Non Violence! AHA!

Non Violence! AHA!


Palash Biswas


It is Bad Time. Ashok Mukhopadhyay directed two plays written by Buddhadev bhattacharya `POKA’, based on METAMORPHOSIS and `DUHSAMAY’ (BAD TIME).

More than 1,600 people were arrested in India's West Bengal state on Friday as opposition workers and police clashed during a strike to protest the killing of 14 villagers opposed to a planned industrial hub.Scuffles broke out between strikers and police in Kolkata, capital of the communist-ruled eastern state, after around a dozen state-run buses were stoned and a few set alight. A bus driver was critically injured when hit by stones.The killings have become a national controversy with the federal government putting on hold the low-tax Special Economic Zones (SEZs), touted as important for boosting India's industrial growth and closing the manufacturing gap with China.

In fresh violence, a Trinamool Congress-backed committee activists opposed to acquisition of farmland for SEZ attacked two police camps on Friday as tension continued to prevail in Nandigram during the 12-hour general strike called by opposition parties in West Bengal.In Kolkata, teenagers played cricket on empty streets, ignoring passing police jeeps as the day-long strike shut schools, offices, banks and shops.Many strikers blame Wednesday's killings at Nandigram, 150 km (90 miles) southwest of Kolkata, on the state government, which wants to set up a chemical industrial hub on farm land despite opposition from villagers.


Jyoti Basu has censured Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharya for the Nandigram carnage.

'I am compelled to say that of late the government is taking decisions keeping the Left Front partners in the dark,' Basu said at an inconclusive meeting of the Left Front Thursday night.
At the same meeting, partners like the Revolutionary Socialist Party (RSP), Communist Party of India (CPI) and Forward Bloc turned the heat on Bhattacharya and the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) that leads the ruling Left Front.

In his 25-minute speech, Basu also gave a piece of his mind on the police firing. "I have been told that the mob turned violent. How many police personnel were injured? On the contrary, I saw on television men with bullet injuries on their back. Why is it so? Did the police open fire when they were on their heels?"

'Is this the way the Left Front government should function? Some one or two leaders are taking all decisions now,' Basu said.
'I have been told that the mob went violent but on the contrary I saw men with bullets on their back on TV. Why is it so?' he asked.


MUKHOPADHYAYA WITH BANIK, BIBHAS, MEGHNAD, CHANDAN, KAUSHIK,BRATYA,MANOJ MITRA AND OTHERS HAS TO RESIGN FROM STATE SPONSERED NATTAY ACADEMY.

SAHITYA ACADEMY VICE PRESIDENT SUNIL GANGOPADHYAYA WHO DITCHED MAHASWETA DEVI AND MADE NARANG THE ACADEMY PRESIDENT, A STAUNCH SUPPORTER OF BUDDHA, HAS COME OUT AN OPED ARTICLE QUESTIONING THE JUSTIFICATION OF POLICE ACTION IN NANDIGRAM AND EXPRESSING HIS COLD HORROR IN ANANDABAZAR.

THE MOST VOCAL MEDIA FOR CAPITALIST DEVELOPMENT IS NOW OUT AND OUT AGAINST THE STATE GOVERNMENT.

