Buddha dare not speak here: 75 strikes in Kerala already this year and losing count

West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee’s remark against bandhs may be politically very incorrect for his comrades but, factually, it couldn’t have been more accurate.

Ask Rodiya, the mother stranded at the Thiruvananthapuram railway station barely eight days ago when Left unions called a 24-hour hartal — not a bandh since bandhs were effectively banned by the Kerala High Court in 1997 against the “economic policies of the Centre.”

Rodiya, from Kottayam, got the news that her five-year-old son had died. Roads being blocked, she rushed to the railway station where citing the “neoliberal” policies of the Centre, a group of comrades squatted on the tracks. Her tears were of little help. Kottayam is barely three hours away from Thiruvananthapuram but Rodiya reached her home only late evening and that, too, under police protection.

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Terror holds Jammu family hostage in 17 hour gunbattle

After weeks of being on the boil over the Amarnath land issue, Jammu was gripped with fear today after at least three militants, suspected to have sneaked in from Pakistan yesterday, killed four persons, including an Army junior commissioned officer, and held eight persons — four children, their mother and grandmother and two men — hostage for over 17 hours in a house on the outskirts of the city. The men were the children’s tutor and a neighbour.

The gunbattle between security forces and the militants, which began around 6 am in Chinnore barely 20 km from the international border — ended around 11 pm tonight when the last of the three militants, according to Jammu SSP Manohar Singh, was shot dead.

According to a jawan who went into the house around midnight, the children were said to be safe while one “male” was dead and another man had bullet injuries in the leg. Both women were safe — the grandmother escaped in the morning and the mother came out of the house after the encounter.

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To clear Mamata’s block, Buddha may hike land rate

Underlining that he was committed to the reforms that he has been pushing in his state, West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee indicated here today that he’s ready with an economic “package” for those farmers of Singur whose refusal to accept land compensation has put a cloud over the Tata Motors’ Nano plant.

“There are some genuine farmers who still do not want to give their land,” Bhattacharjee told members of Assocham and local chambers. “The government has a moral responsibility for them. The government is ready with a package for them and we are ready to discuss that package.”

Sources said the “package” would include enhanced financial compensation for Singur farmers. It would benefit all land losers those who have accepted their compensation cheques and those who haven’t and is said to cost an extra Rs 30-40 crore. Bhattacharjee said the government had deposited the unclaimed compensation amount estimated at about Rs 28 crore with the Calcutta High Court.

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Railways reaches higher, sets world record

At the onset, it was viewed as a move essentially aimed at ensuring the smooth flow of a multi-crore loan from Japan for the western section of its ambitious Dedicated Freight Corridor (DFC). It has instead made Indian Railways set an unexpected world record, one which it is now planning to get certified by the Guinness Book of World Records.

The Railway Ministry’s decision to conduct field trials to ascertain whether double-stack container trains can run under Over Head Equipment (OHE) has made it the only railway in the world to run a train under a 7.45-metre-high contact wire.

The successful trial has already made Railway Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav announce a Rs 10-lakh award for the electrical directorate officials. The trial has also led the ministry to seriously consider the move to electrify the 1,483-km-long Western DFC, which in turn, will ensure faster and smoother processing of the Japanese loan.

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Amar Singh by her side, Mamata to Tatas: stay, but return 400 acres

On Day One of her party’s siege of the Tana Nano factory in Singur, Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee asked the Tatas not to leave Bengal but “be satisfied” with 600 acres of land. Identifying 500 acres just opposite the Nano factory, she proposed that ancillary units be shifted there.

The dharna near the factory gate was peaceful and Banerjee was joined, among others, by SP general secretary Amar Singh and activist Medha Patkar.

“I would urge the Tatas not to leave Bengal. Stay here, be satisfied with 600 acres. Please return 400 acres to the farmers or else we will continue to sit here and agitate,” Banerjee told a huge gathering of party workers and supporters.

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Judges must return today or I go: Sharif

Pakistan’s fledgling coalition government was plunged into crisis today after former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif threatened to pull out unless judges sacked by former President Pervez Musharraf were not reinstated by tomorrow.

