Andhra Pradesh CM Dead in chopper crash.Centre gearing up to launch a major offensive against Maoists
Troubled Galaxy Destroyed Dreams, Chapter 363
Palash Biswas
http://nandigramunited-banga.blogspot.com/
SR dead, body recovered from crash site
It's official. Twenty four hours after Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy disappeared while on his way from Hyderabad to Chittoor in AP, his body has been retrieved from the site atop a hill in the thickly forested area of Nallamala where his helicopter crash-landed.
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Charting the route YSR took - where did the chopper go?
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Agencies
Posted: Sep 02, 2009 at 1754 hrs IST
Hyderabad Following is the blow by blow account of the missing helicopter of Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy:
• 08:35 AM - Twin-engine Bell 430 AP government helicopter carrying the Chief Minister takes off from old Begumpet airport.
• The helicopter, also carrying Chief Minister's Principal Secretary S Subramanyam and Chief Security Officer A S C Wesley, heads for Chitoor district.
• 09:35 AM - Helicopter, flown by two pilots, loses contact while possibly flying over Nallamala forest ranges, a stronghold of the Naxalites, in the Rayalaseema region.
• Prime Minister's Office, Union Home Ministry and Defence Ministry alerted. Office of Congress President Sonia Gandhi in touch with the state government.
• Four helicopters, including three belonging to IAF pressed into search operations, but no contact established because of strong winds and inclement weather.
• Two helicopters from Hakimpet air command in Secunderabad return because of inclement weather, while three from Bangalore air command and one privatehelicopter from Nellore were involved in search operations.
• An unmanned aerial vehicle from the Defence Ministry also pressed into service.
• 04:00 PM - Finance Minister K Rosaiah addresses press conference to say no word on the Chief Minister.
• Time for carrying out search operations running out as sunset approaches.
• Home Minister P Chidambaram personally monitoring the situation in Delhi.
• Congress President Sonia Gandhi expresses concern in Delhi over the disappearance of the helicopter and monitors the developments.
http://www.expressindia.com/latest-news/Charting-the-route-YSR-took-where-did-the-chopper-go/511441/
Last message: 'We are climbing 550...'
CHENNAI: "Victor Tango Alpha Pappa Golf calling Chennai radio. We are from Hyderabad heading for Chittoor. Departed Begumpet at. We are climbing
That was the last radio communication between the pilot of the fateful helicopter carrying Andhra Pradesh chief minister Y S Rajashekhar Reddy and the Flight Information Region (FIR) in Chennai. That was around 9.10 am. After a few minutes, the pilot radioed the Hyderabad control that he would be in contact with Chennai, following which Hyderabad handed over the control to the Chennai FIR.
"We haven't heard anything from the chopper after that," an air traffic official privy to the last communication told TOI, explaining the fire-fighting that followed. According to protocol, if no communication is received from an aircraft 30 minutes after its control is handed over to an FIR, the centre goes about plotting three phases: Uncertainty phase, alert phase and distress phase, each at an interval of 30 minutes.
Hearing nothing from the chopper, which was to communicate using a high frequency radio (HF), Chennai FIR kept switching between two HF radios, 6655 KHz and 8909 KHz. "Chennai radio calling Victor Tango Alpha Pappa Golf. Are you reading?" No reply. FIR then tuned into the very high frequency (VHF) band of 123.4 MHz, usually used for communication between pilots.
"We wanted to see if the pilot lost our frequency and was trying some other pilot. When there was still no reply, we tried the universal emergency frequency 121.5 MHz, to which any pilot in an emergency situation is expected to tune in. That too drew a blank," the source said.
FIR then initiated the 'uncertainty phase' and sent out signals to all air traffir control stations and airports in the vicinity such as Tirupati, Mangalore, Visakhapatnam, Bangalore and Hyderabad about the missing chopper.
The 'alert phase' started around 10.40 am and all the stations were called up to inquire about any signals they received. The air traffir management and Airports Authority of India top brass were then informed before going into the 'distress phase'. Subsequently, the regional coordination centre attached to the FIR took over the case.
Did Naxals hit YSR's chopper?
NEW DELHI: A snag in YSR's helicopter is not the only possibility on the security agencies' mind as they investigate the reasons behind the chief
So the possibility of the Naxalites succeeding in laying hands on the Andhra chief minister may well be a subject matter of probe behind his going missing. The questions to be asked are: Were the Naxals in the know of arrival of Mr Reddy and decided to lay a trap and target his chopper? Did the extremists fire at the chopper, causing it to come down? Is Mr Reddy in the custody of the Naxalites, or, worse still, a victim?
Mr Reddy was on the CPI (Maoist) hit list for his tough stance in dealing with the Naxalite elements in his state. In fact, Andhra Pradesh, with its highly successful Grey Hounds model, was often cited by the Centre as an example for the other extremism-hit states to follow in crushing the Naxalites.
Over the years, Left-wing extremist violence has steadily declined in Andhra Pradesh. Naxalism-related incidents recorded in the state until June 30, 2009, were just 34 and deaths 10, as compared to 92 incidents and 46 deaths in the whole of 2008. Even the 2008 figures of incidents and deaths were lower than 2007 at 138 and 45, respectively, which, in turn, was also a decline as compared to 183 incidents and 47 deaths in 2006.
In YSR's own words — spoken as part of his speech to the chief minister's meet on internal security here on August 17 — the successes of the Special Intelligence Bureau (SIB) in securing information about top-ranking cadre and as the nodal agency for anti-extremist policy and of the Grey Hounds "have been significant".
"Many top underground leaders were arrested or killed in encounters with police due to efforts of SIB... Similarly, the Grey Hounds could neutralise several armed squads in the forest areas," Mr Reddy had informed PM during his address to the CMs' meet last month.
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/4966177.cms
Naxalite
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Naxalite or Naxalism is an informal name given to communist groups that were born out of the Sino-Soviet split in the communist movement in India. Ideologically they belong to various trends of Maoism. Initially the movement had its centre in West Bengal. In recent years, they have spread into less developed areas of rural central and eastern India, such as Chhattisgarh and Andhra Pradesh through the activities of underground groups like the Communist Party of India (Maoist).[1] They are conducting an insurgency, typically called the Naxalite-Maoist insurgency. Naxals hold sway in about 180 districts across ten states of India[2] accounting for about 40 percent of India's geographical area,[3] They are are especially concentrated in an area known as the "Red corridor", where they control 92,000 square kilometers.[3] According to India's intelligence agency, the Research and Analysis Wing, 20,000 Naxalites were in April 2006 in operation,[4] and their growing influence prompted Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to declare them as the most serious threat to India's national security.[5]
The CPI (Maoist) and some other Naxal factions are now considered terrorists by the Government of India.[6] In February 2009, Central government announced its plans for simultaneous, co-ordinated counter-operations in all Left-wing extremism-hit states—Chhattisgarh, Orissa, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Jharkhand, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, and West Bengal, to plug all possible escape routes of Naxalites.[7]
Contents[hide] |
[edit] History
The term Naxalites comes from Naxalbari, a small village in West Bengal, where a section of Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPI(M)) led by Charu Majumdar and Kanu Sanyal led a violent uprising in 1967, trying to develop a "revolutionary opposition" in opposition to the CPI(M) leadership. The insurrection started on May 25, 1967 in Naxalbari village when a peasant was attacked by hired hands over a land dispute. Local peasants retaliated by attacking the local landlords and the violence escalated.[6] Majumdar greatly admired Mao Zedong of China and advocated that Indian peasants and lower classes must follow in his footsteps and overthrow the government and upper classes whom he held responsible for their plight. He engendered the Naxalite movement through his writings, the most famous being the 'Historic Eight Documents' which formed the basis of Naxalite ideology.[8] In 1967 'Naxalites' organized the All India Coordination Committee of Communist Revolutionaries (AICCCR), and later broke away from CPI(M). Uprisings were organized in several parts of the country. In 1969 AICCCR gave birth to Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist).
Practically all Naxalite groups trace their origin to the CPI(ML). A separate tendency from the beginning was the Maoist Communist Centre, which evolved out of the Dakshin Desh-group. MCC later fused with People's War Group to form Communist Party of India (Maoist). A third tendency is that of the Andhra revolutionary communists, which was mainly presented by UCCRI(ML), following the mass line legacy of T. Nagi Reddy. That tendency broke with AICCCR at an early stage.
During the 1970s the movement was fragmented into several disputing factions. By 1980 it was estimated that around 30 Naxalite groups were active, with a combined membership of 30 000.[9] A 2004 home ministry estimate puts numbers at that time as "9,300 hardcore underground cadre… [holding] around 6,500 regular weapons beside a large number of unlicensed country-made arms".[10] According to Judith Vidal-Hall (2006), "More recent figures put the strength of the movement at 15,000, and claim the guerrillas control an estimated one fifth of India's forests, as well as being active in 160 of the country's 604 administrative districts."[11] India's Research and Analysis Wing, believed in 2006 that 20,000 Naxals are currently involved in the growing insurgency[4]
Today some groups have become legal organisations participating in parliamentary elections, such as Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) Liberation. Others, such as Communist Party of India (Maoist) and Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) Janashakti, are engaged in armed guerrilla struggles
[edit] Bengal insurgency
The Naxalites gained a strong presence amongst the radical sections of the students movement in Calcutta.[12] Large number of students left their education to join revolutionary activities. Majumdar adjusted the tactics of CPI(ML), and claimed that the revolutionary warfare was to take place not only in the rural areas but everywhere and spontaneously. Thus Majumdar's 'annihilation line', a dictum that Naxalites should assassinate individual "class enemies" as a part of the insurrection was put into practice not only against landlords, but also against university teachers, police officers, politicians and others.
Throughout Calcutta, schools were shut down. Naxalite students took over Jadavpur University and used the machine shop facilities to make pipe guns to fight the police. Their headquarters became Presidency College, Kolkata. They are also presumed to have assassinated the vice chancellor of Jadavpur University, Dr. Gopal Sen.[13]
The Naxalites soon found ardent supporters among the educated elite, and Delhi's prestigious St. Stephen's College, alma mater of many contemporary Indian leaders and thinkers, became a hotbed of Naxalite activities.
The strategy of individual terrorism soon proved counterproductive. Eventually, the Chief Minister, Siddhartha Shankar Ray, began to institute counter-measures against the Naxalites. The police are accused of several civil and human rights violations on the Naxalites, including detention without counsel, torture, and staged shootouts.
