-group of the Indian National Congress).

    [edit]1971 General Election

    Martyrs Column in Haripad, Kerala

    With the backdrop of the Bangladesh War and the emerging role of Indira Gandhi as a populist national leader, the 1971 election to the Lok Sabha was held. CPI(M) contested 85 seats, and won in 25. In total the party mustered 7510089 votes (5.12% of the national vote). 20 of the seats came from West Bengal (including Somnath Chatterjee, elected from Burdwan), 2 from Kerala (including A.K. Gopalan, elected from Trichur), 2 from Tripura (Biren Dutta and Dasarath Deb) and 1 from Andhra Pradesh.[30]

    In the same year, state legislative elections were held in three states; West Bengal, Tamil Nadu and Orissa. In West Bengal CPI(M) had 241 candidates, winning 113 seats. In total the party mustered 4241557 votes (32.86% of the state-wide vote). In Tamil Nadu CPI(M) contested 37 seats, but drew blank. The party got 259298 votes (1.65% of the state-wide vote). In Orissa the party contested 11 seats, and won in two. The CPI(M) vote in the state was 52785 (1.2% of the state-wide vote).[31]

    [edit]1977 General Elections

    In the 1977 Loksabha elections the CPM had fielded its candidtaes on 53 seats scattred around in 14 states and union terretories of India. It won 4.29% of the average votes polled in this election. The party had won 17 seats from West Bengal, 3 from Maharashtra and one each from Orrissa and Punjab. This election was done shortly after the Emergency imposed by the Indira Gandhi and reflected a wide uproar of masses against her draconian rule. An coalition of Opposition parties was formed against the Congress regime, CPI(M) too supported this coalition by not fielding its candidates against the Janta Party.[32]

    [edit]1980 General Elections

    Janta Party coalition didnot last much and two years after since its formation India had faced the 1980's Loksabha Elections. This election had saw an increase in the vote percentage of CPI(M) and the party had bagged more seats then the previous elections. The Party had contested elections in the 15 states and union terretories of India, and fielded its candidates on 64 seats. The party had successfully won 37 seats in total. It has one 28 seats in West Bengal, 7 in Kerala, and 2 seats in Tripura. The party emerged out as the whole sole representative of the people of Tripura in this election.[33]

    [edit]State Assembly Elections

    [edit]1970s, 1980s, 1990s

    In the 1977 election, the CPI(M) gained the majority in the Legislative Assembly of the State ofWest Bengal, defeating the Congress (I). Jyoti Basu became the chief minister of West Bengal, an office he held until his retirement in 2000. The CPI(M) held the majority in the West Bengal government continuously since 1977, which ended in 2011 election.The party also won in Tripura winning 49 of the 60 seats. It has 3 MLAs in Rajasthan assembly. In Bihar it has an alliance with CPI(ML)L and CPI, it has 1 seat in Andhra Pradesh. In Tamil Nadu it has worked for Dalit causes.

    [edit]Presidential Elections

    [edit]2002 Presidential Elections

    In the 2002 Presidential elections, Left Front has announced Captain Lakshmi Sehgal as their Presidential Candidate. Against her was the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party's Candidate APJ Abdul Kalam.[34] CPIM's Leadership has announced that in form of Captain Lakshmi, they are fielding an 'Alternative Candidate'. They said that though it is clear that Captain Lakshmi cant be the President of India because of the opposition of BJP led NDA and Indian National Congress to her, but through this Presidential Election Left wants to raise key national issues, and make them heard to the masses.[35] Captain Lakshmi herself had pointed out that this Presidential election reflects the opposition of the Indian Left to the Communal-Secreterian Politics of BJP and solidarity with the religious minorities who have suffered a lot under the National Democratic Alliance's leadership.[36]
    Captain Lakshmi Sehgal was an Indian Freedom Fighter, who had served as a Commander in the Indian National Army of Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose.