WHO WERE WITH BUDDHA IN HIS TOUGHEST DAYS AND EVEN CAMPAIGNED FOR CPIM, ARE DEMANDING HIS RESIGNATION.
RUDRAPRASAD, SUBHAPRASANNA AND GAUTAM GHOSH HAVE JOINED THE PROCESSION.
Intellectuals want Buddha’s resignation.Criticising the “genocide” of peasants in Nandigram yesterday, the Forum of Artistes, Cultural Activities and Intellectuals today demanded the resignation of chief minister Mr Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee. Condemning the barbaric attack on innocent villagers by police, theatre personality Mr Bibhash Chakraborty, who resigned from the Paschim Banga Natya Academy along with three of his colleagues following the incident yesterday, said: “We resigned as we didn’t want to be a part of a government-run agency any more.” He said the chief minister should stop wearing white dhoti -kurta and instead appear in police uniform when he visits Nandan next time. Most importantly, he should step down from his post immediately. The forum president, Mr Tarun Sanyal, described yesterday’s incident as “shameful” , saying that “no civilised country will come across such a crisis”. He also confirmed members of their forum would visit Nandigram to meet the victims’ families and understand the actual situation there. Director Goutam Ghosh seemed disillusioned with the state government’s role in yesterday’s episode. “In this 21st century the government is being ruled by the industrialists belying all our aspirations.
They have proved how merciless and ruthless they can become when it comes to fulfilling their objective,” he said.
Poet Joy Goswami also spoke in the same vein. He said they never expected such a shameful act from a person who is associated with cultural activities. CM’s change from an admirer of culture and literature to a dictator was quite evident after yesterday’s incident.
Painter Subhaprasanna said: “How can a person who recites Tagore’s poem be so ruthless? If he has human qualities, he must step down from his position without further delay.”
Other intellectuals like Bratya Basu, Koushik Sen, Mahasweta Devi, Suman Mukhopadhyay, Saoli Mitra, Rudraprasad Sengupta, Nabanita Deb Sen, joined a rally, organised by the forum, from the Press Club to Esplanade this evening.

THE GOVERNOR STANDS WITH THE VICTIMS!

LEFT PARTNERS THREATEN TO QUIT THE GOVERNMENT!

AND JYOTI BASU SLAMS THE CM AND AND THE PARTY CPIM!

More than 2,000 advocates of the West Bengal Bar Association today took out a procession to protest against the deaths in police firing at Nandigram. The procession was stopped by police near the AG Bengal building. It later proceeded towards Writers’ Building but police stopped it near the GPO. The association will submit a memorandum to Governor Gopal Krishna Gandhi, said Mr Uttam Majumdar, vice-chairman of the association.


VIOLENCE BY STATEPOWER IS IN FACT NON VIOLENCE! NONE UNDERSTANDS!

HINDUTVA IS ALL ABOUT NONVIOLENCE .AND contrarily, BUDDHA NEVER PREACHED NONVIOLENCE IN FACE OF REPRESSION, AMBEDKAR TOLD.

It is bat Time. Cricket all over. It is MANDIRA BEDI TIME.

ITIS BED TIME FOR RULING CLASSES WITH WOMEN AND WINE!

It Is bed Time for the ruling classes As a confident India Inc has started bidding for more and bigger deals abroad, in 2007-08 overseas investment from India will be around $15 billion - surpassing foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows in the country, says a study. The bulk of outward FDI flow will be driven mainly by India's booming manufacturing sector, said the 'Study on FDI Outflow & Role of Manufacturing in the Mergers & Acquisitions Front, 2007', by the Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry (Assocham).Indian companies' preferred investment destinations are the European countries and the US, as also Africa taking advantage of its cost competitiveness.Sectors such as pharma and automobiles will give a major thrust to the FDI outflow, though IT will continue to dominate the scene, said the report released Friday.

THE SUBCONTIENT, ALL THREE PARTS OF THE ERSTWHILE UNITED UNDIVIDED INDIA IS ENGAGED IN BLOODBATH!

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Brahmins killed Gandhi: Tushar
New Delhi: The Brahmins were behind several bids on Mahatma Gandhi’s life as they wanted to make India a Hindu nation, the great grandson of Gandhi said on Jan.30. “I want to condemn the theory of Sangh Parivar that Gandhi was killed because he was responsible for the vivisection of the motherland and because he forced the Indian Govt. to give Pakistan Rs. 55 crore”, Tushar A. Gandhi said at an event where his book, Let’s Kill Gandhi, was launched here. “These are all excuses which are not true. And the Brahmin community, which wanted to make India a Hindu nation, was behind all the attempts and the murder of the Father of the Nation”, he said. Gandhi’s killing was not an assassination. It was a premeditated murder.

(Deccan Herald, Jan.31, 2007).

