| Strike call in West Bengal by Naxalite outfit |
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The communist-ruled government of West Bengal is bracing to face a strike called Monday by a Naxalite outfit to protest the fuel price hike.
The communist-ruled government of West Bengal is bracing to face a strike called Monday by a Naxalite outfit to protest the fuel price hike.
The strike called by the Communist Party of India-Marxist Leninist (Liberation) comes within a few days of the Nov 17 strike by the Socialist Unity Centre of India (SUCI).
The state, struggling for industrial resurgence, will face another strike on Dec 3 called by the opposition Trinamool Congress.
State chief secretary Asoke Gupta said the government would take necessary measures to avert any untoward incident.
We have issued a circular on Friday to all our departments asking employees to attend duty on Monday.
State police inspector general Chayan Mukherjee said security had been stepped up across the state to ensure normalcy.
Armed police forces would be deployed at key points in the city and headquarters of the 19 districts. Protesters would be arrested if found putting up blockades on roads and rails, Mukherjee said.
Police will also provide escort to people up to their destinations if they are found stranded at any point in the city, the inspector general said.
Opposing the strike, the ruling Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) state secretary Anil Biswas said: I believe Monday will be a normal day like any other working day. The people will not respond to the strike call.
Biswas said CPI-M activists would not take out processions or hold a rally to
oppose the strike, but would watch the situation to avert any untoward incident.
CPI-ML (Liberation) state secretary Kartick Pal said: We are with the common people of the state. They will respond to the strike.
If the administration and CPI-M cadres try to foil the strike, we are prepared to face the challenge, he said.
Political analyst Sabyasachi Roy Chowdhury said that three strikes in a
fortnight would hit the industrial resurgence in the state, particularly the recent upsurge in information technology.
Roy Chowdhury, a professor of international relations at Rabindra Bharati
University, said: It may send a wrong message to the industrialists who are focussing their interest on the state.
--Indo-Asian News Service
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| Northeast will be India’s gateway to the East: PM - Nov 22, 2004 13:17 IST |
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Prime Minister Manmohan Singh Sunday said India’s northeast could be the springboard for closer economic ties with neighbouring countries.
Assam and the northeast can be the springboard from which we launch into intense economic integration with our neighbours, he told a rally in Assam’s main city Guwahati organised to inaugurate the new capital complex building.
Assam can become an entry spot, a centre of commerce and trade, where goods, ideas and people from many lands meet and interact, both economically and intellectually.
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| Survivor Hall mauls Indian bowling (PROFILE) - Nov 22, 2004 13:16 IST |
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Makeshift South African opener Andrew James Hall, who scored a valiant 163 against India here Sunday, has survived five gunshots, one of them passing through his left hand, and a car hijacking in his home town of Johannesburg.
Hall, who was thrust into the opening spot for the ongoing first Test at the
Green Park after Herschelle Gibbs opted out of the tour, grabbed the opportunity with both hands as he frustrated the Indian bowlers while carving a dogged 163, his highest first-class score.
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| Manmohan moots US-type body to tackle northeast floods - Nov 22, 2004 13:15 IST |
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Prime Minister Manmohan Singh Sunday mooted the setting up of an institution on the lines of a body in the United States to tackle the annual scourge of flooding in India’s northeast.
He said the problem of floods in the northeast was not only a national issue but had international dimensions with some rivers originating in neighbouring countries and flowing into the region.
The time has come for a great leap forward in handling the gigantic task ahead of us in approaching the problem of floods that have been the scourge of Assam for centuries, Manmohan Singh told a rally in Assam’s main city Guwahati.
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| No leaks, no glitches, CAT goes off smoothly - Nov 22, 2004 13:14 IST |
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Many complained of tough questions and changed format, as over 150,000 students appeared for the Common Admission Test (CAT) across the country Sunday to gain admission to some of the top B-schools.
Both aspirants and the authorities heaved a sigh of relief, as there was no repeat of last year’s paper leak.
The anxiety surrounding the smooth conduct of exams turned out to be without basis as the exam, held in 24 cities, passed off smoothly amidst tight security. The number of aspirants registered an increase of 20 per cent over last year.
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| India inches closer to eradicating polio - Nov 22, 2004 13:12 IST |
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Over 168 million children across the country were administered polio drops Sunday - including by Congress president Sonia Gandhi - as India enters the final lap of the race to rid itself of the crippling disease.