In a matter of months, the Naxal uprising was quelled. The view of the police and the state was that the only language the Naxals understood was that of deadly force. They also argued that effectively the state was fighting a civil war with these communists and democratic pleasantries had no place in a war, especially when the opponent did not fight within the norms of democracy and civility. This insurrection tarnished the image of the radical Maoists and their support dwindled.[6]
Moreover, the movement was torn about by internal disputes. Large sections began to question Majumdar's line of struggle. In 1971 CPI(ML) was split in two, as Satyanarayan Singh revolted against Majumdar's leadership. In 1972 Majumdar was captured and died in police custody in Alipore Jail. After his death the fragmentation of the movement accelerated.
Lalgarh, West Bengal had emerged as a region close to coming completely under control of the Naxalites after the group threw out the local police and staged random attacks against ruling communist government in late May 2009. The region became increasingly under assualt by Maoist guerillas. The state government initiated a huge operation with federal paramilitary forces and state armed police to retake Lalgarh in early June. Maoist leader Kishenji claimed in an interview that the mass Naxalite movement in Lalgarh in 2009 aimed at creating a 'liberated zone' against "oppression of the establishment Left and its police" has given them a major base in West Bengal for the first time since the Naxalite uprising was crushed in the mid-1970s and that "We will have an armed movement going in Calcutta by 2011". [14]
[edit] Cultural references
The British musical group Asian Dub Foundation have a song called Naxalite. This song was part of the soundtrack to the 1999 film Brokedown Palace. In 2005 a movie called Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi directed by Sudhir Mishra was released with the backdrop of Naxalite movement. In August 2008, Kabeer Kaushik's Chamku starring Bobby Deol and Priyanka Chopra explored the story of a boy who takes arms against the state.
There is a reference to a character, in the novel, The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy, joining with the Naxalites.
The 1998 film Haazar chaurasi ki Maa (based on the novel, "Hazar Churashir Maa" by Mahasweta Devi) (Mother of 1084-the number assigned to her son) starring Jaya Bachchan gives a very sympathetic portrayal of a Naxalbari militant killed by the state.The 2009 malayalam movie 'Thalappavu' portrays the story of Naxal Varghese, who was shot dead by the police during the 70s.
The Kannada movie Veerappa Nayaka directed by S.Narayan portrays Vishnuvardhan - a Gandhian with his son becoming a Naxalite. The 2007 Kannada movie Maathaad Maathaadu Mallige directed by Nagathihalli Chandrashekhar again portrays Vishnuvardhan as a Gandhian, confronting a Naxalite Sudeep showing that although the ways adopted by naxals will lead to violence only and will not achieve its objective.
Eka Nakshalwadya Cha Janma, (Marathi: The birth of a Naxal), a novel written by Vilas Balkrishna Manohar, a volunteer with the Lok Biradari Prakalp, is a fictional account of a Madia Gond Juru's unwilling journey of life his metamorphosis from an exploited nameless tribal to a Naxal.[15]
[edit] Deaths related to violence
Violence has peaked in India from Maoist or Naxalite separatist violence being more dangerous to India's national security than either Pakistan, or insurgents in Kashmir and north-east states.
From the Ministry of Home Affairs it has been stated that:
- 1996: 156 deaths [16]
- 1997: 428 deaths[16]
- 1998: 270 deaths[16]
- 1999: 363 deaths[16]
- 2000: 50 deaths[16]
- 2001: 100+ deaths[16]
- 2002: 140 deaths[16]
- 2003: 451 deaths[16]
- 2004: 500+ deaths[16]
- 2005: 892 deaths
- 2006: 749 deaths
- 2007: (as of September 30, 2007) 384 deaths[17]
(related to Naxalite insurgency)[18]
- 2008: 938 casualties (including 38 Maoists).[19]
- 2009: Naxalites separatists struck at the first phase of elections on 16 April, 2009 in Bihar, Chattisgarh and Jharkhand killing 18 civilians and security forces. Later, on 23 April, 2009, they also struck in the second phase of polling in Jamshedpur and surrounding areas in Jharkhand injuring several member of the polling party. May 2009: 16 police die in suspected Maoist attack [21]
The BBC maintains that upwards of 6,000 people have died in the Naxal uprising.[5]
[edit] See also
- Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist)
- Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist-Leninist)
- Salwa Judum
- Compact Revolutionary Zone
[edit] References
- ^ Ramakrishnan, Venkitesh (2005-09-21). "The Naxalite Challenge". Frontline Magazine (The Hindu). http://www.flonnet.com/fl2221/stories/20051021006700400.htm. Retrieved 2007-03-15.
- ^ Handoo, Ashook. "Naxal Problem needs a holistic approach". Press Information Bureau. http://www.pib.nic.in/release/release.asp?relid=50833. Retrieved 2009-08-08.
- ^ a b "Rising Maoists Insurgency in India". Global Politician. 2007-01-15. http://globalpolitician.com/22790-india. Retrieved 2009-03-17.
- ^ a b Philip Bowring Published: TUESDAY, APRIL 18, 2006 (2006-04-18). "Maoists who menace India". International Herald Tribune. http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/04/17/opinion/edbowring.php. Retrieved 2009-03-17.
- ^ a b "South Asia | Senior Maoist 'arrested' in India". BBC News. 2007-12-19. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7151552.stm. Retrieved 2009-03-17.
- ^ a b c Diwanji, A. K. (2003-10-02). "Primer: Who are the Naxalites?". Rediff.com. http://us.rediff.com/news/2003/oct/02spec.htm. Retrieved 2007-03-15.
- ^ Co-ordinated operations to flush out Naxalites soon Economic Times, Feb 6, 2009.
- ^ Hindustan Times: History of Naxalism
- ^ Singh, Prakash. The Naxalite Movement in India. New Delhi: Rupa & Co., 1999. p. 101.
- ^ Quoted in Judith Vidal-Hall, "Naxalites", p. 73–75 in Index on Censorship, Volume 35, Number 4 (2006). Quoted on p. 74.
- ^ Judith Vidal-Hall, "Naxalites", p. 73–75 in Index on Censorship, Volume 35, Number 4 (2006). p. 74.
- ^ Judith Vidal-Hall, "Naxalites", p. 73–75 in Index on Censorship, Volume 35, Number 4 (2006). p. 73.
- ^ "Mrs. Gandhi's Gamble". Time Magazine. 1971-01-11. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,876849-2,00.html. Retrieved 2007-03-15.
- ^ http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/8127869.stm
- ^ "Who's who of Indian Writers, 1999 By K. C. Dutt, Sahitya Akademi". Books.google.com. http://books.google.com/books?id=QA1V7sICaIwC&pg=PA723&lpg=PA723&dq=vilas+manohar+writer&source=web&ots=iZo851RPGh&sig=uEHP-KtmRvUV1iO8KLsoKHx9ccU&hl=en&ei=e-ucSeCrOo_akAWtjPiiBQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=6&ct=result. Retrieved 2009-03-17.
- ^ "Asian Centre for Human Rights". Achrweb.org. http://www.achrweb.org/ncm/ncm.htm. Retrieved 2009-03-17.
- ^ "Reuters AlertNet - Indian Maoist violence". Alertnet.org. http://www.alertnet.org/db/crisisprofiles/IN_MAO.htm. Retrieved 2009-03-17.
- ^ Govt. of India " the number of incidents of violence and police/civilian casualties were 1435 and 658 as compared to 1420 and 636 for the corresponding period of the year 2007"[1]
- ^ www.ipcs.org/pdf_file/issue/IB93-Kujur-Naxal.pdf
- ^ [2]
[edit] Further reading
- Naxalite Politics in India, by J. C. Johari, Institute of Constitutional and Parliamentary Studies, New Delhi, . Published by Research Publications, 1972.
- The Naxalite Movement, by Biplab Dasgupta. Published by , 1974.
- The Naxalite Movement: A Maoist Experiment, by Sankar Ghosh. Published by Firma K.L. Mukhopadhyay, 1975. ISBN 0883865688.
- The Naxalite Movement in India: Origin and Failure of the Maoist Revolutionary Strategy in West Bengal, 1967-1971, by Sohail Jawaid. Published by Associated Pub. House, 1979.
- In the Wake of Naxalbari: A History of the Naxalite Movement in India, by Sumanta Banerjee. Published by Subarnarekha, 1980.
- India's Simmering Revolution: The Naxalite Uprising, by Sumanta Banerjee. Published by Zed Books, 1984. ISBN 0862320372.
- Tribal Guerrillas: The Santals of West Bengal and the Naxalite Movement, by Edward Duyker. Published by Oxford University Press, 1987.
- The Naxalite Movement in India, by Prakash Singh. Published by Rupa, 1995. ISBN 8171672949.
[edit] External links
- Edward Duyker, Tribal Guerrillas: The Santals of West Bengal and the Naxalite Movement
- naxal terror Watch
- Naxal Revolution
- 'History of Naxalism', Hindustan Times
- Maoist Resistance (pro-Naxal Blog - The former blog at Resistance India has been hacked )
- Naxal Terror Watch (anti-Naxalite, alleges that Naxalites are supported by both Pakistan and China)
- India's Naxalite Rage (neutral blog that provides analysis of the tactics and strategy of the Naxals by Shlok Vaidya)
- India's Forgotten War (neutral blog analysing Naxalite insurgency)
- Status Paper on the Naxalite problem - South Asia Terrorism Portal
- West Bengal, districts affected by Naxalite violence - South Asia Terrorism Portal
- Economist magazine article
- Guardian article
- Vice article
- Naxal Issues page of Peoples Website of Chhattisgarh
- Red Sun: Travels in Naxalite Country (Hardcover)
- Stop the Battle, Start the War by Samar Halarnkar, Hindustan Times, April 19 2009
| Is government over-pricing PSU IPOs? 3 Sep 2009, 0545 hrs IST, Reeba Zachariah & Partha Sinha, TNN |
MUMBAI: The market gave a lukewarm response to NHPC when its listed on Tuesday. This came despite the buzz created around the issue which was in the true sense of the term a PSU divestment after a gap of over 18 months. Compared to its IPO price of Rs 36, the scrip was listed at Rs 39 on BSE and finally settled at Rs 36.70, a listing-day gain of just about 2%.
Although merchant bankers associated with the issue said it is a long-term bet, the not-so-enthusiastic listing of NHPC is also leading to doubts in some quarters if the issue was priced aggressively. If you consider one of the most widely accepted valuation parameters — price to earnings (P/E) ratio — the answer is yes.
A look at the record of the past seven years, starting from the now-famous Maruti divestment in 2003, one sees that NHPC shares were offered at a P/E of 38.3, the highest in the 24 divestments, including follow-ons and bank IPOs, during the period under consideration.