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (October 2, 1869 – January 30, 1948) was a national icon who led the struggle for India's independence from British colonial rule, empowered by tens of millions of common Indians. Throughout his life he opposed any form of terrorism or violence, instead using only the highest moral standards. His philosophy of nonviolence, for which he coined the term satyagraha, has influenced national and international nonviolent resistance movements to this day, including the American Civil Rights Movement (1955-1968) led by Martin Luther King.

From the time he took charge of the freedom struggle and the Indian National Congress in 1918, he was lovingly reverred as "Mahatma", or "Great Soul" by millions of Indians. Although he was much averse to honorary addresses, Gandhi is still today commonly referred to as Mahatma Gandhi, and not Mohandas Gandhi, all over the world. Apart from being considered one of the greatest Hindu and Indian leaders of all time, he is revered by many in India as the "Father of the Nation" or Bapu (Hindi for Father).

By means of nonviolent civil disobedience, Gandhi helped bring about India's independence from British rule, inspiring other colonial peoples to work for their own independence and ultimately dismantling the British Empire. Gandhi's principle of satyagraha (from Sanskrit; satya for truth and agraha for endeavor), often translated as "way of truth" or "pursuit of truth", has inspired other freedom activists such as the Dalai Lama, Lech Walesa, Steve Biko, Aung San Suu Kyi and Nelson Mandela. However not all these leaders kept to Gandhi's strict principle of nonviolence and nonresistance.

Gandhi often stated that his principles were simple; drawn from traditional Hindu beliefs: truth (satya) and nonviolence (ahimsa). As Gandhi said: "I have nothing new to teach the world. Truth and nonviolence are as old as the hills."

BASU SLAMS BUDDHA
Jyoti Basu criticises Buddhadeb on Nandigram.Basu says partners kept in dark, slams police carnageAfter the stormy Assembly session, chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee was possibly not prepared for the flak he drew from his own comrade and mentor Jyoti Basu at the Left Front meeting. Unlike CPM state secretary and Left Front chairman Biman Bose or the party mandarins in Delhi, the former chief minister snubbed Bhattacharjee for the Nandigram carnage.
Basu hinted that even he — let alone Front partners — had no prior information about the police action in Nandigram. The meeting remained inconclusive because all the partners couldn't express their views.
On Thursday evening’s Left Front meeting at Alimuddin Street called to pacify miffed junior partners lasted for two hours before being adjourned till Saturday, but the breathing space for the CPI-M came at a price.
In a desperate bid to stop the Nandigram incident from snowballing into a political crisis, the state CPI-M had to enlist Mr Jyoti Basu to help salvage the situation with its allies. And a contrite Mr Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee paid a visit to the CPI headquarters to meet the party’s national general secretary Mr AB Bardhan ahead of the crucial LF meet. It was learnt that the CM sought the CPI’s “co-operation” in defusing the crisis and took the opportunity to “explain” his position.
While CPI, RSP and Forward Bloc leaders placed their brief before Mr Basu, LF chairman Mr Biman Bose and Mr Bhattacharjee, the smaller partners like Biplabi Bangla Congress and Marxist Forward Bloc did not get an opportunity to say their piece as Mr Basu had to leave early for “health reasons”. According to a senior LF leader, Mr Basu declaring before the Front partners that police should have tried to tackle the situation in a different way and tried to avoid so much of bloodshed helped calm matters. He also asked representatives of each long-ignored junior partner to have their say separately. As the meeting was adjourned, the LF leadership decided not to speak out against the government in public till it reached a decision on their demands, including that of withdrawing police from Nandigram.
Earlier in the day, Left allies had begun an exercise they hadn’t undertaken since 1977 ~ adjourning their state secretariat meeting halfway, CPI leaders held bipartite talks with the RSP and Forward Bloc state leadership to formulate a joint action plan for the LF meeting.

The Gandhian Touch
THE STATESMAN reports fromTAMLUK (East Midnapore), March 15: Sixteen-year-old Saddam Hossain lay on the hospital bed here today with his eyes bandaged as a tear gas shell had burst on his eyes when he thought he was safe behind columns of hundreds of men and women at Bhangaberi, Nandigram, yesterday. He couldn’t get up, but the Governor, Mr Gopal Krishna Gandhi’s milk of human kindness this morning gave him a ray of hope. Seeing him in school uniform as he groaned in pain on the hospital bed, the Governor touched his hand and asked him what class he read in and how he had got injured. “The Governor told me: ‘Don’t worry. There is no media here. What I say now is for your ears only. You will soon get well and can resume your studies’. I asked him how I can continue my studies if they take away our six bighas of land that supports our family and my father gets money from for paying for my studies. He told me ‘Don’t worry. Everything will be all right. I am looking into it’,” Saddam said as his elder brother Mizanur stood with his jaws clenched with determination. “The bullets fired by the brutal police can’t break our will, they have redoubled our strength. They can take our land over our bodies only,” he said.
The Governor stayed at the Tamluk State District Hospital for over an hour, talked to the injured villagers of Nandigram being treated there. He was so moved by the sight of women in tattered saris bearing marks of police brutality that he immediately instructed the medical staff not to spare any pains to give succour to the injured.
He told waiting journalists at the hospital that he had seen with his own eyes “the severe pain they are in.” “My first concern is that the injured get immediate treatment as some of them need brain scan, some have bullet injuries, while others need to be shifted to better equipped hospitals. I told the medical staff there mustn’t be any slackness in the treatment. I asked them whether the infrastructure here is adequate, to get the injuries scanned wherever needed and provide all treatment free,” Mr Gandhi said. Asked about the political implication of the situation, the Governor told the media: “Please understand my position. My utmost worry is the recovery of the injured... What has happened is not good for anyone.”
The Governor’s words had a telling effect. There was a flurry of activity as the hospital staff checked each case, referred eight of the critically injured to hospitals in Kolkata and contacted eye specialists for treating three whose eyes were damaged.
Left cornered in Parliament

The Front will meet again on March 17. "I am being compelled to say that the government is taking some decisions in recent times keeping the partners in the dark. Is it the way the Left Front government should function? Some two or three party leaders are taking the call these days," Basu said.

SCENER IO INDIAN SUBCONTINENT
Cricket in South Asia has gone beyond being a national phenomenon to a more global or trans-national one.And for Bangladesh, which has no chance of moving up much in the championship, the craze is inexplicable unless attention is moved to some startling truths, which go beyond cricket in general and the World Cup in particular. India will have a new comic hero. A character based on Tendulkar is set to hit bookstores - games and merchandise to follow.Imagine Sachin Tendulkar as the saviour of the world -- fighting the baddies and averting catastrophes! Virgin Comics' new superhero character Master Blaster will have Sachin Tendulkar donning superhero garb and will hit the bookstores by September. Master Blaster will also find its way to video and mobile games, besides the usual apparel and product merchandise, by the end of this year. A slew of cricket-themed films are set to hit Indian cinemas soon as Bollywood tries to cash in on the World Cup fever that has gripped the country.The seven-week cricket tournament that began in the Caribbean has spawned spin-off business worth millions of dollars, with hotels, bars, shopping malls and public parks catering to fans keen to watch the matches.



India,the cricket-crazy country is rooting for its team known popularly as the "men in blue" after the colour of their kit and the fever is peaking on the eve of the team's first match against Bangladesh on Saturday.A recent news report in newspapers across India and Bangladesh drew the attention of cricket fans across the globe.It quoted the World Cup cricket official Janelle Penny as saying that 90% of tickets for matches involving India and Bangladesh had been sold out much ahead of the championship in March. Add to this the fact that in Australia, Indians, Bangladeshis and Sri Lankans have already booked the giant screen at Federation Square in downtown Melbourne to watch their teams play.

At a time when Indian cricket is underperforming, such euphoria is surprising.

