large turnout in bengal's maoist heartland for panchayat polls · pdf filealias kishenji...

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People removing to safety the fire brigade personnel who were in-jured while trying to quell a major fire at Jammu and Kashmir civil secre-tariat in Srinagar.

Information and Broadcasting Minister Manish Tewari briefing mediapersonnel after the Cabinet meeting in New Delhi.

Union Commerce Minister Anand Sharmameeting United Nations Secretary-General BanKi-Moon at the UN Secretariat in New York

Large turnout in Bengal's Maoistheartland for panchayat polls

Kolkata, With helicopters hov-

er ing above, peopleturned out in large num-bers in West Bengal'sMaoist heartland in thefirst phase of the stag-gered five-leg panchayatpolls Thursday.

The polling took placein the three districts ofBankura, Purulia andWest Midnapore that formthe belt - also calledJunglemahal for its largeforest tracts - whereMaoists once held sway tillthe death of rebel fieldgeneral Koteswar Raoalias Kishenji late 2011.

Officials described thepolls as "more or lesspeaceful", though opposi-tion parties alleged "ram-pant" booth-capturing and

violence by the rulingTrinamool Congress.

Chief Minister MamataBanerjee expressed satis-faction over the "peacefulvoting".

A State Election Com-mission (SEC) official putthe voter turnout at 65percent in Bankura, 60percent in Purulia and 65percent in WestMidnapore respectively till5 p.m., the scheduled timefor voting to end.

However, with hun-dreds of people waiting inqueues in many of the10,203 seats in the three-tier panchayat bodiesspread across the threedistricts, polling could con-tinue till 10 p.m.

"The elections weremore or less peaceful,

though we received sev-eral complaints about vio-lence and problems in vot-ing," the SEC official said.

He said re-pollingmight be ordered in fourbooths - three in Sabong(West Midnapore) andanother in Saltora(Bankura).

There were no arrests,but one person, said to bea Congress activist, wascritically injured when hetook an arrow in his chestduring violent clashes atSabong in WestMidnapore district.

The victim, DipankarGhosh, has been shiftedto SSKM Hospital inKolkata with the arrow stillstuck in his chest.

Long queues wereseen before the booths

through the day.Helicopters kept vigil

from the skies, and 15,000paramilitary troopers and35,000 state police per-sonnel including comman-dos and elite anti-insur-gency force STRACOwere on duty to maintainorder and peace.

Altogether 25,749 can-didates are in fray for8,273 gram panchayat,1,799 panchayat samitiand 151 zilla parishadseats in the three districts.

Left Front chairmanBiman Bose said pollinghas been "one-sided" inseveral areas, and ac-cused the Trinamool of at-tempts to rig the polls,par ticular ly in WestMidnapore.The Congressalleged "rampant" booth

captur ing in WestMidnapore and Bankura,as well as attacks on itsworkers and supporters.

Congress leaderAbdul Mannan claimed atleast 15 Congress sup-porters, including threewomen, were injured inattacks by "Trinamool-patronised goons".

"In many booths, thecentral secur ity forceswere nowhere to be seenand the state police havebeen mere spectators.Despite the incidents, noarrests have been madeso far. The state govern-ment has been defying theSEC's recommendationsintentionally, turning thepolls into a farce," addedMannan.The ruling partylater credited itself for "es-tablishing democracy inthe once dreadedJunglemahal".

"It's the credit of thestate government thatpolling has been peacefulin Junglemahal wherepeople were once afraid ofeven talking. We havebeen able to win backpeople's faith in democ-racy which had erodedduring the erstwhile re-gime," Trinamool generalsecretary Mukul Roy said.

Already, 1,735 candi-dates have won uncon-tested, of whom 1,706 arefrom the Trinamool, in thethree districts.

CPI-M accuses Trinamool ofrigging polls in West Midnapore

Kolkata,West Bengal's opposi-

tion Left Front Thursday ac-cused the ruling TrinamoolCongress of indulging in rig-ging across extensive areasof West Midnapore andparts of Bankura districts inphase one of state

panchayat polls.LF chairman and Com-

munist Party of India-Marx-ist state secretary BimanBose also attacked thestate government of notadhering to the State Elec-tion Commission's direc-tives banning motor bikebrigades during campaign-ing and on deployment ofcentral security forces.

