60-yr-old Ambedkar cartoon halts Parliament, minister says sorry
Union HRD minister Kapil Sibal speaks as a member shows photocopies of a cartoon of BR Ambedkar in an NCERT text-book, in the Lok Sabha in New Delhi. PTI/TV grab
A cartoon on BR Ambedkar in a government schoolbook rocked Parliament on Friday, forcing HRD minister Kapil Sibal to apologise to the nation and order the removal of the “objectionable” caricature.
The row over the cartoon — more than 60 years old — sidetracked the ongoing
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controversy over the Aircel-Maxis deal, which the BJP and other Opposition parties have been using to target home minister P Chidambaram.
Instead, members cutting across party lines trained their guns on Sibal. Hours later, National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) textbook advisers Yogendra Yadav and Suhas Palashikar resigned in protest.
The cartoon was sketched in the 1950s by celebrated cartoonist Keshav Shankar Pillai, popularly known as Shankar and recipient of a Padma Shri (1956), Padma Bhushan (1966) and Padma Vibhushan (1976).
The cartoon, reproduced in NCERT Class XI political science textbooks, depicts Jawaharlal Nehru with a whip in his hand chasing Ambedkar, seated on a snail, urging him to speed up work on the Constitution.
“The content is not appropriate. It is being withdrawn. I have given directions that there should be no further distribution of these books,” Sibal told Rajya Sabha. Hindustan Times had reported the use of the cartoon on April 6.
Sibal said the decision to withdraw the toon had been taken on April 26.
The issue was first raised by Thol Thirumavalavan of the Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi in Lok Sabha. BSP chief Mayawati demanded strict punishment for those who allowed the cartoon to be printed, calling it an “intolerable insult” to the Dalit icon.
In Lok Sabha, finance minister Pranab Mukherjee said printing of the cartoon in the book was wrong and that he agreed with the sentiments of the House.
Cross border smuggling on rise in Indo-China border
Trafficking of rare stuff - in high demand at the international market - is on the rise on India’s border with China in Himachal Pradesh. For second time in past 13 months police has detected cross border smuggling on “porous” border with China in remote Kinnaur district raising questions about
security arrangements.
Police on Monday seized two trucks laden with costly pashmina wool that was smuggled from Chinese villages to Indian border. The estimated cost of the seized wool is pegged at around Rs. 1.5 crore in the international market. The police seized these trucks near Kharo in Pooh subdivision that is 100 kilometers from Nako a village close to China border in the district.
Reliable sources have told Hindustan Times that consignment of pashmina wool had been brought from the border villages in China. The pashmina wool that weighs about five tonne had been brought on the pony backs from Churup village in China administered Tibetan Autonomous Region. The wool is harvested from Himalayan mountain goat. The goat is found in Kashmir, Tibet and Nepal primarily. As pashmina wool set the fashion world on fire in the 1990s, it has high price in the international market.
Sources said that cops have also found some quantity of shatoosh wool sheared from rare Tibetan antelope Chiru. Wildlife reports have put that 20,000 of the wild animals that live on China's Tibetan Plateau are killed each year or are either shot in herds by automatic weapons or caught in leg-hold traps-for their prized coats. The shahtoosh trade was banned globally in 1975 under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) following a fall in the number of the antelopes. The Indian government followed and banned the trade in 1991.
The local drivers of the impounded trucks have told police that the wool was being taken to police. Local cops are also questioning one Kamla Nand a local said to be having close connections with Chinese traders. Reliable information said that Nand was arrested few days back while smuggling rare scotch Whiskies to China villages. Nand is said to informer for the military sources.
If sources are to be believed police had seized two trucks laden with pashmina wool and about eight other have already made their way into the Delhi markets. “Right now we cannot say anything except that tow trucks laden with Pashmina wool had been seized,” said Superintendent of Police in Kinnaur Ashok Kumar.
In August 2010 police has seized 12 tonnes of red sanders wood that was enruote to China. Red sanders wood grows in the forest of Andhra Pradesh is in high demand in China. The red sanders wood contains thorium is used as coolant in the old fashioned nuclear reactors; it is also used in medicines and making musical instruments in China.
Investigations revealed that the truck drivers had been issued permits by Indo Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) officers. ITBP is responsible for managing the security along Indian border in two tribal districts Lahual and Spiti and Kinnaur. The police sleuths had detected involvement of ITBP officials in the incident. A commandant and cops had been suspended for their involvement.
The latest case of cross border smuggling had once again raised question about the security along the Indo-China border.