The Oil India IPO, which opens next week in the Rs 950-1 ,050 price band, is at a P/E of a little over 10 at the higher end of the band.
A TOI analysis of PSU divestments since the Maruti issue in 2003 indicate that the government's pricing strategy has been changing with time and it doesn't want its enterprises to be undervalued . Says Dina Mehta, former BSE president and MD of Asit C Mehta Investment Intermediaries , '' Since public sector units are created out of taxpayers' money, the benefit (its IPO) should also benefit them. Their issues should not be fully priced in a bid to attract mass participation.''
An IPO, especially from the government stable, is mainly intended to give people , mainly retail investors, ownership of state-run units and leave something on the table for investors. In India, bulk of an issue is dominated by qualified institutional buyers with 60% of an issue allotted to this group as against 30% for retail investors , if the dilution is less than 25%.
Merchant bankers say investment horizon and pricing preference for QIBs appear to be at odds with the preference of retail investors. Among other things, pricing is determined by the feedback of institutional investors during the issue's premarketing exercise.
Back in mid- '80s, the UK government under Margaret Thatcher applied the popular saying, you attract 'more' bees with honey, to her privatisation programmes. It set the IPO price of British Telecom — UK's first government entity to go public — artificially low so that it benefited its citizens. The result: Over two million small investors applied for the company's shares. Some, have a different take. Mehul Savla, who runs his own transactions advisory firm, RippleWave Equity, said, '' It is a notion. Pricing of an issue is more to do with market timing.''
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/Is-government-over-pricing-PSU-IPOs-/articleshow/4966304.cms
Prime Ministers Office declared on Thursday that Andhra Pradesh chief minister YS Rajasekhara Reddy died in an air crash.The bodies of 60-year-old Reddy, who led his Congress party to a spectacular second consecutive victory in the Lok Sabha and Assembly polls, and his Special Secretary P Subramanyam, chief security officer A S C Wesley, pilot Group Captain S K Bhatia and co-pilot M S Reddy were found on Rudrakonda Hill, 40 nautical miles east of here, besides the mangled remains of the helicopter.
Highly placed Congress sources in Delhi said that the bodies have been found and an official statement is expected shortly.
The bodies of 60-year-old Reddy, who led his Congress party to a spectacular second consecutive victory in the Lok Sabha and Assembly polls, and his Special Secretary P Subramanyam, Chief Secretary A S C Wesley, pilot Group Captain S K Bhatia and co-pilot M S Reddy were found on Rudrakonda Hill, 40 nautical miles east of here, besides the mangled remains of the helicopter.
There was no official confirmation of the deaths, but highly placed Congress sources in Delhi said that the bodies have been found. An official statement is expected shortly.
The news of the tragedy filtered out after a meeting of the Congress core group at the Prime Minister's house but fears grew since last night when search operations to locate the chopper were unsuccessful.
Exactly 24 hours after it went missing losing radio contact at 0930 hrs, Air Force helicopters from Bangalore on Thursday located the wreckage of the chopper on the Rudrakonda Hill, 70 kms from east of Kurnool.
The helicopter took off at 0835 hrs from the old Begumpet Airport in Hyderabad yesterday.
Air Commodore Sagar Bharti of the Bangalore air command announced the location of the chopper but gave no indication of the fate of passengers.
He said two helicopters were making attempts to land in the area.
However, Union Home Secretary G K Pillai gave indications that the 11-year-old Bell 430 helicopter could have crashed. The Air Force rescue team were attempting to land para commandos through ropes to access the area.
Congress President Sonia Gandhi, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, senior ministers Pranab Mukherjee, A K Antony, P Chidambaram and senior Congress leader Ahmed Patel met in the core group to discuss the situation in the wake of the death of the powerful Congress leader in Andhra Pradesh.
Andhra Pradesh chief minister Y.S.R Reddy was killed after his helicopter crashed in a dense swathe of forest known to be a stronghold of Maoist rebels, Indian television channels reported.
Rescuers on Thursday found the helicopter after it went missing for almost 24 hours, officials said.
"I am extremely shocked…," Andhra Pradesh Governor Narayan Dutt Tiwari told the Times Now news channel.
"It is a very sad day," he said.
Reddy was on a tour of a rural district when his Bell-430 helicopter went missing on Wednesday over a dense jungle.
The Union Cabinet is meeting to discuss the matter. With the Centre gearing up to launch a major offensive against Maoists in coordination with the states, Union home minister P
Chidambaram in consultation with Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar is likely to give the go ahead to the much awaited joint operation planned by central security forces for the state and Jharkhand when the duo will meet in Patna.
Sources in the ministry said the home minister held detailed discussions on the joint operation strategy with CRPF chief A S Gill and other senior officials here on Thursday.
It was decided in the meeting that the forces in Jharkhand, which is being currently ruled by the Centre due as President's rule is in force there, would seek help from the Bihar Police in keeping a close watch on the state border so that the Red ultras cannot flee during the proposed offensives, the sources said.
Similar operations against CPI (Maoist) -- termed by the home ministry as an organised group of terrorists -- are simultaneously planned for neighbouring West Bengal and Orissa, involving CRPF personnel, anti-naxal force (CoBRA) battalions and the respective state police.
Meanwhile, reacting to the ongoing mayhem created by Red ultras in Jharkhand where they have been brutally killing civilians including women and children, the home ministry on Friday said that it would take strong action against the perpetrators of violence and terror.
The ministry in a statement said: "The incident shows the true face of the Naxalites who resort to indiscriminate and motiveless killing including the killing of innocent children to achieve the goal of their so-called `armed-struggle'. Such wanton killings are intended to instill fear in the minds of the common people."
Strongly condemning such wanton and brutal acts of killings of innocent civilians in the past few days, it said: "These are to be seen as desperate attempts by the Naxalites to take control of common citizens. We should be aware that the true face of the CPI (Maoist) is that of an organized group of terrorists."
Apart from such inhuman acts, the Naxalites remain anti-development and continue to target the very instruments of development -- school buildings, roads, mobile phone towers and railway stations, it said.
Trade ministers will meet in New Delhi this week to inject new impetus into the faltering Doha round trade talks in the run-up to the G20 summit in Pittsburgh.
The aim, according to host India, is to "re-energise" the Doha talks, now in their eighth year, and set a timetable for completion, rather than engaging in substantive negotiations.
"As the objective is to resume and intensify the Doha Round negotiations, technical discussions are not envisaged. The discussion will mainly focus on the best way to spark the multilateral negotiations to move the round to a quick closure," India said in a position paper obtained by Reuters.
But some of the main players may use the Sept. 3-4 meeting, preceded by talks on Sept. 2 by senior officials, to try to make progress on some of the thorniest issues in the talks, launched in late 2001 by World Trade Organisation (WTO) members to boost the world economy and help poor countries grow through trade.
The Pittsburgh summit is likely to see a Doha deal as part of the cure for the global economic crisis as well as a bulwark against protectionism.
Many self-imposed deadlines have come and gone in the Doha talks as rich and poor states and exporters and importers fought over opening markets and protecting sensitive industries.
But diplomats said the most likely outcome of the Delhi talks would be an agreement to aim for a deal some time in 2010.
For the major trade players one challenge is to align the contentious Doha talks with the political cycle -- such as the U.S. midterm elections and Brazil's presidential election in 2010, the arrival of a new European Commission this year and the impact of the possible adoption of the EU's Lisbon Treaty.The government would dilute 22 per cent of its stake in Oil India Ltd which is coming out with an Initial Public Offer.
OIL Executive director N Bhalla told reporters at the company's roadshow here today that post IPO, government holding in the PSU would come down to 78 per cent.
The PSU is hitting the market on September seven with 26,449,982 equity shares on an offer within a price band of Rs 950 and Rs 1,050 per equity share.
Bhalla said the company would start drilling operations in Libya in October this year. Production at the Iran oilfield would start in 2013, he said.
The issue would close on September 10.
The helicopter carrying YSR Reddy, two of his staff and two pilots went missing in pouring rain Wednesday morning over the Naxal and tiger-infested Nalamalla forests.
Nearly 24 hours after YSR's chopper went missing, it was located atop Serai Salem hill, at a distance 40 nautical miles (70 kms) east of Kurnool.
The CM left Hyderabad on a six-seater Bell chopper at 8.35am for Chittoor accompanied by his secretary and chief security officer. After 9.27am, radio contact was lost with the helicopter.
Soon after the chopper lost contact, multiple agencies of the state launched a massive hunt for possible wreckage in the desolate terrain. By evening, it expanded into the country's biggest-ever search operation with satellites in the sky joining remote sensing aircraft, fighter jets, unmanned aerial vehicles, troops on the ground and even barefoot deer-hunting tribals with bows and arrows.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh Thursday convened an emergency meeting with Home Minister P. Chidambaram and Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee after the helicopter carrying Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy was traced in the state's Nallamalla forest.The Union Home Ministry has ordered paratroopers to immediately airdrop themselves at the location where the missing chopper carrying Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y.S. Rajshekhera Reddy and four others is stationed about 40 nautical miles east of the Kurnool mountaineous area. Union Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee on Wednesday said he talked to Andhra Pradesh's Finance Minster K.Rosiah regarding the tragic incident of the State CM Y.S.Rajasekhara Reddy.
Details of the meeting were unavailable but senior home ministry officials told IANS that the prime minister was briefed on the operation in the tough terrain and the difficulty of search parties in reaching the spot where the mangled Bell helicopter 430 was found.
The fate of the chief minister and four others remain uncertain.
"It is going to take some time to reach the hilltop and to find out if there was indeed a crash landing," said an official.
Para commandos have also been roped in the search operations.
The helicopter was traced Thursday morning, 24 hours after it went missing in the dense Nallamalla forests in Kurnool district, according to defence officials.
The helicopter, carrying the chief minister, his special secretary, chief security officer and two pilots, took off from Hyderabad at 8.35 a.m. Wednesday for Chittoor district. Around 9.45 a.m., the chopper lost contact with air traffic control.
The Chhattisgarh Government on Wednesday placed a demand for grant of Rs 94.22 crore from the Central Government to develop educational facilities in the Maoist- affected areas.
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According to sources, Singh also submitted the details of assistance anticipated by the State Government to Bhuria.
Singh informed Bhuria that Chattisgarh needed central's assistance mainly for construction of some 218 ashram schools, sources said.
State Government is also looking for the assistance to the programmes of job-oriented training to the unemployed tribal youths and constructing houses for the tribals," sources added.
