Gujjar agitation affects rail, road traffic

The agitation by the Gujjar community, led by Kirori Singh Bainsla , entered the second day on Tuesday disrupting road and rail traffic in Bharatpur district of Rajasthan. 
The authorities have diverted several trains and stopped buses on two routes, official sources said. 
Janshatabdi express and Jamunabridge express have been cancelled while movement of two dozen other trains has been affected in the Bharatpur-Sawaimadhopur section, they said. 
A Rajasthan State Road Transport Corporation official said that buses on the Hindaun-Bayana and Hindaun-Bharatpur routes have been stopped due to the agitation. 
Security forces have been deployed in Pilukapur area as the agitators are camping at the Delhi-Mumbai rail tracks near the region, a senior police official said. 
"Additional forces of Reserved Armed Constabulary, Railway Protection Force and Government Railway Police have been deployed for the security of railway stations, rail tracks and nearby areas," the official said. 
The Gujjars led by Bainsla started an agitation yesterday in Bharatpur district to press for their demand for reservation for the community, even as the Gehlot government stated that it would try to solve the issue through talks.

Priya Dutt attacks Raj Thackeray over migrant remark

Congress MP Priya Dutt on Monday described MNS Chief Raj Thackeray's comments accusing migrants for spread of malaria in Mumbai as an attempt at "making a mockery" of the whole issue.

"This is not a scientific explanation about the spread of malaria. The mosquitoes are not selective about whom they bite or do not bite. His comments make a mockery of the whole thing," she told reporters.

Dutt said the plight of Mumbaiites due to malaria was "very sad" and accused the government hospitals of lacking in proper treatment facilities to deal with the crisis.

"The problem is to be attributed to the Bombay Municipal Corporation for the problems being faced by the people. Action has to be taken. It is a serious matter," Dutt said.

Thackeray had said the migrants to Maharashtra were responsible for the spread of malaria and they had flooded the hospitals leaving no space for patients who hailed from the state.

Several areas of Mumbai are affected after the onset of monsoon in the state.

Modi aide Amit Shah arrested by CBI in Sohrabuddin case

After eluding the CBI for four days, former Gujarat minister Amit Shah, a close aide of Narendra Modi, on Sunday surrendered before the probe agency which arrested him in Sohrabuddin Sheikh fake encounter case after he made a dramatic appearance at a BJP media briefing.

46-year-old Shah, who resigned from the Modi government on Saturday following a charge sheet being filed against him, turned up at the BJP office in Ahmedabad, where he denied all the charges against him. He then drove to the office of the CBI which arrested him and produced him before Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate A Y Dave here.

Surprisingly, the CBI did not press for custody of Shah, who has been charged with murder, extortion, kidnapping and five other sections under IPC for the killing of Sohrabuddin and his wife Kausar Bi in 2005. He was remanded by the magistrate in judicial custody for 13 days till August 7.

"I have full faith in the judiciary and I am sure the allegations against me will be cleared by the courts," Shah said after he appeared during a press conference called by state BJP president R C Faldu at the BJP headquarters in Ahmedabad, ending the suspense of his whereabouts since Thursday when he was first summoned by the CBI.

Shah claimed that he was innocent and said that charges against him were "fabricated, politically motivated and were on the instruction of Congress government" and demanded that his entire questioning by the CBI should be video-graphed.

Later Shah went to the CBI office in Gandhinagar. Waving to the mediapersons after alighting from his car, he found that officers of the probe agency were waiting for him.

"The CBI officials told Shah that they will take him straight to the court to which he agreed," BJP leader Vijay Rupani, who accompanied Shah, said.

The BJP slammed Shah's arrest accusing the central government of misusing the CBI, an allegation dismissed by the Congress which said that the probe agency would not risk the wrath of the Supreme Court by levelling false charges.

"Do you think CBI is full of a bunch of fools who will risk their entire career by making false allegations, non-existing allegations which are going to be examined by the Supreme Court," Congress spokesman Abhishek Manu Singhvi said.

On Shah's claims that he was being arrested under false allegations by the CBI, he accused the BJP leader of trying to "fool the country" by making such remarks.

"Charge sheet is not made overnight. Charge sheet is a collection of evidence.... Here over five-six months of investigation the CBI has got enough evidence against Amit Shah," Singhvi said.

The party said Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi should also be prepared to face some "uncomfortable" questions in the probe.

Backing Shah, the BJP accused the CBI of working in a partisan manner by targeting Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh, where it has governments, and ignoring the Andhra Pradesh angle in the Sohrabuddin case as the Congress is in power in that state.