Speaking to the me-dia, Bose alleged that theTrinamool sponsored mis-creants had rigged 31booths in Pingla, 19 inSalboni, 33 in Daspur, 79in Ghatal and all booths inIshwar ChandraVidyasagar's birthplaceBirsingha in WestMidnapore district.

"They captured 13booths at Debra, 43 inDanton, 36 in Mohanpur,all booths in both grampanchayats ofChandrakona. Fifty boothswere captured inGoaltore, 43 in MidnaporeSardar, and majority ofbooths in Keshpur,Salboni, Debgram, whereLF agents were driven out.Elections were also riggedin Garbeta," alleged Bose.

In Bankura, Trinamoolactivists removed pollingagents and rigged votes inBishnupur and Joypur. "InMejisa, they capturedeven booths.""The elec-tions were held in an at-mosphere of terror. Butdespite the reign of terror,in Purulia district peoplehave cast their votes. Vot-ing went on normally de-

spite the absence of cen-tral forces," he said.

He said two CPI-Msupporters were injured inattacks by the Trinamoolactivists.

Bose said despite theEC's ban on using motorcycle brigades in cam-paigning, such rallies havebeen taken out.

He also criticised thestate government for notdeploying central paramili-tary troopers in many ar-eas whereas the forceswere seen "roamingaround in far-flungplaces".

"Central force has notbe used in the proper wayin many areas...whereasin some areas they wereseen roaming around. InBankura, for example, nocentral forces were de-ployed. They were roam-ing around in far-offplaces," said Bose.

In the first phase, thepolls were held in thethree Maoist-hit districts ofWest Midnapore, Bankuraand Purulia, under inten-sive secur ity arrange-ments with helicopterskeeping vigil from the airand 15,000 central para-military troopers requisi-tioned for the elections.

"No member of anypolitical party or any out-sider can cast vote for oth-ers in this manner. But inJaldah, this has hap-pened. It is customary forthe polling personnel tocarry out necessary ac-tions." Bose added.

SC to examine engineeringadmission policy, rights link

New Delhi, The Supreme Court Thursday said it would

examine whether a change in the policy for ad-mission to 30 National Institutes of Technology(NITs) violated the fundamental rights of stu-dents seeking admission.

Refusing to pass any interim order seekingthe quashing of the "normalisation procedure"for admission to the NITs, a bench of JusticeH.L. Dattu and Justice Dipak Misra said the courtwill consider whether the government's educa-tion policy could be challenged in public inter-est litigation invoking Article 32 of the constitu-tion.

Holding that the policy makers should havethe freedom to experiment and that it did notintend to interfere with the government's admis-sion policy for the NITs, the court issued noticeto the central government and the Central Boardof Secondary Education (CBSE) only on thepoint whether the admission policy could bechallenged under the article.

Article 32 of the constitution provides for theright to move the Supreme Court by appropri-ate proceedings for the enforcement of the rightsconferred under part III of the constitution enun-ciating fundamental rights.

Appearing for the aggrieved students, se-nior counsel U.U. Lalit told the court the depart-ment of higher education by its notification ofAug 14, 2012, had clearly specified that thatthe admission to NITs would be based on a "nor-malization procedure".

Under this, 40 percent weightage was givenfor a student's performance in Class 12 boardexamination and 60 percent weightage wasgiven to the performance in the joint entranceexamination (main).

Struggle against Kudankulam n-plant to continue: AgitatorsChennai,

The People's Move-ment Against Nuclear En-ergy (PMANE) Thursdaysaid it would continue itsstruggle against the set-ting up of KudankulamNuclear Power Project(KNPP) in Tamil Nadu, ona day when the atomicenergy regulator gave itsnod for the first reactor tostart fission process.

In a statement, thePMANE's struggle com-mittee said: "Since thenuclear authorities haveignored the peoples' sen-timents and interests, theNDMA's (National Disas-ter Management Author-ity) disaster guidelines,and the Supreme Court'srecommendations, ourstruggle against theKKNPP (KNPP) will con-tinue unabated."

The statement re-called Atomic EnergyRegulatory Board's(AERB) Aug 10, 2012clearance to KNPP for"first approach to critical-ity" (to begin the fissionprocess in a nuclear reac-tor for the first time).

"The AERB is sup-posed to submit a reportto the Supreme Courtalong with the NPCIL

(Nuclear Power Corpora-tion of India Ltd), MoEF(Ministry of Environmentand Forests) and TNPCB(Tamil Nadu PollutionControl Board). Only theTNPCB has submitted itsreport with many rejoin-ders," said the PMANE'sstruggle committee.