The State Tribal Welfare Department-run ashram schools are basically residential schools where all the needs of the students will be looked after by the state government.
Unfortunately many of the Ashram Schools became the victims of Maoist attacks, especially in the Bastar region where the red ultras are in dominating position.
The red rebels demolished dozens of such school buildings in the interiors of Bastar region, which is spread out over 40,000 sq km.
The Maoist claims that they blow up the school complexes because they provided shelter to the forces involved in anti-naxal operations, sources said.
While fighter jets and low-flying aircraft of Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) are hovering over the forest area to capture images, on the ground the tribals have joined army and police personnel in the search operations.
Familiar with the difficult terrain in one of the biggest forests in India, tribals are lending a helping hand to the authorities. The government had already made an appeal to people living in the forests to help in the search.
At least 14 teams of Chenchu tribals who inhabit the forest area in Kurnool district have fanned out in different directions to trace the missing chopper.
"The tribals are more familiar with the exit routes. They can help the chief minister and others who might have been stranded in the dense forests after landing," said Andhra Pradesh Finance Minister K. Rosaiah, who is overseeing the search operations.
Even some surrendered Maoists among the tribals are helping the authorities. Since the forest area was a key stronghold of Maoists till about four years ago, they know the inhospitable terrain better than anybody else.
The tribals are accompanied by the personnel of Greyhounds, the elite anti-Maoist force of the state police and the anti-terrorist force OCTOPUS.
These forces were pressed into service to deal with any Maoist movement in the forests. Though the Maoist activity in the region has come down drastically in recent years due to successful operations by police, the authorities did not want to take any chances.
Nallamalla forests are spread over four districts - Kurnool, Mahabubnagar, Guntur and Prakasam.
Known as a people's leader for his several initiatives for their welfare, Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy was on
It was only around 5 a.m. Wednesday that senior police officials in Chittoor district were informed by the chief minister that he would be visiting Anuppalle village to launch 'Racchabanda' programme.
A day after the budget session of state assembly concluded, YSR, as the chief minister is popularly known, chose a remote village in Anuppalle to launch the programme of surprise visits to villages to know people's problems.
"I want to know the problems in village through this surprise visit and want to have a direct interaction with the villagers. I told them (the officials) only at 5 a.m. that I will be visiting the village as they have to make security arrangements," YSR said in his last interview before boarding the helicopter here at 8.35 a.m. Wednesday.
"If I tell the officials in advance about my visit they will rectify some problems and hence this programme is being launched. The basic aim is to see whether the delivery mechanisms of the government are working or not," he told Sakshi television channel, which is run by his son Y.S. Jaganmohan Reddy.
"I want to know how the concerned departments are working to deal with drought, whether farmers are getting the required assistance, whether the village has drinking water supply. I also want to see if there is any poor person who has not got a ration card, house or pension. We have promised that every poor will get a house and ration card," he said.
"This is a representative sample as I can't visit all 20,000 villages in the state. I will go on such visits for three to four days in a month and will cover four to five villages in a day," YSR had said.
It was various such programmes taken up by him during last five years that helped him retain power in the recent elections despite facing a strong and united opposition alliance led by Telugu Desam Party (TDP) and Praja Rajyam floated by actor-turned-politician Chiranjeevi.
India on Soviet Union's Path of Disintegration |
|---|
Kashmir Watch, Sep 2 By Sajjad Shaukat The former Soviet Union which had subjugated the minorities and ethnic groups in various provinces and regions through its military, disintegrated in 1991. Even its nuclear weapons could not save its collapse. One of the important causes of the disintegration of the Russian Empire was that its greater defence expenditure exceeded to the maximum, resulting in economic crises inside the country. In this regard, about a prolonged war in Afghanistan, the former President Gorbachev had declared it as the "bleeding wound." However, militarisation of the Soviet Union failed in controlling the movements of liberation, launched by various ethnic nationalities. On the other hand, while learning no lesson from its previous close friend, India has been acting upon the similar policies in some other way, which led to the demise of the Soviet Union. For the last 25 years, India has been providing its military and intelligence agency RAW with huge funds in order to support insurgency, separatism and lawlessness in Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhuttan, Sikkim and China. Although these covert activities vary from country to country, yet the same intensifies in case of Pakistan. In this respect, a well-established network of Indian army and RAW has been working to destabilise Pakistan by supporting insurgency in the Frontier Province and separatism in Balochistan. New Delhi has been spending huge money to train and equip the militants who have been entering Pakistan on daily basis and have been conducting suicide attacks in our country, and assaults on our security forces. Besides other regional countries, Indian secret operations inside Pakistan are being conducted with great professional skill, having mutiple tactics like propaganda, political dissent, ethnic divisions, economic backwardness and criminal elements to foment subversion so as to weaken our country in conssonance with Indian regional ambitions. Indian anti-Pakistan plan has also been endorsed by a 72-page white paper handed over to its Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in the aftermath of Mumbai carnage. The paper, titled, War on Terror: The Agenda for Action, (Also available on the website of India Today) advised New Delhi to "exploit the divisions within Pakistan and expose its weaknesses in Balochistan, FATA and Azad Kashmir" including building of pressure on Islamabad especially by the US. Although, New Delhi has been backing the forces of separatism especially in Pakistan and China (Chinese Tibetan regions), yet like the former Soviet Union, it has been rapidly moving towards the destruction of the Indian union. No doubt, the former Russia was a totalitarian state which had controlled other ethnic minorities through various techniques of force. But under the mask of democracy and secularism, Indian subsequent regimes dominated by politicians from the Hindi heartland�Hindutva (Hindu nationalism) use brutal force ruthlessly against any move to free Assam, Kashmir, Khalistan, Mizoram, Nagaland, Tamil Nadu and Tripura where wars of liberation continue in one or the other form. Recently, Maoist intensified their struggle, attacking official installments. In this context, Indian media admitted that Maoists have now entered the cities, expanding their activities against the Indian union. In this connection, on August 24 this year, they blew up another railway track in Latehar, and bombed a mobile tower in neighbouring Palamu district. Train services were disrupted between Barwadih-Barkakana route following the incident. The CPI (Maoist) has claimed in a release that they have enforced the two-day shut down in Jharkhand, Orissa, West Bengal, Bihar and Chhattisgarh due to the arrest of its two senior members. As regards the Indian-held Kashmir, since 1947, India forces have been intermittently been employing all the possible techniques of military terrorism such as curfews, crackdowns, sieges, massacre, targeted killings etc. to maintain their alien rule. However, under the new puppet regime in the occupied Kashmir, Indian brutalities keeps on going against the current phase of Kashmiri uprising which began on August 12, 2008 when Indian forces killed Hurriyat Conference leader Sheikh Abdul Aziz. Post-Napoleonic era in Europe proves that it is not possible to suppress the wars of liberation through military terrorism. In that context, Prince Metternich, emperor of the Austro-Hungarian Empire did what he could by subjugating the alien peoples by employing every possible techniques of state terrorism. According to Indian historian, Mahahin, Matternich had to admit that he was fighting for a useless cause, and the empire disintegrated, resulting in the independence of Italy, Bulgaria and other states whose secret societies had been waging wars of liberation. In the recent past, despite the employment of unlimited atrocities by the President Milosevic, collapse of the former Yugoslavia could not be stopped. Every entity of South Asia is well-aware that even under the rule of Congress which claims to be a secular party, Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP), Rashtriya Swayamsevak Singh (RSS), Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), Shev Sina and Bajrang Dal have missed no opportunity to communalise national politics of India. Although violence against the other communities has been used by Hindu fundamentalists as a normal practice since partition, yet anti-Christian and anti-Muslim bloodshed in the last decade coupled with the dissemination of Hindutva has increased. Besides previous genocide of Muslims and destruction of the Babri Mosque, more than 2500 Muslims were massacred in 2002 in the BJP-ruled Indian state of Gujarat. On September 13, 2008, the communal riots in Uttar Pradesh killed more than 200 Muslims. In one of the most tragic incidents in Assam, Hindu extremists burnt alive six members of a Muslim family on October 12 last year. Similarly, assaults on Christians and their property have continued by the Hindu mobs in Orissa, Assam, Kerala and Andhra Pradesh. Even the year of 2009 witnessed a number of incidents of religious intolerance. In this respect, at least 60 Christians have been assassinated in the recent past by Hindu fundamentalists in the state of Orissa. Other minorities of India are also target of Hindu terrorism. It is notable that ideology of Hindu nationalism prevails in every field at the cost of other minorities groups. It is even supported by Indian defence forces clandestinely. This fact could be judged from the recent past, when on April 6, 2008 in the house of Bajrang Dal fundamentalists in Nanded, a bomb went off. The investigations proved that the militants belonging to the Bajrang Dal were found in the bomb-making and attack on a mosque in Parbhani in 2003. Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) of the Maharashtra arrested a serving Lt. Col. Srikant Purohit and a retired army Major Samir Kulkarniand along with two other culprits, indicating that these army officers were helping in training the Hindu terrorists, providing them with the military-grade explosive RDX, used in the Malegaon bombings and terrorist attacks in other Indian cities. ATS further disclosed that Lt. Col. Purohit confessed that in 2007 that he was involved in bombing of Samjhota express, which brunt alive 69 Pakistanis. Leaders of the Indian extremist parties, Shiv Sena, BJP, VHP and RSS are now pressurising the Congress regime to release the fugitives. Indian fundamentalism and mistreatment of religious minorities could be judged from a latest development. After serving the BJP for 30 years, Jaswant Singh was expelled from the party for praising Mohammad Ali Jinnah and echoing the pain of the Indian Muslims in his book, "Jinnah�India, Partition, Independence." While pointing out the BJP's attitude towards the minorities, Singh wrote: "Every Muslim that lives in India is a loyal Indian…look into the eyes of Indian Muslims and see the pain." He warned in his book, if such a policy continued, "India could have third partition." It is mentionable that provincial and regional disparities have been widening in India day by day as majority of Indian populations are living below the poverty level, lacking basic facilities like fresh food and clean water. While yielding to acute poverty, every day, some persons commit suicide in India. On the other side, New Delhi which recently decided 34 percent increase in its defence budget, signed the pact of civil nuclear technology with the US last year has been importing latest versions of arms and ammunition from Israel, America, Russia, Germany and other western countries. In the past, New Delhi which incurred huge amounts on advancement of its nuclear weapons and successfully tested missile, Agni-111in May 2007, has been extending its range. On July 27 this year, India launched its first nuclear-powered submarine. Returning to our earlier discussion, just like the Soviet Union, the artificial union of India which is maintained through militarisation of the country by incurring too much expenditure for importing arms, for subjugating minorities through force, for crushing wars of liberations with brutal tactics and for sponsoring insurgency in Pakistan, China, and other regional countries, is bound to result in disintegration. Sajjad Shaukat writes on international affairs and is author of the book: US vs Islamic Militants, Invisible Balance of Power: Dangerous Shift in International Relations. Email: sajjad_logic@yahoo.com Posted on 02 Sep 2009 by Webmaster http://www.kashmirwatch.com/showexclusives.php?subaction=showfull&id=1251937765&archive=&start_from=&ucat=15&var1news=value1news |