Armed with around 170 million doses of polio vaccine, over 100,000 volunteers and government officials vaccinated children under the age of five in a bid to make the country polio-free by 2005.
Gandhi, in her capacity as chairperson of the National Advisory Council on major policy issues, including health, gave polio drops to infants at her 10, Janpath residence. It was her way of demonstrating the importance the governing coalition was giving to health issues.
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| Indian, Russian firms to jointly develop gas projects - Nov 22, 2004 13:11 IST |
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Infrastructure major GAIL (India) Limited and Russian energy giant Gazprom have entered into an agreement to jointly develop gas projects in India and overseas.
GAIL and Gazprom of Russia are in talks for cooperation to develop projects in the gas sector in India and abroad. Both companies have initialled an agreement for strategic cooperation in the hydrocarbon sector in India, Russia and other countries, an official statement said Sunday.
GAIL chairman and managing director Proshanto Banerjee and Gazprom deputy managing director A.G. Ananenkov signed the agreement during the meeting here of the Indo-Russian Joint Working Group for cooperation in the hydrocarbon sector.
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| Andrew Hall’s wife cheers as he scores ton - Nov 22, 2004 13:9 IST |
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Leanie Hall was the luckiest of the wives of South African cricketers who arrived here Sunday, as she watched her husband, opener Andrew Hall, crack his maiden Test century at the Green Park Stadium.
Others who watched the action on the second day of the first Test against India were Cindy Nel, the fiancée of Jacques Kallis, Minki van der Westhuizen, the girlfriend of captain Graeme Smith, Jill Bracewell, fiancée of Martin van Jaarsveld and Jacques Rudolph’s wife Elna.
Also here are Alison, the wife of South African team coach Ray Jennings, team manager Goolam Rajah’s spouse Poppy and Honey, wife of Gerald Majola, the chief executive officer of the United Cricket Board of South Africa.
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| Manmohan lowers rhetoric tempo ahead of Aziz’s visit - Nov 22, 2004 13:8 IST |
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Ahead of Pakistan Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz’s visit to India, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh Sunday sought to lower the tempo of rhetoric between the two countries and asked Pakistan not to be swayed by stray words.
On the basis of stray words we can’t say there is no flexibility, the prime minister said while chatting to journalists after a press conference at the Raj Bhavan here.
He was responding to a question about Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf’s charge of non-flexibility against India, and his threat that if India adopted a maximalist position on Kashmir, Islamabad too would revert to its old stand.
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| South Africa 398 for six against India - Nov 22, 2004 13:7 IST |
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South Africa were 398 for six wickets at tea on the second day of the first Test against India at the Green Park Stadium here Sunday.
Z. Bruyn was batting on 54 and Shaun Pollock on 12.
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| Rajesh debuts as actor in ’Santhosha’ - Nov 22, 2004 13:5 IST |
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Film: Santhosha; Cast: Rajesh, Sidhdharth, Pranathi, Anitha, Anat Nag, Chithra Shenoy, Sadhu Kokila; Director: Ramesh; Music: Prayog; Camera: Krishna Kumar; Producers: Indumathi Ramesh
Playback singer Rajesh makes his debut as an actor in Santhosha, which also introduces Sidhdharth, a Kashmiri Pandit settled in Mumbai, as the hero.
Pranathi, who has made a name from her first Malayalam film 4 the people is the heroine.
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| No breakthrough in engineers’ abduction - Nov 22, 2004 13:5 IST |
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More than two days after the abduction of two engineers in Bihar, police is yet to make a breakthrough.
The houses of several controversial figures, including Lok Jantantrik Party legislator Munna Shukla, were raided Saturday, police sources said.
Police stations all over the state had been alerted and all routes leading to Nepal had been sealed, said Inspector General of Police (Headquarters) Neelmani, who uses only one name.
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| ’Ban on music cost Mughals their empire’ - Nov 22, 2004 13:4 IST |
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A ban on music by controversial 17th century Indian emperor Aurangzeb led to the fall of his Mughal empire, a Cambridge University researcher has claimed.
Katherine Brown, a research fellow from the famed British university, said here the ban caused widespread anger and led to the collapse of the centuries-old empire.
Discussing her research paper ’Did Aurangzeb Ban Music?’ at the Khuda Baksh Khan library, Brown said the ban, imposed in 1668-69, was an important event in the history of India and Indian music.
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| Dileep’s performance in ’Kathavaseshan’ praised - Nov 22, 2004 13:3 IST |
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Dileep’s acting in his latest film Kathavaseshan was one of Malayalam cinema’s best ever performances, ace filmmaker T.V. Chandran has said.