Bangladesh bans 7 private TV channels

Bangladesh authorities Thursday asked seven private TV channels to stop broadcasting immediately as they were operating without proper permission.

"The Ministry of Information directed the TV channels to immediately stop broadcasting as they were airing their programmes without permission and no objection certificates,"

The official BSS news agency said quoting an official handout. The channels are STV US, Channel S, Rupasi Bangla, Falguni Music, TV-5, Bijoy TV and My TV.

One must obtain no objection certificate from the ministry to open or uplink any television channel in Bangladesh or downlink or receive any programme of a channel operating from abroad, the handout said.

US tells Pakistan to be `above board` on judge.Washington: Calling the case "a matter of deep concern," the United States urged close anti-terrorism ally Pakistan on Thursday to handle in an "above-board," open way the dismissal and detention of the country's top judge.
"It is essential for any developing democracy to adhere to the rule of law and conduct any investigations ... in a clear, above-board, transparent manner that strictly accords with Pakistan's laws," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said.Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf suspended Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhary last week after he met with the top judge, whose subsequent confinement at his Islamabad home has sparked outrage in Pakistan.
Human Rights Watch said the Pakistani government's dismissal and detention of the chief justice severely undermined judicial independence in the country.

Buoyed by the support to his defiant stand challenging President Pervez Musharraf's decision to suspend him, former Chief Justice of the Pakistan Supreme Court, Justice Iftikar Muhammad Chaudhry has said his fight was not for personal glory but for the "independence" of the judiciary in the country. In his first interview since he was suspended, later confined to house arrest along his family and roughed up by the police along with his wife when he tried to go to the apex court on March 12, Justice Chaudhry said his fight was to restore the honour of judiciary and would continue to do it without fear of life or any personal loss.
In a crackdown on media reporting on the judiciary crisis in Pakistan, police today entered the editorial headquarters of the private television news channel Geo and fired tear gas shells.Apparently irked by the live coverage of the pitched battles between protesting lawyers and political workers and the police against the suspension of Supreme Court Chief Justice Iftikhar M Chaudhry by President Pervez Musharraf, a number of police personnel entered the Geo TV office and broke window panes with their batons. The channel`s Senior Editor Hamid Mir went live on air saying "dozens of policemen" have entered their news room and used tear gas shells and started destroying property inside.

Phone, Internet links in Pakistan snapped for hours

Internet and phone lines in many parts of Pakistan, including the capital and commercial hub of Karachi, were snapped for over two hours today ahead of the resumption of the trial of suspended Supreme Court Chief Justice Iftikar Muhammad Chaudhry.

INDIAN security chiefs were meeting in crisis sessions last night after hundreds of Maoist guerillas killed more than 50 officers and militia men in an attack on a police station in the central state of Chhattisgarh. On the other hand,the government has detected 80 cases of misuse of customs concessions given to the Special Economic Zones, which are under fire on the issue of land acquisition, especially in West Bengal.The misuse of customs concessions by the SEZs has resulted in a revenue loss of Rs 143.94 crore (Rs 1.43 billion) since 2002-03. However, the government could recover only Rs 1.50 crore (Rs 15 million) from these cases.This information was provided by Minister of State for Finance S S Palanimanickam in the Lok Sabha.The revenue loss has taken place despite the monitoring done by the Commerce Ministry officials headed by a development commissioner. Customs officials also check the movement of goods in and out of the SEZs In UP Dalits, cops clash over Ambedkar statue, 6 hurt.Six policemen were injured in a clash with Dalits over installation of a statue of B R Ambedkar on a disputed plot of land in a village near Ballia, police said on Friday.The trouble started on Thursday night when a police team went to Patnari village and tried to remove the Ambedkar statue erected by Dalits on a disputed piece of land there, they said.They said the angry Dalits hurled stones at them, leaving six policemen injured, after police used batons to disperse the mob.