Prof’s office ransacked over Ambedkar cartoon row
A group of persons on Saturday ransacked the office of Prof Suhas Palshikar, who resigned as NCERT adviser in the wake of the row over a cartoon of BR Ambedkar in school text books.
Police said the group involved in the incident had been invited by Palshikar for discussion in his
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office after they raised objections on the cartoon.
They later damaged furniture in his office within the Pune University campus.
Palshikar, however, was unharmed, police added.
A Republican Panther of India spokesman claimed responsibility for the attack, saying the cartoon amounted to an "insult" to the Dalit icon.
Police have detained three persons in connection with the incident.
Palshikar, a former head of Pune University's department of politics, had resigned after the uproar in Parliament over the issue, on which HRD minister Kapil Sibal had tendered an apology.
While resigning from his NCERT post, Palshikar had described the ruckus in both Houses over the cartoon row as "unfortunate".
He added that "space for debate in democracy is shrinking".
Palshikar was a member of the HRD ministry's Textbook Development Committee, which had approved the Class XI social science textbook that contained the cartoon.
Political scientist Yogendra Yadav, who was the chief adviser of the committee, has also resigned.
Vote: Are we too touchy about our national icons?
Two NCERT Text Book advisors resign
Yogendra Yadav and Suhas Palshikar today resigned as advisors of NCERT text book council in the wake of the row over cartoon of B R Ambedkar in school text books.
"Yogendra Yadav who was the chief advisor of the Textbook Development Committee and Suhas Palshikar who was the member of the
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committee have resigned," sources in the HRD Ministry said.
Palshikar said he has quit the advisor council in the wake of the uproard in Parliament over the issue.
Sources in NCERT said they were already in the process of constitution of a new committee.
They said the cartoon used in the class XI social science textbook 'Indian Constitution at Work' was actually sketched back in 1948 by Keshav Shankar Pillai when the framing of the constitution was in process.
Sibal had clarified in Parliament that the textbooks are made by an independent textbook authority - Textbook Development Committee, which comprise academics and not officials of NCERT.
He said none of the existing members of the present Textbook Committee, which had approved the book, will be part of the new Committee set up to examine objectionable caricatures.
South Sudan says it shoots down Sudanese jet
South Sudan says it shot down a Sudanese fighter jet on Wednesday after two military planes dropped bombs around its oil fields, but Sudan denied it had lost such an aircraft.
Military spokesman Col. Philip Aguer said the downed plane was a Sudanese MiG-29 jet fighter flying in South Sudan's Unity State, but Sudan's army spokesman denied any Sudanese jets were downed, saying the claim by the south lacked evidence.
"This is not right, and a claim that lacks evidence and proof. We affirm this is talk for media consumption only," Col Sawarmy Khaled said.
He later told the official Sudan news agency that his forces came under attack, but they had not been using MIG jets.
"We would like to stress here that we have been the subject of attack by (southern) military groups, attack on our positions and we dealt with (the source) of the attack by artillery shelling," he said. "Talk about downing a plane is out of the question, because we did not use such a (MIG) plane which they say they have shot down."
Aguer said he had seen the confrontation and the downed Sudanese MiG was one of two flying over the Naar and Toma South oil fields. He said the two MiGs had dropped "many" bombs since morning.
South Sudanese forces shot down the MiG with an anti-aircraft gun, he said.
The Sudanese "don't know that we have the capacity. They underestimate the SPLA," he said, referring to South Sudan's forces, the Southern People's Liberation Army.
In Washington, U.S. State Department spokesman Mark Toner urged both sides to stop fighting, ensure the safety of civilians, and let the African Union negotiate an end to their dispute. "We're obviously very concerned," Toner said when asked about the downing of the warplane.
South Sudan split from Sudan last year after decades of civil war. But the two sides never agreed on where exactly the two countries' border is and how to share oil revenues. The south now has most of the oil but must pump it through a pipeline that runs through Sudan.
South Sudan says that Sudan stole much of its oil, and the south shut down production earlier this year, depriving both countries of needed government revenue.
Hostilities between the two sides have grown in recent months, even as the south has said it is trying to avoid a return to war. A planned meeting between the presidents of Sudan and South Sudan scheduled for Tuesday was canceled by Sudan.
Aguer was part of a delegation led by South Sudanese oil minister Stephen Dhieu Dau to see a tie-in pipeline allegedly being built by Sudan. The south says the tie-in pipeline is a way for Sudan to steal South Sudan's oil.