    [edit]2011 Assembly Elections

    The CPI(M) led coalitions lost the assembly elections in Kerala and West Bengal. In Kerala, CPI(M) led Left Democratic Front coalition with 68 seats lost to Indian National Congress led United Democratic Front's 72 seats in a neck to neck fought assembly elections. In West Bengal, CPI(M) alliance with 62 seats suffered a setback after 34 years of continuous rule, losing to Trinamool Congress alliance's 226 seats. Its Chief Minister candidate who is also an incumbent Chief Minister, Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee also lost from his Jadavpur assembly constituency.[37]

    [edit]See also

    [edit]References

    1. a b http://cpim.org/content/pr-dasmunshis-statement
    2. ^ "Political-Organizational Report adopted at the XIXth Congress of the CPI(M) held in Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, March 29-April 23, 2008".
    3. ^ The bulk of the detainees came from the leftwing of CPI. However, cadres of the Socialist Unity Centre of India and theWorkers Party of India were also targeted.[1]
    4. ^ The 32 were P. SundarayyaM. BasavapunniahT. Nagi Reddy,M. Hanumantha RaoD.V. RaoN. Prasad RaoG. Bapanayya,E.M.S. NamboodiripadA.K. GopalanA.V. KunhambuC.H. KanaranE.K. NayanarV.S. Achuthanandan Removed, E.K. ImbichibavaPromode Das GuptaMuzaffar AhmadJyoti Basu,Abdul HalimHare Krishna KonarSaroj MukherjeeP. RamamurthiM.R. VenkataramanN. SankariahK. Ramani,Harkishan Singh SurjeetJagjit Singh LyallpuriD.S. Tapiala, Dr.Bhag SinghSheo Kumar MishraR.N. UpadhyayaMohan Punamiya and R.P. Saraf. Source: Bose, Shanti Shekar; A Brief Note on the Contents of Documents of the Communist Movement in India. Kolkata: 2005, National Book Agency, p. 37.
    5. a b Basu, Pradip. Towards Naxalbari (1953-1967) – An Account of Inner-Party Ideological Struggle. Calcutta: Progressive Publishers, 2000. p. 51.
    6. ^ Suniti Kumar Ghosh was a member of the group that presented this alternative draft proposal. His grouping was one of several left tendencies in the Bengali party branch. Basu, Pradip. Towards Naxalbari (1953-1967) – An Account of Inner-Party Ideological StruggleCalcutta: Progressive Publishers, 2000. p. 32.
    7. ^ Basu, Pradip. Towards Naxalbari (1953-1967) – An Account of Inner-Party Ideological Struggle. Calcutta: Progressive Publishers, 2000. p. 52-54.
    8. a b Basu, Pradip. Towards Naxalbari (1953-1967) – An Account of Inner-Party Ideological Struggle. Calcutta: Progressive Publishers, 2000. p. 54.
    9. ^ Basu, JyotiMemoirs - A Political AutobiographyCalcutta: National Book Agency, 1999. p. 189.
    10. ^ M.V.S. Koteswara Rao. Communist Parties and U./nited Front - Experience in Kerala and West BengalHyderabad: Prajasakti Book House, 2003. p. 17-18
    11. ^ The jailed members of the new CC, at the time of the Calcutta Congress, were B.T. Ranadive, Muzaffar Ahmed, Hare Krishna Konar and Promode Das Gupta. Source: Bose, Shanti Shekar; A Brief Note on the Contents of Documents of the Communist Movement in India. Kolkata: 2005, National Book Agency, p. 44-5.
    12. ^ M.V.S. Koteswara Rao. Communist Parties and United Front - Experience in Kerala and West BengalHyderabad: Prajasakti Book House, 2003. p. 234-235.
    13. ^ According to Basu (in Basu, Pradip; Towards Naxalbari (1953–67) : An Account Of Inner-Party Ideological Struggle. Calcutta: Progressive Publishers, 2000.) there were two nuclei of radicals in the party organisation in West Bengal. One "theorist" section around Parimal Das Gupta in Calcutta, which wanted to persuade the party leadership to correct revisionist mistakes through inner-party debate, and one "actionist" section led by Charu Majumdarand Kanu Sanyal in North Bengal. The 'actionists' were impatient, and strived to organize armed uprisings. According to Basu, due to the prevailing political climate of youth and student rebellion it was the 'actionists' which came to dominate the new Maoist movement in India, instead of the more theoretically advanced sections. This dichotomy is however rebuffed by followers of the radical stream, for example the CPI(ML) Liberation.