Meanwhile,West Bengal government puts on hold all special economic zones in the state until a 'socially balanced' decision is taken in this regard.Presenting the state budget for 2007-08 in the assembly, West Bengal Finance Minister Ashim Dasgupta said there was a necessity to take steps for setting up large industries in consultation with people with a necessary balance of agriculture and payment of compensation for land acquired for projects.With regard to SEZs, he said until a socially balanced decision was taken at the national level, the state government would not take any initiative in the matter.The state government's move came only two days after a major flare-up of violence at Nandigram in East Midnapore district, where 14 people died after police fired on people opposed to the acquisition of their land for a proposed SEZ.The finance minister conceded there was a need for consulting local people for setting up some large industries with special charactertistics.The state was not facing any problem of land for small and medium industrial units and even in case of most large industries, the problem was not very serious, he said.

Not only a state of the Union, West Bengal, but the Nation represented by the Government of India decided: SEZ nod where land purchase is an issue.

After violence in Nandigram, the Government has decided not to give further approvals for Special Economic Zones where acquisition of land is being resisted.

"When land is to be acquired and it is not decided how the land will be taken and justice done to farmers the freeze would remain (on SEZs even if they have other approvals)," Commerce and Industry Minister Kamal Nath said on the sidelines of the Commonwealth Study Conference.

On Thursday, he had said that the Empowered Group of Ministers on SEZs would look "distinctively" at the cases where land was not an issue and where acquisition was a problem.

This would ease the way for notification of around 172 proposals of SEZs, where land was available and formal approval of the Board of Approval has been received.

Nath had also said that violence in Nandigram was triggerred due to acquisition of land and not the SEZ policy."We should not look at it as a SEZ issue but one of land acquisition for industrial projects," he said.

The eGoM headed by External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee has not met since January and there is a freeze on fresh approvals and notifications.

Meanwhile, pressure was mounting on the Centre to unlock the movement on SEZs. Five chief ministers and some Union ministers have written to the eGoM to notify the cases where land was available.


Dateline Kolkata:Only in the case of a few large industries for which large areas of land may be required because of special characteristics of the projects, it will be necessary to take steps in consultation with local people and to maintain necessary balance with agriculture and payment of appropriate compensation for acquisition of land, Dasgupta said.In this regard, the doors were open for negotiations, he said.

The minister's statement came only two days after widespread violence at Nandigram in East Midnapore district over the acquisition of land for a SEZ proposed to be set up by Indonesia's Salim Group.People in Nandigram, apprehensive about the acquisition of their farm land for the SEZ, launched a protest in December last year and blocked roads to prevent the entry of police in the area.

Tata project site in Singur attacked

Members of a Trinamool Congress-backed body torched a police watch-tower and uprooted fence posts at the Tata Motors' small car project site in Singur on Friday during a state-wide general strike called to protest the police firing in Nandigram. About 200 supporters of the Krishi Jami Raksha (Save Farmland) Committee led by its convenor Becharam Manna assembled near the project site on the side of Beraberi Kanchkirdhar, Bajemelia and Beraberi Purbapara villages as security personnel were posted at another location. The agitators were chased away by the police from the site but they later assembled at another location, Gopalnagar Shanapara, and torched a temporary police watch-tower. The police said the fire had been put out.

PM must visit Nandigram: Mamta

Trinamool Congress chief Mamta Banerjee on Friday asked Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to visit Nandigram to see for himself the police action on villagers and said the Centre should not remain silent after the "genocide" there.

"I am appealing to the prime minister to visit Nandigram to see the police atrocities and to talk to the injured and their families," Banerjee told reporters in Kolkata.She said that though the Central government was taking the Communist Party of India-Marxist's support, it should not remain silent after the "barbaric attack on villagers including scheduled castes and minorities."

Pointing out that Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Lal Kishenchand Advani will go to Nandigram on Saturday, Banerjee demanded that a Central team and an all-party delegation should also pay a visit there.

"Let us forget politics. All parties should visit Nandigram," she said.

Banerjee welcomed the critical stand taken by Left Front partners like the Communist Party of India, Forward Bloc and Revolutionary Socialist Party on the police action.