| Maoist's on & off honeymoon with India | |
| JAINENDRA JEEVAN Maoist's relation with India was the warmest four years back when they entered into an alliance with the then seven parties at India's behest. The alliance was formed to fight the direct rule of King Gyanendra who, defying the dictates of geo-politics and common sense, had antagonized India. In retrospect, the Indian establishment had provided safe haven to Maoist insurgents, albeit covertly. Indian policymakers knew that Nepali politicians were too weak, divided and inept to politically counter the Maoists. So, it was only prudent to recognize and use a force that was bound to emerge in the backyard rather than to confront, reject or ignore it. One may ask why then did India publicly tag the Maoists as terrorists. Well, that was to preclude international shame. The fact that the "terrorists" barely harmed or sabotaged Indian business interests in Nepal when they spared no other during their decade-long guerilla war speaks for itself. During their offensive, Maoists needed sanctuary as well as availability and safe passage of arms and ammunitions and India was the only country that could provide both. Anti-Indian rhetoric aside, the Maoists also realized that Indian cooperation was vital to reach and remain in Singha Durbar; thus the marriage of convenience. India had its own reasons to broker peace back in 2005; the main objective behind the 12-point peace accord was to bring the Maoists into the peace process, which was also anticipated to create a favorable demonstration effect on the Indian Maoists. Indian policymakers rate Maoist insurgency in India as the #2 security threat after Kashmiri separatism-Islamic terrorism nexus. They envisaged and analyzed that because of the socio-cultural homogeneity, politico-economic similarity and geographical proximity – success or course of Maoist movement in Nepal was bound to have significant impact on its Indian equivalent. Therefore they decided to steer Nepali Maoists on the road to peace and democracy with the expectation that their Indian counterparts would follow suit. When stronger and far more successful Nepali insurgents would switch to peaceful and democratic methods, the much weaker and less successful Indian equals would have no choice other than to follow the example, thus envisioned the Indian leaders. Despite their earlier successes, Nepali Maoists in the later stages craved for a dignified exit from their 'people's war' as they were losing the battle to Nepal Army. On the other hand, weakened by their own incompetence and witch-hunted by King Gyanendra, leaders of Nepal's seven mainstream parties were willing to join hands with Maoists to avenge the monarch. But this was not possible without Maoists renouncing violence, thus the signing of the peace accord between seven parties and the Maoists through the good offices of India. The Maoists were in the good books of India till they formed the government one year back. That they are not anymore and that they are out of power is not a coincidence. Meanwhile, many explanations, most of them China-centric, have surfaced with regard to India's unhappiness with the Maoists—China's increasingly active role in Nepal, closeness between China and the Maoists and the latter's distancing from India are the popular theories doing the rounds. However, the most prominent theory – the demonstration effect – has not been properly discussed so far. Even after being voted to power through free elections, the Maoists continued their effort to seize absolute power. They made no secret of their mission to establish a one-party communist rule. Indian leaders did not like the course which was against the deal and democracy. Although anti-democratic regimes in neighboring countries are not unwelcome for Indian policymakers (for instance, Bhutan and Myanmar), one with a radical ideology is. For fear that extremism would transcend to Indian soil through porous borders, a communist takeover is always the last thing India wants in Nepal. Perceived 'demonstration effect' backfired in two ways. On the one hand, Nepali Maoists turned their back both on democracy and India. On the other hand, Indian Maoists not only condemned Nepali Maoists for 'surrendering' but also escalated their violence. CPI (M) leader Sitaram Yechury and other erstwhile mediator's weakened position in Delhi's power equation since the last parliamentary elections and similar changes of intelligence, security and diplomatic personnel are cited as reasons for the now changed relationship between the Maoists and India. However, they are secondary factors only. Strange but true, unlike in other issues of security or foreign policy, political mainstream in India is now sharply divided over the issue of Nepali Maoists into different camps of BJP, Communists and the Congress-led coalition. Anyways, whatever it is, the India-Maoist honeymoon is over, at least for now. |
No emergency signals received from YSR's missing chopper
HYDERABAD: With the helicopter carrying Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister YS Rajasekhara Reddy, which went missing Wednesday morning, not emitting
Almost 16 hours after the chopper went missing somewhere in Nallamalla forests in Kurnool district, the state ministers are hoping that he is safe. They believe that the chopper might have been forced to land in some inaccessible area due to bad weather.
Officials in the chief minister's office are also hopeful. Their hopes are based on the fact that an Indian Air Force aircraft which flew over the area did not pick up any signals which indicate a crash.
According to chief secretary P. Ramakant Reddy, the helicopter was equipped with Emergency Locator Transmitter (ELT), capable of automatic transmission on a frequency of 121.5 and 243 mega hertz which would have activated in crash landing or in case of any unforeseen eventuality.
The Dornier 228 aircraft which took off from air base, air command, Yelahanka near Bangalore and capable of picking up ELT frequency signals, did not pick up such signals despite flying over the area where the helicopter went missing.
Tribals join search operations for missing YSR chopper
Hyderabad, Sep 3 : It is not just state-of-the-art technology that is being deployed to trace the missing helicopter carrying Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy, the authorities are also using the services of the tribals living in the dense Nallamalla forests.
YSR's chopper goes missing over dense Naxal & tiger-infested Andhra jungle
HYDERABAD: A helicopter carrying Andhra Pradesh chief minister Y S Rajashekhar Reddy, two of his staff and two pilots went missing in pouring  A file photo of Andhra Pradesh CM YSR Reddy. |
Soon after the chopper lost contact, multiple agencies of the state launched a massive hunt for possible wreckage in the desolate terrain. By evening, it expanded into the country's biggest-ever search operation with satellites
The search operation is now focussed on a 5 km radius, news channels reported early Thursday morning. Rains and bad weather are hampering the search operation.
It was a flight that should not have taken off at all. The Met office had forecast not only heavy rainfall but the likelihood of fierce lightning and thunderstorms. But the 60-year-old politician was adamant. He was to kickstart a new village mass-contact programme called Rachabanda from Chittoor district (better known for housing the Tirupati temple) at 10.30am and there was no way that he was missing his appointment.
The Bell 430 took off at 8.38am from Begumpet airport, not more than 2km from Reddy's residence, on its 500-km journey. For about 30 minutes, things were fine and the pilot was in touch with the air traffic control (ATC). But soon after entering the space over the Nallamalla forests, it ran into problems. Rain was thick and visibility was zero. What happened thereafter remains a mystery so far but in all probability, the helicopter went down. The helicopter was last in contact with the ATC at 9.12am. The chopper had fuel to fly for 2.45 hours, enough to make it to Chittoor.
Apart from Reddy, the chopper was carrying principal secretary to CM S Subrahmanyam and YSR's chief security officer ASC Wesley. The craft was being piloted by group captain S K Bhatia and captain M S Reddy.
"It was last sighted by villagers between Atmakur and Bandiatmakur close to Rollapenta entering the Nallamalla forests from Kurnool district towards Prakasam district between 9.15 am and 9.30 am," chief secretary P Ramakanth Reddy said.
In New Delhi, there was a flurry of activity in the Congress and the home ministry went into a tizzy, setting in motion all emergency procedures possible. Minister of state for defence P Raju said the emergency locating transmitter (ELT) had not been activated and this gave hope that the chopper had made a safe landing.
What is causing immense worry is that Nallamalla, or 'Black Hills' in Telugu, is a dense, hilly, forest that is an extension of the Eastern Ghats. It was once the main area of operation for AP Naxals and armed cadres are still suspected to be hiding out in the forest camps. But what is known for sure is that the forest is tiger territory.
"For the last three days, the forest region has seen heavy rains and zero visibility. The Krishna and Tungabhadra rivers are overflowing and the Srisailam reservoir is full. The area is full of water," A V Rao, a Kurnool resident, told TOI. The area is sparsely populated with Chenchu tribals. "It is an inaccessible area with no cellphone towers, radio signals," Rao added. Strangely enough for a helicopter carrying the chief minister, the Bell 430 did not have a satellite phone connection.
Alarm bells started ringing in the state government headquarters from mid-day but police parties which were sent out drew a blank as they could not venture out too far in pouring rain. Meanwhile, the rumour mill was active with stories flying thick and fast about how the chief minister had been rescued. Faced with a barrage of queries, finance minister K Rosiah called a press conference to deny that Reddy had been found.
Later in the day, chief secretary Ramakanth Reddy said two IAF helicopters from Bangalore and one private chopper from Krishnapatnam in Nellore district scoured the area but found no sign of the CM's chopper. "Earlier, two IAF choppers from Hakimpet had set out but had to return halfway because of the inclement weather. The state has now deployed an aircraft belonging to the National Remote Sensing Agency (NRSA) which is operating throughout Monday night at a height of 1.5 km over the forest area where the helicopter was last sighted," the chief secretary said.
Teams which entered the Nallamalla forests during the day on foot had to return because of adverse weather conditions. "We went upto 20 km into the forest but had to return as the rivers are in spate," K Subba Reddy, a local resident of Velgodu village, told TOI over phone after returning to the village.
Late on Wednesday night, hundreds of Greyhound personnel, raised to fight Naxals, moved into the Nallamalla forest riding on tractors borrowed from Nallakaluva village in Kurnool district as part of the search operations. Officials from the revenue and forest departments, AP Special Police and tribals were also pressed into service, the chief secretary said.
Race against time: missing since Wednesday morning
8.38am: Chopper takes off from Hyderabad for Chittoor (approx 500 km), where YSR was to launch mass contact plan. Accompanied by principal secy S Subrahmanyam & chief security officer ASC Wesley
9.35am: Copter declared missing. Last known coordinates: 168°, 79 nautical miles from Hyderabad. Around 10.15am, private choppers pressed into search operations
1.30pm : Defence Chetak choppers join search but are forced to return within an hour because of bad weather
2.30pm: 2 IAF MI-8 choppers mobilized. Dornier and Avro planes called in. Unmanned Aerial Vehicle put on stand-by
5.30pm: 5 companies of CRPF (600 men) enter Nallamala forest with night vision devices. By sunset, 20 teams, including 3 columns of Army, state police (including anti-Naxal squads), forest and revenue officials enter 1,000 sqkm area
Primitive tribe of Chenchus, who hunt with bows and arrows, approached for assistance
6.30pm: Chopper search called off due to poor light & bad weather. After sundown, IAF's Sukhoi-30 MKI with thermal imaging devices used
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/news/india/YSRs-chopper-goes-missing-over-dense-Naxal-tiger-infested-Andhra-jungle/articleshow/4965809.cms
Bodies of YSR, 4 others found at the crash site
Evidence emerging from the interior jungles of Nallamalla forests on Thursday morning indicates that the BEL 430 helicopter in which Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy was travelling crash-landed in the dense forests. The copter's parts have been found strewn across a large area and initial reports indicate that the copter had crashed. All the five bodies, inclding that of YSR, have been found.
Reliable sources in the Congress office in Hyderabad told India Syndicate that the chances of anyone surviving the crash is very remote. The sources said that initial reports indicate that all the five passengers did not survive the crash. But official confirmation is awaited.
Since it is difficult to land rescue copters at the site, commandos are being dropped to locate for survivors.
There is no word about survivors, but one piece of bad news was that the Chief Security Officer Wesley did not respond to repeated cell phone calls. BSNL had established signals to the area and official in Hyderabad were able to call and SMS the CSO.
More details are awaited.
Source: India Syndicate
Related reports
YSR's chopper traced close to Kurnool
Mysterious silence of AP Chief Minister's copter
No trace yet; ISRO images do show copter or its debris
ANDHRA CM'S HELICOPTER MISSING
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Rescue teams comb Naxal areas in search of YSR
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 |  September 03, 2009 |  |
Hyderabad: India's biggest search and rescue operation to locate Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister YS Rajashekhara Reddy in the dense Nallamalla forests and hills stretching across Kurnool, Prakasam and Kadapa districts resumed at the crack of dawn on Thursday.
Helicopter search operations had been called off in the night because of poor visibility and bad weather conditions. But state police and 5,000 personnel of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) conducted search operations on foot throughout the night with help of forest officials.
Andhra's Greyhound commandos, raised to fight Naxals, are also helping in the search operation along with specialised anti-terrorist force Organisation for Counter Terrorism and Operations (Octopus) teams.
The newly-formed anti-Naxal force Combat Battalion for Resolute Action (Cobra), which are under the command of the CRPF have also been deployed for the search operations.
An Army column from Bangalore has also been also called in to assist in the search and rescue operations.
The Indian Air Force (IAF) has also sent three helicopters from Bangalore for the search operation while one private helicopter from Nellore is also scouring the area for any signs of the missing Chief Minister and his entourage.
IAF will also press into service Su-30 MKI fighter aircraft with synthetic aperture radar for high resolution ground mapping in and around Kurnool.
Satellite imagery is also being used to trace the missing helicopter. Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has also provided special low flying aircraft and remote sensing equipment and satellite imagery to aide the search operation.
Search and rescue teams are also looking at the possibility of Reddy's helicopter landing at Sri Sailam Dam which is situated 98 km from Markapuram. The dam is across the Krishna River at Srisailam in the Kurnool district.
http://ibnlive.in.com/news/search-and-rescue-operation-to-locate-andhra-cm-resumes/100535-37.html
YSR planned sudden visit to check out ground reality
Hyderabad: Known as a people's leader for his several initiatives for their welfare, Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy was on his way to launch yet another mass contact programme when the helicopter carrying him went missing in the dense Nallamalla forests, before it was found nearly 24 hours later Thursday.
It was only around 5 a.m. Wednesday that senior police officials in Chittoor district were informed by the chief minister that he would be visiting Anuppalle village to launch 'Racchabanda' programme.
A day after the budget session of state assembly concluded, YSR, as the chief minister is popularly known, chose a remote village in Anuppalle to launch the programme of surprise visits to villages to know people's problems.
"I want to know the problems in village through this surprise visit and want to have a direct interaction with the villagers. I told them (the officials) only at 5 a.m. that I will be visiting the village as they have to make security arrangements," YSR said in his last interview before boarding the helicopter here at 8.35 a.m. Wednesday.
"If I tell the officials in advance about my visit they will rectify some problems and hence this programme is being launched. The basic aim is to see whether the delivery mechanisms of the government are working or not," he told Sakshi television channel, which is run by his son Y.S. Jaganmohan Reddy.
"I want to know how the concerned departments are working to deal with drought, whether farmers are getting the required assistance, whether the village has drinking water supply. I also want to see if there is any poor person who has not got a ration card, house or pension. We have promised that every poor will get a house and ration card," he said.
"This is a representative sample as I can't visit all 20,000 villages in the state. I will go on such visits for three to four days in a month and will cover four to five villages in a day," YSR had said.
It was various such programmes taken up by him during last five years that helped him retain power in the recent elections despite facing a strong and united opposition alliance led by Telugu Desam Party (TDP) and Praja Rajyam floated by actor-turned-politician Chiranjeevi.
Source: AgenciesOther VIP crashes and the miraculous one
There have been a few helicopter and aircraft crashes involving VIPs. But the most miraculous escape was the one involving the late Prime Minister Morarji Desai.
The incident happened on November 4, 1977 when the Tu-124 jet, V-643 Pushpak, crash landed at Jorhat in Assam. The aircraft had taken off from Palam Airforce Station at 5.30 pm carrying Morarji Desai and others. Some two-and-a-hours later, the engine developed a snag and began flying dangerously low.
The pilots realised that the aircraft was about to crash and they took it to a paddy field and crashed in Tetlagon village by directing the nose of the aircraft first. The cockpit and the pilots took the maximum impact and saved the lives of Morarji Deasi and other VIPs.
A calm Morarji reportedly stepped out of the aircraft, inspected the wreckage and tried to find out the fate of the pilots and walked to a nearby village to seek help.
Five of IAF'S elite Communication Squadron made the supreme sacrifice in saving the life of then Prime Minister. The pilots were Wing Commander Clarence D'Lima, Wing Commander Joginder Singh, Squadron Leader Mathew Cyriac, Squadron Leader V V S Sankar Flight Lieutenant O P Arora. All of them were killed in the crash.
The other crashes:
Sept 30, 2001: Senior Congress leader from Rajasthan Madhavrao Scindia dies in a plane crash near Mota village in Mainpuri district of Uttar Pradesh. Bad weather conditions caused the crash.
March 3, 2002: GMC Balayogi, Speaker of the Lok Sabha, dies in a helicopter crash in Kaikalur in Andhra Pradesh. His chopper went down into a pond after it developed technical snag and its blades hit an overhead wire.
March 31, 2005: O P Jindal dies in a helicopter crash at Menghi village in Saharanpur district of Uttar Pradesh. Cause: Engine malfunction.
Source: India Syndicate
Pak going "beyond nuclear deterrence": Army Chief
Pune: Pakistan is "going beyond nuclear deterrence" if reports of it having a large stockpile of nuclear missiles with India specific delivery system are true, Army Chief General Deepak Kapoor said today. "It is a matter of concern for us," Kapoor said reacting to an article published in the latest issue of ''Bulletin of the Atomic Scientist'' about enhanced nuclear arsenal of Pakistan.
"There were certain degrees of deterrence and the figure of 70-90 nuclear warheads directed against a country certainly goes beyond the concept of deterrence," the army chief said. In the article, US experts Robert S Norris and Hans Kristensen estimate that Pakistan''s nuclear stockpile has jumped to an estimated 70-90 warheads from a previous figure of 60.
"A new nuclear-capable ballistic missile is being readied for deployment, and two nuclear capable cruise missiles are under development. Two new plutonium production reactors and a second chemical separation facility also are under construction," they wrote.
On the Chinese incursions along the border, the army chief said there was no cause for "alarm". "The level of incursions was the same as it was last year," he said adding that Indian troops also carry out patrolling along the border which "could be perceived differently".
Source: Agencies
World power rankings: Anil slips, Mukesh knocked out
London: A sharp erosion in his wealth and a long-running sibling rivalry notwithstanding, Indian billionaire Anil Ambani has retained his position in the list of the world's 100 most powerful people, but is down 30 places since last year, while his brother Mukesh has made a total exit. Ranked 97th in the latest edition of the annual ranking compiled by British fashion magazine Vanity Fair, Anil is the only Indian in the list, which is topped by financial services behemoth Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein.
Anil was ranked at 67th position jointly with Mukesh in the previous year's list.
The current list, described as "The New Establishment 2009" by the magazine, also figures names like Apple's iconic chief Steve Jobs and legendary investor Warren Buffett and these 100 people have been described as the world's most powerful in today's information age.
"Ambani was the biggest loser when Forbes published its annual wealth ranking in March: his fortune fell by $32 billion, to $10 billion. But that still left him with plenty of cash to close a Bollywood-meets-Hollywood deal with Steven Spielberg to make a $500 million investment in DreamWorks (along with the rights to distribute its films in India)," Vanity Fair said about Anil.
The magazine further noted that "Anil, 50, and his billionaire brother, Mukesh, (they grew up in a communal building in a distressed neighbourhood) foolishly hurt their image by perpetuating a long public feud: they frequently sued each other but rarely talked."
"In one of their biggest battles, Mumbai's high court ordered Mukesh's company to make good on a deal from 2005 (when the two brothers split their late father's empire) to sell natural gas to Anil's company for 17 years at a price 44 per cent lower than that set by the government. That could mean billions of dollars worth of savings for Anil and losses for Mukesh, who appealed to India's Supreme Court."
In his "latest act of do-goodery," the magazine said, Anil opened a 730-bed hospital in Mumbai.
The magazine, in its last year rankings, had said both Mukesh and Anil together held a large combined net worth and they inherited their father's sprawling industrial conglomerate in 2002, "but never figured how to play together nicely".