    14. ^ On July 1 People's Daily carried an article titled Spring Thunder Over India, expressing the support of CPC to the Naxalbari rebels. At its meeting in Madurai on August 18–27, 1967, the Central Committee of CPI(M) adopted a resolution titled 'Resolution on Divergent Views Between Our Party and the Communist Party of China on Certain Fundamental Issues of Programme and Policy'. Source: Bose, Shanti Shekar; A Brief Note on the Contents of Documents of the Communist Movement in India. Kolkata: 2005, National Book Agency, p. 46.
    15. ^ This press statement was reproduced in full in the central CPI(M) publication, People's Democracy, on June 30. P. Sundarayya and M. Basavapunniah, acting on behalf of the Polit Bureau of CPI(M), formulated a response to the statement on June 16, titled 'Rebuff the Rebels, Uphold Party Unity'. Source: Bose, Shanti Shekar; A Brief Note on the Contents of Documents of the Communist Movement in India. Kolkata: 2005, National Book Agency, p. 48.
    16. ^ Some perceive that the Chinese leadership severely misjudged the actual conditions of different Indian factions at the time, giving their full support to the Majumdar-Sanyal group whilst keeping the Andhra Pradesh radicals (that had a considerable mass following) at distance.
    17. ^ Dalits and land issues
    18. ^ Untitled-1
    19. ^ officialwebsite of kerala.gov.in
    20. ^ Indian National Congress had won 55 seats, Bangla Congress 33 and CPI 30. CPI(M) allies also won several seats.ECI: Statistical Report on the 1969 West Bengal Legislative Election
    21. ^ Bose, Shanti Shekar; A Brief Note on the Contents of Documents of the Communist Movement in India. Kolkata: 2005, National Book Agency, p. 56-59
    22. ^ The same is also true for the Workers Party of Bangladesh, which was formed in 1980 when BCP(L) merged with other groups. Although politically close, WPB can be said to have a more Maoist-oriented profile than CPI(M).
    23. ^ article in The Hindu, 9 July 2008: Left meets President, hands over letter of withdrawal
    24. ^ Unity For Peace and Socialism homepage
    25. ^ Membership figures fromhttp://www.cpim.org/pd/2005/0403/04032005_membership.htm. Electorate numbers taken fromhttp://www.eci.gov.in/SR_KeyHighLights/LS_2004/Vol_I_LS_2004.pdf.Puducherry is counted as part of Tamil Nadu, Chandigarh counted as part of Punjab.
    26. ^ "Nine to none, founders' era ends in CPM"The Telegraph(Calcutta), April 3, 2008.
    27. ^ List of State Secretaries
    28. ^ Janashakti has replaced the previous CPI(M) organ in Karnataka,Ikyaranga
    29. ^ In Kerala the United Front consisted, at the time of the election, of Communist Party of India (Marxist), the Communist Party of India, the Muslim League, the Revolutionary Socialist Party, the Karshaka Thozhilali Party and the Kerala Socialist Party.[2]
    30. ^ ECI: Statistical Report on the 1971 Lok Sabha Election
    31. ^ ECI: Statistical Report on the 1971 Orissa Legislative ElectionECI: Statistical Report on the 1971 Tamil Nadu Legislative ElectionECI: Statistical Report on the 1971 West Bengal Legislative Election
    32. ^ 1977 general elections ECI Report
    33. ^ 1980 General Elections ECI Report
    34. ^ Story in The Hindu
    35. ^ Sitaram Yechury on 2002 Presidential Elections
    36. ^ Captain Lakshmi's Interview
    37. ^ http://www.ndtv.com/elections/index.php

    [edit]External links

    [edit]Party related websites

    [edit]Party publications

    [edit]Articles

    /photo.cms?msid=8325219


    No comments: