NDA, Left bandh today against oil price rise

NEW DELHI: Life in many parts of the country may be disrupted on Monday with non-Congress political parties set to enforce a nationwide bandh against the increase in fuel prices.

"This may be the first time in the history of India's politics that almost all political parties will participate in the Bharat bandh," NDA working chairperson L K Advani said after a meeting of top NDA leaders on Sunday to chalk out the strategy for the strike.

The government was unfazed, with finance minister Pranab Mukherjee ruling out a relook at the decision to increase prices and Congress slamming what it called "cheap and opportunistic politics at the cost of the nation".

The assertion seemed to reflect the confidence of a regime which has won a series of elections despite continued
rise in prices, defying estimates and leading many to wonder whether inflation has ceased to be the issue which would in the past tilt electoral outcomes against the incumbent.

What can provide edge to the protest this time is that both the BJP-led NDA and Left are going to be part of the action on Monday, raising the possibility of serious disruptions in states where non-Congress governments are in power.

The BJP and the Left have worked hard to pre-empt any perception of a collaboration, to deny Congress an opportunity to accuse CPM of a partnership with "communal forces".

But the competition among Opposition parties to emerge as the main vehicle of the popular unease over price rise is likely to lead them to put their best agitational foot forward on Monday.

"It's not Bharat bandh but virodhi pakhand (it's not an all-India strike but Opposition play-acting)," party spokesman Manish Tiwari retorted. He recalled that the BJP had supported the government move in Parliament in 2006 when the petroleum and natural gas regulatory Act was passed. The purpose of the legislation was to institute an independent regulator in the oil sector. "The BJP supported in both Houses of Parliament," he said.

Attacking the Left for making common cause with the BJP on the issue, he said, "Secularism has never been an issue with the Left." He said the Left had often 'colluded' with communal forces if it served their political purpose.
Advani credited NDA convenor and JD(U) chief Sharad Yadav with bringing together non-NDA political parties for the strike. Though the Left parties have given a call for a 'Bharat bandh' separately on Monday, RJD, SP, LJP and some smaller parties will not be part of the strike.

Advani claimed the government had become "insensitive" to price rise and said that though UPA had been espousing the cause of the common man since 2004, prices were on the rise. "Despite so much increase in food prices, the government has increased prices of petroleum products," he said.

Price rise will figure in the forthcoming monsoon session, Advani said, adding that even if prices were not rolled back, it was the responsibility of the Opposition to voice the people's protest.

Yadav said Monday's agitation would be "extraordinary and unprecedented" as people were "completely fed up" with price rise.

Yadav gave figures of prices of petrol in different countries to argue that its cost in India was very high. He claimed that the cost of petrol was only Rs 16.50 but after several taxes, it was sold for Rs 53.05.

Emergency services will not be disrupted during the strike. Advani appealed to all NDA members participating in the strike to ensure that it was conducted peacefully.

TOI

NDA will return to power in 2014: Nitin Gadkari

NDA will return to power in 2014: Nitin Gadkari

New Delhi, July 4: Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) president Nitin Gadkari is confident that his party-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) will return to power in the Lok Sabha polls in 2014. He denies being remote-controlled by the RSS and claims the alliance crisis in Bihar is ‘almost over’.

Gadkari does not think that the multi-party NDA, which ruled India from 1998 to 2004, has been weakened because parties like the Biju Janata Dal (BJD) and the Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) have left it.

“It is a to and fro process,” Gadkari told IANS in an exclusve interview at the BJP headquarters. “Some parties might have left, but some other parties are keen to come into the NDA.”

Can he name the parties keen to join the NDA? Gadkari: “We will disclose everything at the appropriate time.” The 53-year-old politican insists that BJP cadres have been activated all across the country since he took charge of the main opposition party over six months ago, succeeding Rajnath Singh.

“The mood is upbeat among party activists. The NDA will ride to power again at the centre,” Gadkari said. He cites the opposition’s decision to unite for Monday’s Bharat bandh to protest rising prices and the fuel price hike as a major achievement of his short tenure.

“We have been able to assemble all the parties on the burning issue of soaring prices of essential commodities.” But what about fissures with the Janata Dal-United (JD-U) and his disparaging remarks about Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav and Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) president Lalu Prasad?

“It is a thing of the past. It is over,” he replied. The BJP president had called the two politicians ‘barking dogs’ for allegedly going soft on the government.

Gadkari is also upbeat about his immediate challenge - the Bihar assembly polls due in October.

“The crisis is almost over,” he said about the rift between the BJP and JD-U Chief Minister Nitish Kumar. What are the electoral chances of the alliance? “We will win. Hundred per cent,” he said.

