Vis-a-Vis

SYED ALI GEELANI Jamaat-e-Islami leader versus RAVI SHANKAR PRASAD BJP spokesperson

"130 dialogues have taken place on Kashmir and nothing has been achieved. We won’t be a part of this time-wasting exercise."

"His public demand for self-determination is extremely provocative and a rank anti-national statement."

EPILOGUE: Dialogues may have been fruitless, but that is the only way forward.

SENTENCED: Fake stamp paper racket kingpin Abdul Karim Telgi to 10 years imprisonment by a Bangalore CBI court for counterfeiting and forgery.

DIED: Indian Football Association president and industrialist Aditya Kashyap, 60, who conceptualised the Nehru Cup tournament in the early 1980s.

APPOINTED: Vice-Admiral Anup Singh as the navy’s deputy chief. He replaces Vice-Admiral R.P. Suthan.

SELECTED: Computer engineering student Karan Goyal to work with the European Space Agency to help design a power supply technology for a moon orbiting satellite.

PICTURE SPEAK

OLD FOX: Geelani

Coming on the eve of the third round table conference on Kashmir in Delhi chaired by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Geelani’s show of strength—marked by pro-Pakistan sloganeering and banners in favour of militant outfits Hizbul Mujahideen and Lashkar-e-Toiba—was his way of asserting the clout they wield in the separatist spectrum vis-à-vis moderate Hurriyat faction led by Mirwaiz Omar Farooq.

While turning down the Centre’s invitation for a dialogue, an ailing Geelani—who returned to Kashmir after a two-month medical treatment in Mumbai—was equally acerbic in criticising the Pakistani leadership for proposing the Kashmir solutions short of right of self-determination.

Significantly, Geelani’s show, though also aimed at putting pressure on pro-dialogue Hurriyat faction against participating in the Delhi conference, coincides with the growing clamour by mainstream political parties in Kashmir including the National Conference (NC), the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) and the CPI(M) for troop reduction and for roping in Kashmiri separatists and militants in the Centre-led parleys.

In fact, NC and PDP want Pakistan-based Hizbul Mujahideen chief Syed Salahuddin’s involvement in dialogues. But the Centre is cautious lest such concession be construed as a sign of weakness at a time when militancy is at the lowest ever in the Valley.

What is clear is that Delhi’s evolving peace initiatives on Kashmir are yet to infuse confidence in even moderate separatists to stick their neck out for a walk the talk with the Centre.

-By Ramesh Vinayak

PICTURE SPEAK

REBELS: Bishnoi and Lal

The party has lately been buffeted by a spate of resignations from the primary membership by Lal loyalists across the state in a well-orchestrated charade that has only queered the pitch for the Congress stalwart and his son and Bhiwani MP Kuldeep Bishnoi’s unfolding gambit to break away and float a new party.

Firebrand Bishnoi, who has been suspended by the Congress high-command for stridently criticising the Bhupinder Singh Hooda Government and the Reliance-led mega Special Economic Zone near Gurgaon, has only become more vocal and vicious in taking swipes even at Sonia Gandhi. The father-son duo have upped the ante in their anti-Congress tirade, overshadowing even the official opposition of the Om Parkash Chautala-led Indian National Lok Dal. They are also engineering a spree of resignations by their supporters, particularly from Rohtak, the home turf of Hooda, which is aimed at forcing the high command to expel them from the party. Those quitting the party are shriller in their anti-Hooda rantings, accusing his Government of an “all round failure”.

Lal, whose tea parties with his supporters across the state are brewing trouble for Hooda, plans to unveil his next big political move—breaking away from the party—at a public rally soon after the Uttar Pradesh assembly elections.

Clearly, the flashpoint in simmering revolt in the Haryana Congress is hovering just round the corner.

-By Ramesh Vinayak

PICTURE SPEAK

NERVOUS: Kumaraswamy

Karnataka Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy, already under flak after his coalition partner BJP stole his thunder by offering loan waivers to farmers, has now instructed sugar factories to lift the one lakh tonne stock or face action.

“This should not happen to farmers as we have a mandate to protect them or not be around in our jobs at all,” says Kumaraswamy, who is planning to spend more time in the rural areas to understand as he says the plight of farmers.

Indeed, sugarcane is not always sweet, neither for the farmers nor for the chief minister.

-By Stephen David

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