Source: PTI
THE NEW FIZZLE DEBATE - The nuclear question concerns everybody, not just scientists | |
| Amitabh Mattoo & Rajive Nayan | |
The nuclear debate in India, after a brief lull, promises to become stormy over the next months. The contest is once again, after over a decade, in essence over the merits and demerits of India signing the comprehensive nuclear test ban treaty or CTBT. A former senior official of the Defence Research and Development Organisation has proved to be the catalyst and a whistle-blower. At a closed-door seminar in the capital, where the Chatham House Rules were flouted with impunity, the official declared that the thermonuclear test India conducted in 1988 was a fizzle. A fizzle, in nuclear jargon, is another term for a test that has not delivered, at least not in terms of the expected yield. The implication was clear: India should not consider signing the CTBT because we still need to conduct further tests to ensure the credibility of the country's nuclear deterrent. While the government has sought to distance itself from the controversy, it is clear that this is an issue that cannot be swept under the carpet. What is needed, therefore, is an independent panel of scientists and analysts who can address the issue of the thermonuclear test and the wider implications for India, its nuclear deterrent, and its engagement with the CTBT. All this needs fleshing out. The CTBT was adopted by the United Nations general assembly in September, 1996. About 150 States have ratified the CTBT and another 32 States have signed but not yet ratified it. But the treaty cannot come into force unless the 44 States listed in Annex 2 of the treaty have ratified it. Nine of these States have not ratified the treaty, including India, China, Iran, Israel, North Korea, Pakistan and the United States of America. During the Bush years, the CTBT was not an issue: the Republican administration believed more in direct action than in multilateral arms control, and the treaty was pushed into cold storage. The Obama administration is, however, different. At Prague in April, Obama committed himself to radical steps on arms control and disarmament; it seems his administration has decided to make the ratification of the CTBT a cornerstone of its foreign policy. In other words, Washington will begin exercising serious pressure on the non-signatories, even as they build a consensus on ratification domestically. The India story, however, is, as usual, more intriguing. On September 10, 1996, at the UN general assembly, India's permanent representative to the UN in Geneva, Arundhati Ghose, and a bhadramahila with a greater spine than most Indian diplomats, said: "Mr President, I would like to declare on the floor of this august assembly that India will never sign this unequal treaty, not now, nor later." The reasons, on the face of it, were simple: India had been included in Annex 2, without its consent, the draft had been negotiated outside the conference on disarmament (where India blocked a consensus) and that the treaty was not explicitly linked to a plan for disarmament which India had demanded. But there was a deeper, less diplomatic, reality. India needed time: to be able to conduct nuclear tests at an opportune time when the international backlash could be contained, so essential to build a credible nuclear posture. This happened less than two years later. On May 11 and 13, 1988, India conducted five nuclear tests at Pokhran. All the tests were then declared totally successful. Recall the statement issued by the official spokesman on May 11: "The tests conducted today were with a fission device, a low yield device and a thermonuclear device. The measured yields are in line with expected values. Measurements have also confirmed that there was no release of radioactivity into the atmosphere." India quickly declared a unilateral moratorium on further testing, and New Delhi's back channels seriously discussed signing the CTBT (as a way of normalizing relations and getting sanctions, imposed in the wake of the tests, lifted) with their American counterparts, but the Clinton administration was beset with its own problems. Then came the trouble-free Bush years. In March this year, however, the prime minister's special envoy, Shyam Saran, said at a conference at the Brookings Institution at Washington: "It is also our conviction that if the world really moves categorically towards nuclear disarmament in a credible timeframe, then India-US differences over the CTBT will probably recede into the background." Why are we then witnessing this hullabaloo? For at least three reasons. First, many consider thermonuclear or hydrogen weapons essential for building a credible deterrent. While this is debatable in terms of Indian nuclear deterrence strategy, there has always been scepticism about the thermonuclear claim. Days after the test, both the Central Intelligence Agency and the international scientific academic community expressed reservations. The well known nuclear-seismologist, then at the University of Arizona, Terry C. Wallace, openly rubbished India's claims on the basis of detailed seismic analyses. In India, P.K. Iyengar, a former chief of the department of atomic energy, also doubted the official claim. In response, the Indian atomic science establishment published its findings. Key figures of the atomic energy establishment, S.K. Sikka, Falguni Roy. and G.J. Nair, argued - in a referred paper — rather naïvely it now seems — that large variations in the seismic magnitude were because of the "cancellation and superimposition of signals from these explosions separated in space by about 1 km". The DRDO official's assertion implies that Sikka et al were, at the very least, magnifying their achievements. But we must not overlook the traditional rivalry between institutions and individuals. All nuclear States have had rivalries within driven by personal idiosyncrasies and institutional loyalties. The famous rivalry between Edward Teller (the father of the hydrogen bomb) and J. Robert Oppenheimer (the leader of the Manhattan Project which produced the first atomic weapons) is legendary and irretrievably divided the two main American nuclear labs: Los Alamos and Lawrence Livermore. When Oppenheimer opposed the hydrogen bomb, Teller accused him of being a Soviet spy. In India, the rivalry between the atomic energy establishment and the DRDO is well known. Raja Ramanna openly expressed his uneasiness at the elevation of a well known rocket scientist to a high position. In the Atomic Energy Commission itself, nuclear scientists have looked down upon nuclear engineers — the traditional innovators' contempt for mechanics. Two chairmen of the AEC, Raja Ramanna, a nuclear scientist, and Homi Sethna, a nuclear engineer, had always had an uneasy relationship. Finally, of course, there are institutional interests. No organization will seek to undermine its own raison d'être. In the US, when the Clinton administration sought the support of the nuclear laboratories for the CTBT, they had to be almost bribed. As the physicist, Richard Garwin, described it: "What could they get? Sandia got the microelectronics research center, which had minimal relevance to the CTBT. Los Alamos got the Dual-Axis Radiographic Hydrodynamic Test facility. Livermore got the National Ignition Facility— the white elephant eating us out of house and home." The fact is that we need oversight by an independent authority. In the US, there were at least two panels which, in recent years, addressed issues related to the CTBT and inter-institutional rivalry. In 1995, an Energy Advisory Board Task Force on Alternative Futures for the Department of Energy National Laboratories was set up. The panel concluded that while some of the finest scientific research in America was done in the national laboratories, "the current system of governance of these laboratories is broken and should be replaced with a bold alternative". An earlier committee, which remains a model, is the bipartisan JASON committee, consisting of top research and industrial scientists. One of its most important reports was on safety, reliability, and performance margins of nuclear weapons in the wake of a possible CTBT. We need to recognize that the nuclear question is too important to be left to scientists or the armed forces alone. It concerns us all. | |
Downturn in US economy 'ending'
 Mr Bernanke has said interest rates will stay low for some time |
US Federal Reserve policymakers are increasingly confident the downturn in the US economy is ending, minutes from their latest meeting show.
The assessment by recently re-appointed Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke and his colleagues struck a more upbeat tone than the last assessment in late June.
But there was uncertainty about how quickly the economy would grow in 2010.
Unemployment, which is set to move above 10% this year, may impact on consumer behaviour, they warned.
 |  At least there are signs we are bottoming out - that's the first step  David Wyss Standard & Poor's Ratings |
Falling property and share values, along with the difficulty in getting credit also meant that consumers still faced "considerable headwinds", they added.
'More upbeat'
However the Fed said that consumer spending appeared to be levelling out and that the housing market was becoming more solid, while manufacturing was stabilising.
The prospects for US exporters will also brighten, as the economies of other countries improved, the policymakers added.
These factors led them to believe that "the downturn in economic activity was ending", the minutes said.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has predicted that the US economy will expand by 0.75% next year, after earlier predicting no growth.
"The economic data look more upbeat. It doesn't mean we will get out of this any time soon. At least there are signs we are bottoming out - that's the first step," said David Wyss, chief economist of Standard & Poor's Ratings.
"Financial conditions have also improved with the some recovery in credit default swaps and in particular financial stocks."
Stimulus impact
Last month the central bank decided to keep US interest rates on hold at between 0% and 0.25%, as widely expected by commentators.
And it added that the current low levels of interest rates will likely continue "for an extended period" to aid the continuing recovery.
The Fed and the US government have carried out a number of measures to help stimulate the US economy since the end of last year.
The main two have been President Barack Obama's $787bn economic stimulus package, which was signed into law in February, and October's $700bn Troubled Assets Relief Programme for the banking sector.
In March, the Fed also announced a $1.2 trillion programme of buying government debt to boost lending and promote economic recovery - a policy known as quantitative easing.
US interest rates were cut to the current level of between 0% and 0.25% in December last year, where they have remained ever since.
Before then rates had fallen steadily from a high of 5.25% in September 2007.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/8235069.stm
Many a peril in Nallamalla
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Hyderabad: While it might be early to conclude on the fate of chief minister YS Rajasekhara Reddy and his three co-passengers in the government Bell helicopter, the terrain where it disappeared leaves little scope for hope for several reasons.
The Nallamalla hills, stretching across Kurnool, Prakasam and Kadapa districts, while being extremely inhospitable, have also been the hotbed of Maoist activity. The forest range is home to varied wildlife like tigers, leopards, panthers, bear, and black buck. It has also been the staging ground for battles between Maoists and the state's anti-Maoist strike force, the Greyhounds.
Though their numbers has declined in recent times, some Maoist groups still exist in the forests, an easy hideaway from the Greyhounds. Not surprisingly, the state administration has included Greyhounds, familiar with the terrain, in the search operation.
Immediately on coming to power in 2004, the YSR administration sought to strike a different cord from the previous N Chandrababu Naidu government by involving Maoists in peace talks. The Maoists had suffered several body blows under the Naidu administration. The YSR government lifted the ban on the then PWG, which merged with the Maoist Communist Centre of India in September 2004 to form the CPI-Maoist just hours before the peace talks began.
But the Maoists walked out of talks, accusing the government of bad intent. Subsequently, the administration re-imposed the ban on them. Both sides used the lull before and after the talks to build on their resources. But the Maoists have weakened considerably in the last four years, losing over 400 cadres.