Farmers' land should not be taken for SEZs: minister

Farm land should not be acquired for setting up special economic zones, Maharashtra Finance Minister Jayantrao Patil said in New Delhi on Friday. "Only non-agricultural land or land otherwise lying waste should be acquired for setting up SEZs," he said. Speaking to reporters on the sidelines of a conference, Patil said: "We have given our opinion on the issue to the Union government."

Describing SEZs as growth engines of the economy, Patil said the interests of farmers should be looked after while acquiring land for SEZs. On income tax and excise exemptions granted by the Centre, Patil said these should not be restricted to only a handful of states but should cover all 150 backward districts in the country. "This will enable uniform growth to take place across the backward districts instead of development getting concentrated in just a few areas," Patil said.

cost rather than benefitting them," said Ashis Chakravarti, political editor the Kolkata-based Telegraph newspaper.

Buddhadeb briefs LF partners

KOLKATA: West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee is believed to have explained his Government's decision to send security forces to Nandigram at a meeting of Left Front partners here on Thursday.

Some of the constituents such as the All-India Forward Bloc, the Revolutionary Socialist Party and the Communist Party of India have been critical of the police firing there on Wednesday. Their leaders have expressed apprehensions that the incident might jeopardise Left Front amity in the State.

The Front will continue its campaign to defeat the attempts being made by certain forces to create unrest in the State as they have been doing at Nandigram, the meeting concurred.

Another meeting of the Front leaders will be held on Saturday, chairman of the LF committee Biman Bose said.

Prior to the meeting, Mr. Bhattacharjee called on CPI general secretary A.B. Bardhanand briefed him about the recent developments at Nandigram. He emphasised that there was no intention to set up the proposed chemical hub in the area if the locals were averse to the idea.

Earlier in the afternoon, Mr. Bardhan admitted there was a "crisis" in the Left Front in the wake of the developments at Nandigram. He regretted the police firing and underlined the need for transparency in Government actions and for consultations with the constituents before initiating them.

He described the firing as the "most tragic and unprecedented event in the 30-year history of Left Front rule in West Bengal."

Centre gives directive to West Bengal

Vinay Kumar

"Take all possible steps to defuse the situation"


NEW DELHI: A day after 14 people were killed in police firing in Nandigram, the Union Government on Thursday asked the West Bengal Government to talk to all concerned to assuage their feelings and take all possible steps to defuse the situation.

After studying a report from the State Government, the Home Ministry assured that all possible assistance would be given to West Bengal for restoring normality in the area.

Top officials of the Ministry were in touch with the State Government and had asked it to take swift measures to provide relief to the next of the kin of those killed and those injured, a Home Ministry spokesperson said.

The State Government's four-page report said that when police tried to enter the area to restore law and order, villagers hurled bricks and bombs and used firearms. Following this, the police opened fire in self-defence.

NHRC seeks report


The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) has sent a notice to the State Chief Secretary and Director-General of Police, seeking a factual report on the "police violence" in Nandigram.

Taking suo motu cognisance of media reports, the NHRC said the reports raised a serious issue of human rights violation. It gave two weeks to the Chief Secretary and the DGP to submit a report and asked them to indicate whether any ex-gratia was provided to the next of the kin of those killed.

CPI(M) assails Trinamool, Maoists
NEW DELHI: The Communist Party of India (Marxist) said on Thursday that the West Bengal Government had planned to order a judicial inquiry into the Nandigram firing, even as the High Court ordered the Central Bureau of Investigation to look into it.

Prakash Karat, party general secretary, told The Hindu here that he had a talk with Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee on the situation.

The party accused the Trinamool Congress and Maoist elements of having perfected the art of provoking and instigating senseless violence.

"Some years ago, in Keshpur in Midnapur district, these elements created similar mayhem and terror in order to establish their political presence. Many lives were lost even then, but once peace and order was restored and elections held, the Left Front scored resounding victories. The Keshpur model is now being sought to be repeated in Nandigram,'' the editorial in the latest edition of the party organ, People's Democracy, said.