Dau said the incomplete pipeline would be able to pump between 15,000 and 30,000 barrels of oil per day if linked up
to Sudan's oil fields.
"They want take our oil even when we are shut down," Dau said.
This is not the first tie-in pipeline that has been unilaterally built by Khartoum. Another was built in January to link a pipeline in South Sudan operated by oil-consortium PetroDar to refineries in Khartoum. The pipeline was revealed shortly after Khartoum announced it would take oil "in kind" from South Sudan in lieu of an agreement on how much South Sudan should pay to use Sudan's pipelines.
In late January South Sudan accused Khartoum of stealing nearly all of its oil and ordered oil fields to halt operations.
According to Dau, the new tie-in pipeline was discovered just over a week ago during the border clashes between the two nations. Dau said SPLA forces found the pipeline when they pushed Sudanese Armed Forces back from Teshwin into the
Heglig area on March 26.
"The pipeline was less than 10 kilometers (6 miles) from being complete," said Dau.
Wednesday's bombings are the latest in a series of open confrontations between Sudanese and South Sudanese troops that have world leaders on edge. President Barack Obama urged South Sudanese President Salva Kiir earlier this week to exercise maximum military restraint.
But according to Aguer, the fighting has been "a daily thing here on the front line" since the initial confrontation. Aguer said that almost 80 people have been killed, mostly military forces, since the fighting began.
While the region has been quiet since the downing of the MiG plane earlier, the border is tense. According to Aguer, South Sudan is "expecting ground troops to attack at any time."
Odisha to free 27 for release of 2 hostages
In this file photo, Orissa MLA Jhinna Hikakka is seen gesturing to journalists in Bhubaneswar. The MLA has been abducted my maoists in Orissa. (AFP Photo)more photos » Amid allegations of casualness, Odisha chief minister Naveen Patnaik on Wednesday said the government would set free 27 people from jail in exchange for the release of Italian citizen Basusco Paolo and MLA Jhina Hikaka from Maoist captivity.
“Considering the safety of Jhina
related stories Maoists on rampageUN 'condemns' Maoist violence in India Hikaka, our young tribal MLA (of the BJD), our government has decided to facilitate the release of 15 members of the Chasi Mulia Adivasi Sangha and also eight left-wing extremists now lodged in jails in Koraput and Malkangiri districts,” Patnaik said in a statement.
Considering the demands of the Odisha State Organising Committee (OSOC) of the CPI (Maoist) regarding the release of Paolo, Patnaik also said the state government had decided to facilitate the release of four persons (among the 27).
The names of all the persons to be released would be announced on Thursday, the deadline set by the Maoists who abducted Hikaka.
Talking to HT, former IAS officer and tribal rights activist BD Sharma, who had been mediating for the Italian’s release, said: “Let us see the list first. We have to see whether the names we had suggested figure on the government’s list.”
Since the abduction of Paolo and fellow Italian Claudio Colangelo (60) on March 14 by the OSOC, led by Sabyasachi Panda, in Kandhamal and the capture of Hikaka by the Andhra Odisha Border Special Zonal Committee on March 24 in Koraput district, the state had been drawing flak for delaying the negotiations process though the demands made by both the groups were almost similar.
On March 25, Panda had released Colangelo as a “goodwill gesture”.
Observers were drawing a contrast between the vigilance showed by the state when IAS officer Vineel Krishna was abducted last year and the present “casualness”.
“Krishna was an IAS officer and the bureaucracy-dominated Naveen Patnaik government apparently left no stone unturned to secure his release. That element is missing now in the case of Paolo and Hikaka,” said rights activist and lawyer Bishwapriya Kanungo, who was the first to decline the mediator’s job.
President’s directive to coal firms may not help state
A presidential directive to Coal India (CIL) to sign fuel supply agreements (FSAs) with power producers assuring them of at least 80% of the committed coal delivery may not help state-owned power generation company Mahagenco, which is the second largest thermal power producer in the country.
Mahagenco has close to 8,000 megawatts of thermal generation capacity and it would need at least 45 million metric tonnes (MMT) of coal this financial year.
On Tuesday, the president issued a directive to CIL to ensure uninterrupted power generation because the power sector has been facing an unforeseen coal crisis these days. Maharashtra's distribution arm Mahavitaran faces a daily shortage of 3500MW and, hence, enforces daily power cuts of between 3 to 12 hours.
However, the required coal may not be delivered by suppliers, top boss of Mahagenco, Subrat Ratho, feels. He said in such a case, the utility will have to buy more expensive imported coal and hence additional costs will have to be borne by the 1.80 crore consumers in Mumbai's eastern suburbs and the rest of Maharashtra.