"Sohrabuddin Sheikh was a terrorist from whose premises in Indore nearly 300 AK-47s were recovered. He used to operate an inter-state gang.

"Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat are under CBI radar but the Andhra Pradesh angle (in the fake encounter case) is not being investigated at all as Congress is in power there," BJP chief spokesperson Ravi Shankar Prasad said.

The CBI, which took over the investigation of fake encounter case in January this year on the orders of Supreme Court, had sent two summons to Shah on Thursday, but he did not appear before the agency and went underground.

The CBI on Friday filed a chargesheet in the special court charging him with section 302 (murder), 120 B (conspiracy), 341 (wrongful restraint), 342 (wrongful confinement, 364, 365 and 368 (all related to kidnapping), 384 (extortion) and 201 (disappearance of evidence) of IPC, according to a CBI spokesman said in Delhi.

Before his arrest, Shah said,"The incident happened five years back. But the CBI acted in such haste that they did not even give me enough time to reply. I will respond to all the charges and will expose the people who are behind bringing of these allegations.

"This is a ploy of the Congress government to carry out our political encounter as the party has not come to power in Gujarat for the last 20 years. I have full faith in the judiciary, people of Gujarat and BJP workers. I will fight the legal battle in the court of law and the party will fight the political battle at political level," the BJP leader said.

Shah said, "Congress leaders are saying that Sohrabuddin was a petty criminal. It was Sohrabuddin from whose house more than 40 AK-47, 100 hand grenades and ammunition worth Rs 1 lakh were recovered. He was wanted by the police of five states and he had 40 cases against him.

"When the army of Pakistan will come then only they might think that they are criminals. Nation is not safe in the hands of Congress," Shah said.

Shah, who is elected from Sarkhej constituency and had been minister of state for home in the Modi government since 2002, also said that the Chief Minister should not be dragged into the issue.

"There is no need to drag Chief Minister Narendra Modi into this issue," he said reply to a reporter's query.

Modi, who was in New Delhi yesterday to attend a meeting of the National Development Council (NDC), had said that Shah was "completely innocent" and that the charges against him were "politically motivated".

Teams of CBI had been searching for Shah and other accused at various locations after the filing of the charge sheet against them. Shah's anticipatory bail plea was rejected by the Special CBI Court on Friday.

The charge sheet has named Shah as a key accused along with IPS officers D G Vanzara, Rajkumar Pandian, M N Dinesh and Abhay Chudasama. In all, 15 accused have been named.

According to the charge sheet, it was Shah who had entrusted the task of eliminating Sheikh, an alleged gangster, to Vanzara, Pandia and Chudasama. Sheikh was killed in an encounter near here on November 26, 2005.

Earlier, state BJP president R C Faldu alleged that Shah, who was "totally innocent", had been "falsely implicated" in the case for which CBI has been "misused".

"We know that Congress governments have had the habit of disturbing non-Congress governments in states. We feel that the Congress is afraid of the support JD(U), BJP and its allies have in poll-bound Bihar," he said.

In a reply to a question on where he was during the last couple of days, Shah shot back, "I was at the residence of one of the friends like you journalists.

"As far as the question of issuing summons is concerned, it was done as if I am an absconder and a known criminal. I was not given time as on July 22, the first summons was issued at 11 AM asking me to appear before them (CBI) at 1 PM," Shah said.

"On the same day another summons was issued asking me to come before 1 PM of July 22 giving me no time to have legal consultations about the five-year-old case," Shah said.

He termed the CBI's move to summon him as a drama saying the agency had already prepared 30,000 page charge sheet in the case.

"How can they file the charge sheet showing me as an accused in just couple of hours after expiry of deadline for my appearance before them?" he asked.

Shah rose from being a district level worker to one of the most powerful men in BJP due to his proximity to Modi.

A science graduate, Shah was first entrusted with the responsibility of BJP's Yuva Morcha by Modi some 20 years ago.

Shah replaced Haren Pandya as minister of state for home in 2002.

BJP Said Congress Disrespecting Muslims

 BJP on Tuesday said Congress was "shedding crocodile tears" over Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru's conviction and accused it of raising the issue of Hindu and Muslim terror to deflect attention from "real terrorism".

"BJP and our president Nitin Gadkari have only placed the common belief on the Afzal Guru case before the people. But the Congress is shedding Afzali (sic) tears and in the process disrespecting the patriotism of crores of Indian Muslims. No Muslim in India supports terror," party vice-president Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi said.

Gadkari had created a controversy recently when he asked the Congress whether Afzal was its "son-in-law" and this was preventing it from hanging him. BJP has often accused Congress of delaying Afzal's hanging for minority appeasement.

