National News

Mamata to meet Sonia Gandhi tomorrow on Singur issue
KOLKATA, Sept 29: Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee will meet UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi tomorrow seeking Central intervention for the implementation of the September 7 agreement between her party and the West Bengal government on the Singur land issue.Banerjee told reporters she would submit all papers to the UPA chairperson on the agreement that provides for return of maximum land from within the Tata Motors car project site at Singur to “unwilling” land-losers, signed in the presence of governor Gopalkrishna Gandhi at Raj Bhavan on September 7.“We have been demanding implementation of the agreement, but the government is not doing it. The government has lost credibility,” she said.Banerjee said that she would also meet Prime Minister Manmohan Singh after he returned from abroad and the president on the Singur issue.“We will also meet leaders of other political parties in the country,” she said.She also ruled out attending an all-party meeting as suggested by WBPCC president P R Dasmunsi and said nothing short of the implementation of the agreement would be acceptable to her party.Banerjee said that some “agents of the CPI-M” were trying to mislead the people by speaking about all an party meeting on Singur issue. “We will identify those agents,” she said.“The agreement has to be implemented in toto, there is nothing in between,” she asserted.She, however, said her party would attend such a meeting if it was convened to discuss the technicalities of the agreement and not to discuss any package. “We are not for any package,” she said. (PTI)

CPI(M) asks government not to operationalize nuclear deal NEW DELHI, Sept 29: RThe CPI(M) today asked the government not to operationalise the Indo-US nuclear deal as the bill on the issue passed by the US House of Representatives has incorporated the Hyde Act as well as other binding conditionalities.“So the obvious thing for the Government of India is not to operationalise the deal. It is still not late, the Government can reconsider it,” party General Secretary Prakash Karat said in an interaction with women journalists at the Indian Women’s Press Corps (IWPC) here.Maintaining that the new bill did not have any assurance on fuel supplies of reprocessing, he said, “the latest bill has brought in not only the provisions of the Hyde Act but also other conditionalities”.He said US President George W Bush has made only a political commitment and since he would be out of office in January, “these issues are not going to be overcome by any presidential statement”. Going back to the withdrawal of support from the UPA Government by the Left parties, the CPI(M) General Secretary said the Prime Minister had assured that the Government would go before the Parliament on the deal after coming back from the IAEA and the NSG meets but has not done so. “The UPA Government cannot say that the July 22 trust vote was a referendum on the deal as the Government had not gone to the IAEA till then,” he added. Karat said his party was not against a civilian nuclear deal with any country, including the United States, but wanted India to ink agreements with other countries like Russia and France without such conditonalities. “The passport the Indo-US deal has given us is an American passport and we do not want that,” Karat said, adding it should be a multilateral effort which the Government is not going ahead with due to US pressure.On his party’s stand on nuclear weapons, he said it was not possible to talk about nuclear weapons in the abstract. (PTI)

Deputy Commandant, 3 CRPF men killed in landmine blast RAIPUR, Sept 29: Four CRPF personnel, including a deputy commandant, were today killed and two others injured in a landmine blast suspected to have been triggered by Maoists in Bastar in Chhattisgarh.Senior state police officers said that the ultras blew up a CRPF road opening party vehicle killing the Deputy Commandant Diwakar Mahapatra, his driver L Kore Singh and two jawans — N K Jha and S D Burman. “The road opening party was on its way to Chitrakoot where President Pratibha Patil, currently in the state, was to pay a visit,” a CRPF spokesman in Delhi said. As the vehicle reached Mardoom in the interior of Bastar district, the Maoists triggered the powerful blast, he said. One of the injured was airlifted to Raipur for treatment, he said. (PTI)

Centre reviews security in capital NEW DELHI, Sept 29: As two blasts rocked the capital in a fortnight, the Centre today reviewed the security scenario and decided to increase the presence of security personnel in the city during the coming festival season.A high-level meeting chaired by Union Home Secretary Madhukar Gupta and attended by Intelligence Bureau chief P C Haldar, Delhi Police Commissioner Y S Dadwal and other senior officials took stock of the security situation in the city.“In view of the festival season, we will have increased presence of security personnel on the streets and patrolling will be intensified,” Dadwal told reporters after the meeting.He said para-military personnel will also be deployed at sensitive localities in the city. (PTI)