Will stand by army movement report, says Indian Express
The Indian Express, which reported a "curious" movement of two units of Army towards Delhi in mid-January that created a storm, on Wednesday said it stands by the report that came after investigation over six weeks.
In a statement, the newspaper said the report The January night Raisina
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"The report is a meticulous reconstruction and a very sober interpretation of the movement of two key army units towards New Delhi on the night of January 16-17," the statement said adding it was investigated over six weeks and written by a team headed by editor-in-chief Shekhar Gupta.
It said the report drew on highly credible sources, who had chosen to be anonymous and the newspaper is committed to protecting their identity.
The daily said it sent a detailed questionnaire to the army and the ministry of defence and accurately reported their responses in the report. These responses were reiterated by them on Wednesday.
"Neither side explained why the ministry of defence wasn't notified, why the troops were suddenly asked to go back and what explanation was offered, if any, by the army to the Government," it said.
There are some in the government and outside who have questioned the report, even calling it "disturbing" and "baseless". All this, even those comments that attribute false motives, are, we believe, part of a necessary debate, it said.
"The Indian Express stands by the report. And in the tradition of its commitment to journalism of courage and the readers' right to know, it will continue its investigation into the events of January 16-17 and the questions these raise," it said.
UP schools to ban sale of junk food
In a significant step, the Uttar Pradesh government has issued instructions to all schools - Indian Certificate of Secondary Education (ICSE), Uttar Pradesh Board and Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) - to ban sale of junk food within their premises and outside, an official said Thursday.
A senior government official told IANS the move was initiated by the Secondary Education Council, after it got instructions for the same from the Union Health and Family Planning Ministry.
In a letter addressed to principals of all schools, the Secretary of the UP Madhyamik Shiksha Parishad (Board of High School and Intermediate Education) asked to ban sale of all forms of junk food, carbonated cold drinks and high sugar containing food from their campuses, as these lead to a host of diseases at later stage of life, including diabetes, high blood pressure and piled up cholesterol levels.
The communique specifically mentioned the high trans-fat levels in foods sold in different forms like wafers, salted and fried items.
The official letter has encouraged school managements to promote healthy and nutritious food amongst school going kids.
The letter also warned strict action against the district inspector of schools (DIOS) of that area, if the orders were not implemented.
Govt rejects ‘alarmist’ coup report, army denies breach
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and defence minister AK Antony on Wednesday denied the newspaper report that the movement of army personnel towards the Capital on the intervening night of January 16 and 17 was a breach of protocol.
“These are alarmist reports. They should not be taken at
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The statements came on a day of speculation and counter-speculation as the report, carried by The Indian Express, claimed the defence ministry had not been informed about the troop movement, indicating a rift between the two.
The Indian Express said an entire mechanised infantry unit, based in Haryana’s Hisar, and a section of the Agra-based 50 Para Brigade moved towards Delhi on the day army chief General VK Singh challenged the government on the issue of his date of birth in the Supreme Court.
Defence secretary Shashi Kant Sharma reportedly told the parliamentary standing committee on defence that questioned him and army vice-chief Lt Gen SK Singh on Wednesday that the troop movement did not breach the army’s standard operating procedure.
Sharma told the panel the director general of military operations was aware of the movement, which was good enough. Former national security advisor Brajesh Mishra and former defence secretary Yogendra Narain told HT such drills are routinely conducted by the army without notifying the ministry.
Ajit Doval, former Intelligence Bureau director — the agency that is mandated to counter coups — said, “There are government instructions regarding troop movement near Delhi. It could be investigated whether there is any violation of the instructions, but there is absolutely no political import in this case.”
An army statement said: “Routine training at the formation level is carried out to check mobilisation according to standard operating procedure (SOP). Almost all army units carry out this procedure at regular intervals. Once effectiveness is checked, the troops are called back. In this case too, the troops were called back according to the SOP. In case of adverse weather conditions like fog, we need to test our mobilisation effectiveness.”
Defence sources said the army, after realising during Operation Parakram in 2001 that troops weren’t moving as fast as they should, increased its frequency of such drills.
Security experts familiar with counter-coup protocol told HT that “mechanised infantry and few hundred personnel” should not have triggered a coup alarm.
“There are around 30,000 personnel stationed in Delhi at any given time and coups are rarely carried out by mechanised infantry,” he pointed out.
Indian Express stands by its report