Naqvi said while on one hand the Congress and its leaders, Sonia Gandhi and Rahul, were maintaining a "conspicuous silence" on the Afzal case, on the other some of their leaders were raising the "bogey" of Hindu and Muslim terror.

"Unfortunately, the Congress is bent on deflecting attention from real terrorism and its all round failure in controlling separatists, naxals and terrorists by raising such issues," Naqvi said.

BJP and the Sangh Parivar have been on the backfoot ever since the names of some RSS activists have figured in the list of suspects in the Mecca Masjid and other blast cases.

When asked about Congress General Secretary Digvijay Singh's comments against Gadkari, Naqvi said, "Congress leaders should be concerned about their party. We never asked them why they could not get a president from India and had to import one from abroad. What has been her contribution till now?"

He alleged that Congress' attitude towards Gadkari was a "sign of fear" in their minds about the BJP President.

The Rajya Sabha MP also questioned the Congress as to why it felt that hanging Afzal Guru would create a law and order problem in the country.

"By labelling the call against terrorism as a call against Muslims, the Congress is disrespecting crores of Muslims," he said.

Naxalism : Only Military Solution Left

With the ongoing menace of Naxalism, I think only Military solution is left to sort out this issue. It is quite evident with the recent killings and violent activities of naxalists that they are least interested in talks with the government and in a way they have given their answer that they will not talk. They have also shown that they want to achieve their aims (whatever their aims are ) with the help of armed movements, so why not talk to them in their language.

I don't know why after Flop Show of Operation Greenhunt, our government is not going for a military solution. Though our ministers have indicated military solution to be the last resort, so what else they are waiting for. 

Our ineffective CRPF is proving to be a bait for naxalists. Let me clarify here that I am not blaming CRPF personals, I know their conditions and meager facilities that are provided to them. But we cant wait to first strengthen CRPF and then fight naxals. We have already been late in solving this issue.  

Bharat Bandh - A FOOLS Parade

Bharat Bandh that was observed on 5th July 2010 was nothing but a Political drama and those who followed it indulged themselves in a Fool's Parade. The hike in fuel prices that resulted due to central government's move to end curbs on petroleum pricing in order to tame the huge fiscal deficit, is in fact a brave decision towards building a better future for India.

Bharat Bandh resulted in a total loss of over Rs. 13,000 crore in a single day. I don't know which social and political unity they are talking about. Even after this hike central government will still be burdening Rs. 53,000 crore and add another 13,000 to that figure which this stupid Bandh caused. If they really care (as they pretend) for the burden on poor, they should indulge themselves in a serious debate with the government rather than going for a bandh. This bandh was not observed for the poor, it was just a political stunt aimed at gaining publicity and votes.

BJP as a leading opposition party was already feeling shortage of issues that could be raised against. They found this issue and tried to cash it as much as possible and the sad part of story is that they succeeded in doing so.

We must realize one fact that this decision of government could result in its downfall in the next tenure, but still they are firm on their decision and are not rolling the hike back. It is a brave decision and we all should respect it, rather than being motivated in a senseless Bandh.

Now lets have a look on some facts that resulted in this hike.

• Our Fiscal deficit soared to Rs. 3.5 lakh crore in the year 2010.
• Our earnings stood at Rs. 4.34 lakh crore in January 2010.
• And our expenditure stood at Rs. 7.83 lakh crore.

The rise in fuel prices will help reduce fiscal deficits. If we don't pay them now, deficit will soar up and we will have to pay them later and that will be quite difficult for us.

So paying a little today would ensure that we don't have to pay heavily later. I pledge to all of you to not participate in senseless Bandhs.

Comments are invited for a healthy discussion on this topic.

Forget Pakistan Can we Trust KASHMIRIS

India is a sleeping country. It never shows enthusiasm or aggression even towards some potential threats like KASHMIRIS. History teaches us that the terrorists get full support of Kashmiri's locales, and even youths of Kashmir take proud to become Fidayeen .

I don't know why our country is not even concerned over this issue. Indian forces should be more strict towards Kashmiris, they should all be thoroughly scrutinized. It is a fact that no external terrorists can succeed in their deed without internal support. We must ensure that we eliminate this internal support. And yes stop trusting Kashmiris.

India is a "Peaceful" country, and we have seen an example of that in 1972 war, where our Great Indian Army captured Lahore, but due to our peaceful nature we came back. Had India not been that peaceful, Pakistan would have been fighting with India for Lahore today.

If India doesn't take stringent actions, it will not be showing it's peaceful nature rather it will show India's IMPOTENCE.