Cong: No urgency in setting up States Reorganisations Commission

By C. ANAND REDDY (The Asian Age)

“The Congress Working Committe had only hoped about the SRC. There was no element of immediacy in the resolution” - AICC, spokesman Abhishek Singhvi.

New Delhi, Jan. 16: The Congress has now hitched on to a hitherto alien idea of carving out smaller states even without going through the process of setting up a second States Reorganisation Commission (SRC) for the purpose. And, in the process, the party is all prepared to reject the idea for now. Before making the party stance clear, AICC spokesman Abhishek Singhvi said on Wednesday that the Telangana issue is a standalone case, which does not require going through the SRC “viability test” process.

Faced with a barrage of queries on the party’s latest liking for Bundelkhand as a separate state, Singhvi said that “the SRC is not required for any such demand if there is a broad consensus among all political parties concerned. The SRC will come into the picture when there is no broad consensus on demands like Telangana or Bundelkhand”.

To strengthen his case, Singhvi referred to the statement on the subject by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on board his special flight while returning from his China tour late on Tuesday. “What is there to comment and interpret when the Prime Minister himself has made the position of the government clear?” AICC media department chairman M. Veerappa Moily said, when asked about Dr Singh’s statement.

The Congress now thinks that SRC may be necessary but not essential. As per media reports, Dr Singh has said that the SRC is an old Congress Working Committee proposal and there are no immediate plans to set up one.

Responding to queries on this, Singhvi said, “Setting up of another SRC is an old resolution and the Congress is not averse to it. However, at the moment, there is no proposal under active consideration by the government, going by the Prime Minister’s clarification.” Asked about the status of the CWC resolution now,  Singhvi said: “The CWC had only hoped about the SRC. There was no element of immediacy in the resolution.”

More significantly, the Congress now believes that setting up an SRC will open up a Pandora’s box.

Corporates told to keep off Telangana

Deccan Chronicle, Hyderabad/New Delhi, Jan. 16: [inset: Chandrasekhar Rao] Telangana Congress leaders on Wednesday warned corporates that if they purchased land around Hyderabad, they would have to surrender it once the separate state was carved out. Their warning came even as the party high command sternly asked Congress leaders of the state to stop publicly airing opinions on Telangana and the second States Reorganisation Commission.Openly defying the diktat, the rebel leaders also asked the state government to stop sale of “Telangana” land and urged the Chief Minister, Dr Y.S. Rajasekhar Reddy, to immediately spell out his stance on the separate state. This is being seen as a direct attack on the Chief Minister who is banking heavily on sale of land around Hyderabad to get funds for his favourite schemes.Meanwhile, Dr Reddy, who met the Congress president, Sonia Gandhi, on Tuesday evening, indicated in Delhi that he didn’t see any urgency in addressing the Telangana issue. “We can’t say whether the issue will be resolved in the current term or in the next term of our government,” he said. “We can’t impose deadlines on our party president.”The Chief Minister was obviously trying to pre-empt Telangana leaders who are planning to meet Gandhi on January 28 to seek a quick decision on the formation of a separate state. “The party leadership has directed all leaders, including the Chief Minister, not to speak on the Telangana issue,” he said. “I request everyone to follow this directive.”However, senior Congress leaders, G. Venkataswamy, Sarve Satyanarayana and Madhu Yashki, MPs, Palvai Goverdhan Reddy, K.R. Amos and Yadav Reddy, MLC, V. Purushotham Reddy and MLA, M. Satyanarayana Rao, met at the house of MLC, Kamalakar, on Sankranti and decided to intensify their struggle for Telangana.

TRS sets deadline for Telangana

Deccan Chronicle, Hyderabad & New Delhi, Jan. 16: The Telangana Rashtra Samiti has asked the Centre to create a separate state by March 6 or face the mass resignations of its elected representatives. “The Centre should ask the Pranab Mukherjee committee to submit its report in a week and after that it must take a final decision on Telangana,” said the TRS president, K. Chandrasekhar Rao. “If it fails to do so before the Budget session, we will resign.”However, the Congress Working Committee member, Veerappa Moily, made light of the threat and said the TRS was constantly harping on deadlines. The Chief Minister, Dr Y.S. Rajasekhar Reddy, also said the Congress would not be bullied.  Chandrasekhar Rao said that the party would no longer brook any delay in the formation of Telangana. Lashing out at the Congress, he said that the party had not even submitted a “support letter” to the Pranab Mukherjee committee and was indulging in double-talk.“They promised Telangana before 2004 elections and included it in the Common Minimum Programme,” he said. “They even included it in the President’s speech. Now they want to cheat Telangana people. We will expose them.” He also criticised the Telugu Desam president,  N. Chandrababu Naidu, for his comment that there was no need for the party to clarify its stance on the issue. “What does he mean?” asked the TRS chief. “Doesn’t his party contest in Telangana? He is in confusion.”The TRS has four MPs in Lok Sabha, three MLCs in the Legislative Council and 16 MLAs in the Assembly. Nine of its MLAs had revolted. The rebel MLAs D. Srinivasa Rao and  M. Satyanarana Reddy have said they would not quit their posts. Meanwhile, the TRS leadership is also trying to link up with Congress leaders from the region. TRS MLAs led by Harish Rao met senior leader and Telangana Development Board chairman, U. Purushottam Reddy, and requested his support. Later they tried to meet G. Venkataswamy, but backed off after the media got wind of it. We want Telangana and for that we are ready to meet all the leaders of the region,” said Harish Rao.The senior Congress leader and Rajya Sabha member, V. Hanumantha Rao, criticised the TRS for imposing a deadline. “This is not the way to do it,” he said. “Both the Congress and the TRS can meet Gandhi and convince her.”