Sharif, who heads the PML(N), the second largest constituent of the coalition, said, “If the judges are not restored we will perhaps be forced to sit in the opposition. We will not try to bring the government down. But, of course, then we have no choice but sit in the opposition.”

The PML(N)’s coalition with Asif Ali Zardari’s Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) “came into being on the basis that democracy would be strengthened and judges restored”, Sharif said.

“And, of course, we would restore the Constitution as it stood before Musharraf overthrew an elected government,” he added.

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One test, top faculty, extra perks: 14 ‘World Class University’ blueprint ready

An all-India common entrance examination, a student-count not exceeding 12,000, the best of faculty with incentives over and above regular pay, a curriculum revised every three years, a semester system, private sector funding, vice-chancellors with at least decade-long teaching experience, collaboration with universities and institutes in India and abroad, academic creativity free from red tapism — all this and more will go into the making of 14 World Class Universities (WCUs) very shortly.

And these sweeping changes are also likely to be applied to all existing universities and 16 Central universities that have recently been approved by the Cabinet. What will change, however, is the nomenclature for the 14 WCUs. Officials say these are now likely to be christened National Universities and the related legislation will be called the National Universities Act.

The basic blueprint for the WCUs has been formulated by the University Grants Commission(UGC) and the first round of discussions, held in New Delhi today, involved academicians, experts, officials from the Human Resource Development Ministry, UGC and Planning Commission.

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Day after Musharraf goes, Pakistan army chief meets NATO in Kabul

Pakistan’s army chief rushed to neighbouring Afghanistan for meetings Tuesday, the day after Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf announced his resignation, Afghan officials said.

Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani spoke with President Hamid Karzai over the phone in Kabul on Tuesday, three officials told The Associated Press. Kayani’s visit was striking in that even Afghanistan’s top leadership did not know he was coming, officials said.

During his visit to Afghanistan, Kayani was to have met with the commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan, Gen. David McKiernan, though NATO officials would not immediately confirm that.

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Pakistan, Khuda Hafiz

Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf resigned from office today to avoid impeachment charges, nearly nine years after he seized power in a coup.

“No impeachment, no charge sheet can stand against me. Nothing can be proved against me. This much confidence I have. But I think this is not the time for individual bravado... this is the time for serious thought... After reviewing the situation and consulting legal advisers and political allies and on their advice, I have decided to resign... Whatever I did was for the people and for the country... I hope the nation and the people will forgive my mistakes,” said a grim-faced Musharraf in a televised address.

Tears welling in his eyes, he gazed at the draft of the speech and signed off “Pakistan, Khuda Hafiz”.

Celebrations broke out instantly in streets across the country. If “Banda number do, Amreeka ja kay ro, wardi la kay dho” had been doing the rounds ever since he sacked judges last year, his resignation had detractors chanting “Mukk gaya tera show (your show is over), go Musharraf go”.

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All eyes on Bhiwani boys, families recall hard-fought bouts

India waits fingers-crossed for three boxers to make it to the medals category of the Beijing Olympics — Akhil Kumar will try to box his way into the bantamweight semifinal on Monday evening and then all eyes will be on his young team-mates Vijender Kumar and Jitender Kumar. But in Bhiwani, which is already being called the Cuba of India, the man who coached all three is not surprised. On Sunday, 47-year-old Jagdish Singh boarded an early morning bus to Gurgaon to watch a batch of under-14 pupils perform at a school-level boxing competition.

Shouldn’t he have been in Beijing with his boys? Jagdish Singh simply shrugs. “The authorities took some half-a-dozen coaches, but nobody asked me. I talk to my boys daily and am seeing their performances on television. The authorities don’t think much of me anyways. Not long ago, they had lambasted my methods and told me to understand what the Olympics are, before preparing boys for it.”

However, it is the not the first time that vindication has come the way of this Sports Authority of India coach who has harnessed Bhiwani’s endemic talent for boxing to such an extent that four of the five members of the Indian boxing contingent at the Olympics are his pupils.

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