Gadkari, who became the BJP president after the party was routed in the 2009 Lok Sabha elections, denied he had any problems with the party’s star leader, LK Advani. “I had absolutely no issues with Advaniji or any other leader, seniors or juniors.”

Is his lack of experience at the national level a problem? “I think most of these impressions are created by a section of the media, which has its own perceptions, rather than the reality,” he said.

He denied he was remote-controlled by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) in decision making. “Of course, the Sangh is part of my conviction and the past. But the talk that I am directed by the RSS is far from true,” Gadkari said.

According to him, the party’s decision to take back former external affairs minister Jaswant Singh was his own decision. So is former Madhya Pradesh chief minster Uma Bharati also on the return path? Gadkari said the party will discuss the issue in detail at the appropriate time and take an appropriate decision.

Is Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Chouhan opposing Uma’s re-entry? Gadkari parried the question. Gadkari claimed that groupism or infighting in the BJP was on the wane. “A major example of dissidence was cited in Rajasthan. But we could achieve a comfortable win for Ram Jethmalani in the Rajya Sabha election.” As for Karnataka, dissidence was by and large over, he said. And there ‘is no dissidence in the Bihar unit’. (IANS)

Land of Krishna protests ban on peacock feather trade

Land of Krishna protests ban on peacock feather trade

Vrindavan, July 4: The national bird needs to be protected, but there is a flip side to the proposed ban on the domestic trade of peacock feathers. Just ask the hundreds of workers who earn their living selling products made from the multi-hued feathers.

In this land of the Hindu god Krishna, always portrayed with a peacock feather on his head, the proposed move of the Environment and forests ministry to ban domestic trade in the feathers has been met with alarm. “Can you think of Sri Krishna-Radha without the moar pankh (peacock feather)? In the south, Lord Murugan is fond of peacocks. Jain saints use them; cattle owners need them for decorating their animals. For religious purposes and even as decorative pieces, the peacock feathers are always in demand,” Hari Prasad, who sells peacock feather fans outside a Krishna temple in Vrindavan, told IANS.

In Goverdhan, Mathura, Vrindavan, where Krishna is believed to have been born and brought up, and in the nearby Taj Mahal city of Agra, hundreds of cottage industry workers and owners have been up in arms for the last one week organising protests and submitting memorandums against the ministry’s move.

They met the district magistrate and presented a memorandum addressed to President Pratibha Patil. “We have requested her to reject the move,” Nandlal Bharti of the Akhil Bhartiya Moar Pankh Kutir Udhyog Samiti (All India Peacock Feather Cottage Industry Committee), told IANS.

“A ban on the trade would leave many people, mostly from underprivileged sections, out of work,” added Ramesh, who runs a shop selling decorative pieces and items needed for rituals near the famous Dwarkadheesh temple in Mathura. “The charge that we kill the birds for feathers is bogus and wrong. How can we ever kill them? They provide us our livelihood,” argued Lakhan Singh, one of those who stands to lose his earnings.

Agra has India’s biggest wholesale market of peacock feathers. “The entire Braj Mandal, parts of Morena district in Madhya Pradesh, adjoining the Dholpur and Bharatpur districts of Rajasthan, and the sprawling 10,000 sq km area of the Taj Trapezium Zone have a high concentration of these birds. After the rains, the peacocks start shedding their feathers that are collected and brought to traders in Agra. In fact feathers are brought here from all over the country for auction during September-October,” disclosed Bhanwar Singh, president of the Association.

The members say the population of the magnificent national bird, which can’t fly very high or very long but has a long train of colourful feathers that fan out in the rains, has been steadily rising. But WWF and other environmental groups estimate that the population has gone down by almost 50 per cent of what it used to be at the time of independence.

Activists allege that peacocks were being killed at regular intervals for the feathers and also for the meat. “Use of pesticides in grains has also been found to be a factor in reducing the peacock population,” says eco-activist Ravi Singh. The environment ministry is planning a total ban on the use of the national bird’s feathers. The practice has so far been to allow trading in ‘naturally shed feathers’ but restrict exports of products made from them.

The Wildlife Protection Act 1972 prohibits the killing of peacocks as well as export of tail feathers or articles made from them, but allows domestic trade under the assumption that the feathers are naturally shed, states the ministry. But this could soon end with the ministry proposing to amend the act. The Wild Life Crime Control Bureau has over the years raided several warehouses in the Agra region and found huge stocks of feathers, giving rise to the suspicion that the birds were being systematically killed.

“The right course would be to step up patrolling and monitor controls. A total ban is not the right answer,” said tourism industry leader Rakesh Chauhan in Agra. “Hundreds of people make a living selling fans, sticks, all kinds of fancy items from the feathers. They would all stand to lose their livelihood,” agreed hotelier Sandip Arora. (IANS)