Nepali literary Criticism in Sikkim

By Indra Bahadur Rai

 There has to be a substantial body of literary works for criticism to grow up on. Sikkimese Nepali writing has in the last century, taking for the start Manbir Singh Rasaily’s ‘Vishwa Brahman Varnan’ of 1925, an unobstructed yet snail paced progress till 1940s. Uday Lahari (1877) of Swami Inandil Das and the other many a Lahari and Sawai by composers of the then ‘British Sikkim’, that was Darjeeling, of course, do not fill the bill as Sikkimese works nor do they fit the snail-ine description. The increasingly hectic Sikkimese decades from 1960 on coincided with a minor burst of publication of literary books and periodicals throwing up in its wake a conglomerative band of talented poets and writers. And, may it be recorded that a concerted early effort to wrest Sikkimese identity in the literary field was evidenced in the publication in 1950 of Indrakeel Puspanjali, a collection of poems from Sikkim. Oneness of Sikkim region and ancient Indrakeel was iterated. Sikkim has all along retained its distinct regionality which at the same time contributed its share to the over all development of Nepali literature and in particular of the Indian Nepali part of it.

Prominent amongst the Sikkimese poets and writers of then near sovereign kingdom were Agam Singh Tamang, Padam Singh Subba, tulsi Bahadur Chetri, Ramdatta Lal Thakur, Santabir Limboo, Chandra Bahadur Subedi, Kripa Shalyan Rai, Padam Lal Chalise, Purushottam Pradhan, Raghu Nanda Subedi, Chandra Narsinha Shakya, Sanoo Lama, Santosh Bardewa, B. S. Rai, Devi Prasad Kaushik, Kedar Gurung, Girmee Sherpa, Tulsiram Kashyap, Ganga Kaptan and a few more.

Sikkimese Nepali Literary criticism began to take shape in the prefaces and forewords of books, editorials of periodicals and critical articles which were scarce to come by. Chandra Das Rai’s accout published in 1949 of the founding of the Apatan Sahitya Parishad in Gangtok in 1947, its objectives and activities is an instant in point. Not before long, however, Sikkimese critics took upon themselves the three-fold task of appraising the works and assessing the achievement of Nepali writers, i.e., those who write in Nepali, of (a) Sikkim, (b) India and (c) Nepal too. They are wide awake to their responsibility to the writers of the state but are no less aware of their national and greater obligation. They have here-to-fore, no doubt, acquit themselves creditably. Not out-biddenby the critics but rather leading them to this purport is the fraternity of creative writers who have flung themselves open to the three influent.

Annual cultural concert at Siliguri School

Siliguri, Jan.16: It was fabulous entertainment for the large audience at the Siliguri Model High School, Gurungbasti premises on the afternoon of 16 January, 2008. The occasion was the annual cultural concert of the school and the spirit was soaring.The two-and-a-half-hour-long programme was inaugurated by the deputy director of West Bengal Tourism Department, Gopal Lama. Speaking at the occasion, Lama said: “It gives me pleasure to notice that the school is developing gradually into one of the premier institutions of the region.”

CPM rivals talk tough

Siliguri, Jan. 16: Kanu Sanyal, the veteran CPI-ML leader, today challenged the major Left Front constituents like the All-India Forward Bloc and the RSP to come out of the government and the Front, adding that only in case of their quitting the government and the Front would they gain some credibility to talk about an alternative Left alliance. Terming the recent proposal by the general secretary of the All-India Forward Block Debabrata Biswas about formation of an alternative Left alliance as “bogus”, he said that the people were not as gullible as the leaders generally thought them to be. “I met Forward Block veteran Asoke Ghosh in Calcutta when the first firing on the protesting Nandigram people took place and asked him to quit the government and the Left Front in protest against the state barbarism. However, that did not happen and they remained in the government. This is the reality. They will keep on talking tough, yet they will never overcome the greed of loaves and fishes of office. In this situation how can they convince the people of their sincerity to the opposition to the present government?” he asked.

Idols seized on Nepal border

The Telegraph, Siliguri, Jan. 16: Customs officials last night seized two rare idols worth Rs 25 lakh from Dulaljote, located around 40km from here on the India-Nepal border.

The preventive wing of Panitanki customs had been tipped off about an attempt to smuggle the idols into Nepal. However, no one was arrested.

“The idols, made of black basalt, are antique pieces,” said Bijoy Sarkar, a reader in the history department of North Bengal University, who evaluated the statuettes.

 

Civic drive in Siliguri

Siliguri, Jan. 16: In a bid to clear the pavements of Hill Cart Road and Sevoke Road of encroachments, Siliguri traffic police today conducted a drive along the stretch.

The police removed sign boards and vendors from the pavements. They also seized 65 rickshaws and two motorcycles that were parked illegally on Hill Cart Road.

Hawkers and owners of shops along the roads often use the pavements to display their wares. Not only that, the pavements are also used to park two-wheelers, forcing pedestrians to take to the roads.

The drive was initiated by Jayanta Moulik, the chairman of Borough Committee II of the Siliguri Municipal Corporation.

[Source: The Telegraph]