"In a true democracy,the reports must beshared with the petitionerand with the larger publicand must be debatedopenly and earnestly. Butthis AERB clearance de-fies the spirit of democ-racy...," the statementadded.

According to the state-ment, KNPP is yet to com-ply with several importantlegal and safety measuressuch as CRZ (CoastalRegulation Zone) clear-ance for the desalinationplants, effluent outletpipes and so on.

"We have all the clear-ances including for thedesalination plant," R.S.Sundar, site director,KNPP, told IANS.

India's atomic powerplant operator NPCIL issetting up the project inKudankulam in Tirunelvelidistrict, around 650 kmfrom Chennai, with two

Russian-made reactors of1,000 MW each.

The KNPP is an out-come of the inter-govern-mental agreement be-tween India and the erst-while Soviet Union in1988. However, construc-tion began only in 2001.

Fearing for their safetyin the wake of the nuclearaccident in Fukushima inJapan in 2011, villagers inthe vicinity of theKudankulam plant, under

the PMANE banner havebeen opposing theproject.City-based envi-ronmental activist G.Sundarrajan had filed acase in the apex courtdemanding the KNPP bescrapped. The court dis-missed the case in Mayand laid down 15 direc-tions for the NPCIL, theAERB, the central andTamil Nadu governmentsand the state pollutioncontrol board to follow.

WESTERN TIMES AHMEDABADSATURDAY, JULY 13, 2013

Sense of shock and concern inMyanmar over Bodh Gaya blasts

New Delhi, The July 7 terror at-

tack in Bodh Gaya led toa "sense of shock andsense of concern" inMyanmar on whether theserial bombings were re-lated to the sectarian vio-lence between RohingyaMuslims and Buddhists inthat country, said an offi-cial source here.

The Myanmarese gov-ernment were concernedabout what the bombings

meant, and if they wererelated to the develop-ments in Myanmar or itwas an act of terror, saidthe source.

India has assuredMyanmar it will keep it in-formed of the probe intothe terror bombings.

India has also in-formed Myanmar that itwould like to see BodhGaya, where the Buddhais believed to have at-tained enlightenment, as

a "very special place ofpeace and pilgrimage",said the source.

The Myanmar authori-ties had also raised withIndia the issue of injuriesto a Myanmarese nationalin the blast last Sunday.

Indian intell igenceagencies had reportedlyalerted the Bihar govern-ment about the possibilityof terror attacks from"fringe elements" sympa-thetic to the RohingyaMuslims, scores of whohave been killed and thou-sands forced to fleeMyanmar due to the per-secution in the Buddhist-majority country.

The Myanmar govern-ment is carrying forwardthe "process of integra-tion" in society, the sourcesaid, adding that "in a tan-gential way they are con-scious of the need to ad-dress the issue and aredoing it".The Bodh Gayablasts left two people, in-cluding a Myanmaresemonk, injured.

'Indian, Chinese troops wereface-to-face in Chumar June 17'

New Delhi, Indian and Chinese forces were "face-to-face" in

the Chumar sector of Ladakh after Chinese troopstransgressed into the Indian side on June 17 due to"differing perceptions" of the boundary, an officialsource said.

The Chinese forces returned to their normal posi-tions afterwards, the source said. The Chumar sectoris located about 200 km from Depsang where the April15 intrusion by Chinese troops had taken place.

There are some "sensitivities involved due to dif-fering perceptions" of the Line of Actual Control in thisarea. The Chinese troops "did transgress and did goback after a face-to-face", the source added.

Court dismissesDU teachers' plea

New Delhi, The Delhi High Court

Thursday dismissed thepetition a group of DelhiUniversity teachers chal-lenging the implementa-tion of the semester sys-tem in the undergraduatecourses, saying the courtswere "ill-equipped" to ar-rive at a decision on theissue.

A division bench ofActing Chief Justice B.D.Ahmed and Justice VeenaBirbal sid: "We have con-sciously not been drawninto the debate as towhether the semester sys-tem is more appropriatethan the annual system orvice-versa. The reason forthis is clear. The courts areill-equipped to commenton such matters or arriveat value judgments."

"These are matters forexperts in the field of edu-cation. We have examinedthe matters from thestandpoint of law andhave reached the conclu-sion that the writ petitionsare liable to be dis-missed," the benchadded.