Without doubt, I would rate Dileep’s character Gopinathan Menon as one of the best ever in Malayalam films and it is worth an award, Chandran told reporters here Sunday.
The film explores the issue of suicide, which has a high incidence rate in Kerala.
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| ’Gadar’ director, Rajasthan distributor in money dispute - Nov 22, 2004 13:2 IST |
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A film distributor from Rajasthan has sought help from police here to recover money that is allegedly owed to him by well-known director and producer Anil Sharma.
Film distributor Sanjay Suchanti came to Mumbai Saturday with police officials from Rajasthan who had an arrest warrant for the Gadar director.
Speaking from his office in Oshiwara, Suchanti said he was cheated by Anil Sharma, who had reportedly promised him that he would be given the rights to distribute the film Ab Tumhare Hawale Watan Sathiyon in Rajathan.
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| Kanpur, where four cricket captains met their ’Waterloo’ - Nov 22, 2004 13:1 IST |
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When Atul Wassan invited Bishan Singh Bedi for his marriage with Kanpur girl Sonu, the legendary Test spinner spontaneously remarked: You know, three Indian captains have met their Waterloo in Kanpur!
Bedi, a former India captain, was referring to his own marriage as well as those of the late Lala Amarnath and Sunil Gavaskar with brides from Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh’s biggest industrial town.
What Bedi did not take into account was that former Pakistan captain Zaheer Abbas too has married a woman from this city.
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| Give up arms, prime minister appeals to separatists - Nov 22, 2004 13:1 IST |
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Prime Minister Manmohan Singh Sunday appealed to separatist groups in the troubled northeast to give up arms and come for peace talks.
I am giving an open invitation to all young men and women who have taken to arms to come for talks with us so that we can usher in peace and prosperity in the northeast, the prime minister told journalists in Imphal at the end of his two-day visit to state of Manipur.
Our government is willing to talk to anybody who shuns the path of violence.
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| PM offers talks to northeast rebels who give up arms - Nov 22, 2004 12:59 IST |
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Prime Minister Manmohan Singh Sunday offered to hold peace talks with all militant groups in the restive northeastern region that gave up arms.
Winding up a 24-hour trip to Manipur, the prime minister assured the people of the troubled state that steps would be taken to prevent the misuse of the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act, but urged civil society groups not to set any deadlines for withdrawing the anti-terror law.
I am giving an open invitation to all young men and women who have taken to arms to come for talks with us so that we can usher in peace and prosperity in the northeast, the prime minister told journalists here.
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| Ganguly has unpleasant memories of Green Park - Nov 22, 2004 12:57 IST |
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Sourav Ganguly will probably always have mixed feelings when he looks back at his Green Park connection, as it was in this stadium in 1996 that he had to undergo a fitness test during the lunch interval of a Test in front of a packed stadium!
Incidentally, it was also a match against South Africa, when then team physiotherapist Ali Irani made him run two rounds of the stadium on the last day of the match while the two teams ate their lunch.
On that day - Dec 11 - Ganguly completed the first round and was joined by Irani in the second. But the ’Bengal Tiger’ failed to complete the second round and apparently failed the fitness test - and was ruled out of the seventh one-day international played two days later in Mumbai.
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| Army to educate itself on wetland conservation - Nov 22, 2004 12:56 IST |
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The Indian Army will hold a two-day seminar here to educate its personnel on conserving the wetlands, including the Sunderbans, in the country’s east.
With a large number of troops deployed in and around the wetlands, the seminar on the theme The role of Indian Army in the conservation of wetlands, will focus on how the force can help maintain the ecological balance and conserve flora and fauna in the region.
There are a large number of wetlands in the eastern region, three of which are internationally acknowledged -- the Sunderbans, just south of Kolkata, the East Calcutta Wetlands, adjacent to Kolkata and the Loktak in Manipur, said Wing Commander S.N. Mukerjee, a defence ministry spokesman.
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| Shankaracharya should be treated properly: PM - Nov 22, 2004 12:55 IST |
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Prime Minister Manmohan Singh Sunday expressed the hope that arrested Hindu pontiff Jayendra Saraswathi would be treated with all courtesies that are due to a person of his stature.
I hope the Shankarcharya will be treated and extended all the courtesies due to his stature as a person of religious standing, he told reporters here shortly before winding up a visit to the northeastern state of Manipur.
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