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  | Saturday, May 17, 2008
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 Beijing in June and Tehran in July |
| Maoists murder former cricketer |
| BJP ahead in second phase |
| No takers for Rs 11 crore |
| India-born Tibetans prefer to be Indians |
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Beijing in June and Tehran in July |
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New Delhi, May 16: India and China will review their bilateral ties when external affairs minister Pranab Mukherjee travels to Beijing in June. The visit is being described here as part of the ongoing bilateral exchanges between the two countries. In July, Mr Pranab Mukherjee will be headed to Tehran for the India-Iran joint commission meeting. He is likely to discuss the prospects of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s visit to Iran at an early but mutually convenient date.
The India-Pakistan-Iran gas pipeline project, the LNG (liquefied natural gas) deal and the Iranian nuclear issue will figure in Mr Mukherjee’s talks in Tehran, where he is likely to take part in a Non-Aligned Movement ministerial conference as well. A source at the Chinese embassy in New Delhi told this newspaper that Chinese foreign minister Yang Jeichi could be expected to visit India in the second half of this year to continue the bilateral discussions.
Beijing looks forward to an early visit to China by President Pratibha Devisingh Patil, possibly in 2009, the source added. Mr Mukherjee and his Chinese counterpart, Mr Yang Jeichi, met in the Russian city of Yekaterinburg this week where they participated in the annual meting of foreign ministers from Russia, India and China. The Chinese minister, who held an hour-long meeting with Mr Mukherjee on the sidelines of the trilateral meeting in Yekaterinburg, said that Sino-Indian relations are becoming "increasingly close".
Mr Yang hoped Mr Mukherjee’s visit to China next month will give a boost to further development of ties in the spirit of "Shared Vision of the 21st Century" signed by Chinese President Hu Jintao and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in January this year. The minister thanked India for ensuring the security and smooth relay of the Olympic torch here last month.
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Maoists murder former cricketer |
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Bhubaneswar, May 16: Rajendra Sahu, a former cricketer, was shot dead by suspected Maoists at Gothalpadar village in Orissa’s Rayagada district on Thursday night. The Maoists killed him suspecting him to be a police informer, police said. His father Nrushingha Sahu was killed by Maoists in August 2002.
Thirty-year-old Rajendra played several cricket matches in Andhra Pradesh. He had returned to his village last year to settle down there.
He had married a local girl a few weeks ago. He went out of his house to take a stroll along with a friend near the village pond when a group of armed men in uniform fired at him. His friend Surendra Sahu managed to escape. When Surendra returned to the spot with villagers, he saw Rajendra lying in a pool of blood.
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BJP ahead in second phase |
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New Delhi, May 16: An exit poll conducted by NDTV forecast that the BJP was expected to pick up between 32 and 42 of the 66 seats contested in the second phase of the Karnataka Assembly elections on Friday. The central part of the state, where the polls were held, is not the BJP’s strongest support base. The BJP is considered strongest in northern Karnataka, which will go to the polls in the third phase on Thursday.
Counting of results will take place on Sunday, May 25. The exit poll predicted that the Congress, which had 20 seats, is expected to win between 15 and 20 seats, and the JD(S), which had 12 seats, is likely to get between eight and 12 seats. The BJP had a three per cent swing in its favour, according to the exit poll. The Congress faced a loss of one per cent votes and the JD(S) two per cent, it said. Others were expected to win around two to four seats, the exit poll said.
After exit polls covering 155 seats (more than half of the total 224), the BJP has been projected as getting 73 seats, the Congress 45 and JD(S) 42. Security was tightened in light of Thursday’s poll-related violence in which Naxalites shot dead two persons at Hebri, in Udupi district, and also some clashes between Congress and BJP workers in Bellary.
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No takers for Rs 11 crore |
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Bangalore, May 16: It is Rs 11 crores in hard cash. But there are no takers. Confiscated by the state Election Commission during the campaign, the cash haul is the highest in recent times. “We have contacted all the political parties to come and claim it after giving valid reasons for possession of such huge amount of cash at a time like this,” says a senior officer with the state EC with a smile, “But no one seems to be keen.”
Evidently no political party can say it is theirs as it was meant for wooing voters. “Every time we stop a vehicle or raid a place the driver would say he does not know the content of the suitcase,” said the officer. State election commissioner Vidyashankar said that the confiscated liquor and the cash have been handed over to the court and would be disposed as per its verdict. “We told them to bring their owner to claim the cash. So far they have not come,” the officer said.
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India-born Tibetans prefer to be Indians |
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New Delhi, May 16: A young generation of Tibetans, born and brought up in India, is now opting for Indian citizenship. Many of them are working in the corporate sector and believe their Tibetan citizenship is inimical to their climbing the corporate ladder. A young Tibetan photographer working for a leading media house claimed he took Indian citizenship because, without it, travelling abroad was very difficult. "I did it for survival. Most embassies do not give visas to those who apply with a Tibetan passport. Each time I had to travel, I would require a clearance letter from the Tibetan government in exile. I would then need a separate clearance from the Indian government. The entire procedure took months," he said.
A large number of professionally qualified Tibetans, including architects, doctors, engineers, journalists and businessmen, have taken Indian citizenship. Suhas Chakma, who heads the Asian Centre for Human Rights, refused to give the exact number of Tibetans who have got citizenship.
"The actual figures would be with the ministry of home since there has been no study conducted in this field so far. My own hunch is that numbers are steadily rising," said Chakma. But changing citizenship remains an emotive issue. As Tenzin (name changed), a software engineer, pointed out, "Just because I have changed my citizenship does not mean that I lose my Tibetan identity. I remain an ethnic Tibetan who maintains his Green Book. The book entitles me, like thousands of other Tibetans living across the globe, to pay an annual tax to the Tibetan government-in-exile."
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