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deliciousIn the search for CM, the Maoist spectre adds a menacing element | |
| G.S. RADHAKRISHNA | |
Hyderabad, Sept. 2: As the massive search operation failed to throw up any clues on the whereabouts of missing Andhra chief minister YS Rajasekhar Reddy, the spectre of Naxalites returned to haunt the state administration which claims to have snuffed out the guerrillas from their forest dens. Aviation officials are expressing hope that the Bell 430 helicopter may have run into rough weather and landed in an inaccessible location inside the dense Nallamala forests, which has been the stronghold of the Maoist rebels. Police sources said they were keeping fingers crossed because of the recent burst in Maoist activity along the Andhra-Chhattisgarh border, which is about 220km northwest of the site of disappearance of the helicopter. National security adviser M.K. Narayanan, however, appeared to rule out any Maoist hand in YSR's disappearance and said the chopper may have gone missing because of to a technical snag or a pilot error. "Naxalite strike seems extremely improbable. I would almost entirely rule it out. I do not think the Naxalites have the capability to bring down the helicopter. That is the least of our worry," Narayanan said. Although the chief minister's office and the state intelligence wing refused to confirm, CPI (Maoist) leader Mallojula Koteswar Rao alias Kishenji — the architect of the Lalgarh siege in Bengal — told a Telugu daily in a recent interview that "we are not finished yet in Andhra Pradesh". The CPI (Maoists) are miffed with Reddy because the chief minister, soon after taking over in his first term in 2004, had ditched them after initiating talks with Naxalite leaders who came all the way from Nallamala. Next, Reddy authorised a crackdown on the Maoists. Led by director-general of police Swaranjit Sen, the force took a hard line approach and unleashed a massive operation in the Nallamala forests during 2005-06, forcing the Maoists to abandon their base and go on the run. The Maoist leaders shifted their base out of Andhra to safe houses in Karnataka and Tamil Nadu while the cadres fled to Chhattisgarh. The Nallamala forest range spreads across 10 districts along the Krishna river with dense valleys and difficult hilly terrain. Nallamala is linked up in the north to the Dandakaranya jungles of Chhattisgarh and also down south to the Sheshagiri forest range of Tirupati leading to Tamil Nadu and Kerala. Through the morning, the government kept giving out conflicting information. The chief minister's office kept saying that defence helicopters had traced the missing chopper and YSR at Nalla Kaluva and Bhanumukkala villages near Kurnool. Reports from a local channel owned by the chief minister's family also flashed that YSR spoke to his adviser and friend K.V.P. Ramachandra Rao on satellite phone. However, all that changed by mid-afternoon when a grim-faced finance minister K. Rosaiah told reporters that the "CM has not been located yet". The government sought to justify the confusion on the ground that they did not want to jeopardise YSR's safety should the copter have been forced to land owing to inclement weather in the rebel-dominated jungles. "We did not want the Maoist elements who might be still operative in the region to get wind of it and plan something against his life," said a government spokesperson who refused to speak on record. The spokesperson said it was because of this they had kept information on the helicopter and its likely place of landing or crash a secret till late afternoon. Andhra politicians have often been the target of Maoists. Some years ago, Sudhir Kumar, the son of former Union minister P. Shivshankar, was abducted by the erstwhile People's War Group and let off after two weeks. State tribal welfare minister P. Balraj was kidnapped in Vishakhapatnam and released in exchange for the freedom of some jailed Maoist leaders. | |
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Blueprint ready for ATS debut in Bihar - Maharashtra model to overpower Maoists |
| NALIN VERMA |
| Patna, Sept. 2: Bihar is likely to become the fourth state to have its own anti-terrorist squad (ATS), the blueprint for which has already been prepared. According to authoritative sources, inspector-general (operations) S.K. Bhardwaj's office has prepared the blueprint and submitted it to the home department for approval and follow-up action. Currently, only Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh have anti-terrorist squads. Sources said that the Bihar version of ATS had been modelled on the lines of the Maharashtra squad that played a vital role in the November 26 terror attack in Mumbai. "The Bihar ATS will be armed with modern and latest weapon system after the home department approves it," said a senior official dealing with the new force. The Bihar ATS — to be headed by an officer of inspector-general rank — will have two deputy inspectors-general and four superintendents of police, says the blueprint. The ATS will have more than two dozen "operational units" within itself to deal with emergency situations. The squad will be raised from the existing personnel of Bihar Military Police and be specially trained to deal with sudden strikes. The Bihar ATS will treat the outlawed Maoist guerrillas "on a par with other terrorists". "There is a striking similarity between the operations and the motive of Maoist insurgents and terrorists. Security forces across the country have evidence to suggest that they co-ordinate among themselves in launching attack on the symbols of the state," a senior official, involved in preparing the blueprint process, said. As of now, Bihar has a special task force (STF), which deals with cases of organised crime and Maoist-sponsored rebellion. Additional director-general (police headquarters) Neelmani said that after the squad was set up, the STF would be left with the time and resources to exclusively deal with organised crime. Of late, the state has been witnessing a string of Maoists attacks. The rebels, who in the '80s and '90s only targeted "landlords", have also changed strategies. They are now striking at government establishments, including railway stations, community halls and police stations. At present, Maoists are "hyper-active" in Jamui, Munger and Nawada in south Bihar and Sitamarhi, East and West Champaran and Sheohar districts in north Bihar. Earlier, they had their operations limited in Jehanabad, Gaya, Aurangabad and Rohtas districts of central Bihar. In response to escalated attacks on the railways, the government has already embarked onto the exercise to increase the number of security forces on long-distance trains on Patna-Mughalsarai, Patna-Gaya, Mughalsarai-Gaya and Jhajha-Jamalpur sections dotted with rebel presence in East Central Railway. |
Jumbo illusion in Lalgarh 'lab' | ||
| SUJAN DUTTA | ||
| BACK TO LALGARH | ||
Lalgarh, Sept. 2: Shots that ring out in the night are like tracers in the darkness. They spray panic among villagers. The villagers were chasing hungry elephants; the police mistook them for Maoists. The men and women of Kantapahari were raising a hue and cry because the animals were too close to their homes. As if life in the Lalgarh "laboratory" — as the Centre describes it — were not already difficult, a people and a police that have a tenuous relationship now have to contend with elephants. Kantapahari, 4km north of Lalgarh police station, was also a suspected Maoist hub. Three hungry elephants emerged from the forests one night last week. The people shouted and came out with flaming torches. A road patrol of Bengal and central police, which could not see the elephants, was as scared as the villagers. It thought a Maoist-led mob was heading towards it to mount an attack on the Kantapahari Vivekananda Vidyapeeth, where the police have set up camp. The police opened fire — that is what the villagers thought — in the direction from where they heard the noise. The police say they only fired tear gas. It was some time before a villager telephoned one of the policemen he had got acquainted with and pleaded with the force to stop because elephants were on the rampage. In the morning, the remains of three mud and half-pucca houses marked out the depredations of the elephants. Three families are shelterless. And it is raining. "Lalgarh is the laboratory for the kind of operation we will carry out in Chhattisgarh (and elsewhere)," Union home secretary G.K. Pillai had said on August 20. In Lalgarh, he said, the security forces had been "by and large successful" but the operation was still incomplete because the wanted Maoists were absconding. This was surprising after Bengal home secretary Ardhendu Sen's August 6 admission of failure. He said Phase I — the opening of main roads in Lalgarh between June 17 and June 29 — was successful but since then the offensive had run aground. If Lalgarh is a laboratory, the people and the police (and even the elephants) that inhabit the place must be its guinea pigs. The scientists are drawing different conclusions. But whatever's fizzing inside the experiments is slated to become the template for the Centre's anti-Naxalite offensive, being planned with seven states. Life in a laboratory flask is constantly on the boil. Take Kantapahari, for instance, where The Telegraph correspondent was on August 26. The people lead you to the forecourt of the temple, the Harimandir. By the temple tank, a group of burly men in underwear are soaping themselves at the community tube-well. They are policemen camping at the high school. They bathe elaborately, spraying lather, their wet underwear and flimsy towels all but exposing their buttocks. By the same well and from its second tap, village women fill metal and earthen pots with drinking water. They try to turn their backs to the men and pretend not to see. "How would they like it if we men do this in front of their wives and mothers and sisters?" asks a shopkeeper. "We have repeatedly asked them to stop but this is the scene here from morning till evening." There is a tube-well inside the school where the police are camping. But that is either not enough for the number of men who need to bathe or there is more fun in bathing at the tube-well by the temple. For the local people, it is as if their world has been invaded. "It's not funny", says Deepak Pratihar, a security guard of a mobile service provider's tower on the school grounds, "to be felt up by them every time I go to check the machines." He pulls up his lungi and drops it for emphasis. Pratihar may or may not be politically motivated but the people who have gathered around in the tea stall nod agreement with much that he has to say. Inside the school, the central forces are having lunch, a simple but freshly cooked meal of rice, dal and a vegetable. Commandant Pankaj's cellphone buzzes, he excuses himself — which in any case he wanted to because it is best to shut out the media. He is told of two more improvised explosive devices that have been found. The presence of the rebels is pervasive. Here it manifests itself in a lump of gelatine and chemical packed into a tin can that many people store cereals in. It weighs you down as you lift it in one hand. It weighs 6.5 kilos. If it detonates under a normal four-wheel passenger car, the vehicle would blow up, tearing its occupants limb from limb. On the other hand, it may be a dud, a dummy. In Lalgarh, you never know till it explodes. | ||
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Maoists gunned down in war zone - Security forces find bodies of slain guerrillas for the first time since operation began, duo held after fight | |||
| OUR CORRESPONDENT | |||
Salboni, Sept. 2: Security forces tonight had a trophy to show for the first time since operation Lalgarh began in June: the bodies of two Maoists shot dead in a Salboni forest. After an eight-hour gun battle during which the reb- els were sucked into a trap, the forces also claimed to have caught a Maoist duo, though no arms were found on them. Three single-barrel guns and 17 rounds of ammunition were found near the slain men in the rain-soaked Memul forest, 10km from Lalgarh town. Scores of encounters have taken place since June with the police claiming to have gunned down several Maoists, but none of the bodies could be traced. Today, the police said at least 10 Maoists took bullets, but their comrades managed to drag them away. Over the past few days, the forces had reports of a guerrilla build-up in the cluster of villages on the edge of the forest. The decision to move in was taken on Monday. At 11am today, three groups comprising 300 jawans drawn from the CRPF, its Cobra unit and the state armed police set out for the forest from Goaltore, Pirakata and Salboni town.
Around 11.30, the team from Salboni faced gunfire. During the encounter that ensued, the jawans kept retreating towards a paddy field behind them, drawing the Maoists towards the open. "We beat a planned retreat. The Maoists thought they were chasing us," said a CRPF officer. There were about 100 gunmen in the forest. By the time they neared the field, the two other groups of security forces had closed in on them without firing a single shot. Unaware of their presence, about 20 Maoists stepped out of the cover and kept moving towards the retreating cops, who had by then taken shelter in the knee-deep waters of a canal. The only people without cover were the Maoists. The police on either side of the field then opened fire along with those in the canal. "The Maoists tried to flee back into the forest and we chased them, firing all the while," said West Midnapore police chief Manoj Verma. The encounter ended around 7pm with most of the Maoists slipping into an adjoining forest. "We found the bodies on the edge of the forest," said Verma. The police identified one of the two killed as Haradhan Mahato but did not say which rung of the Maoist squad he belonged to. Late tonight, People's Committee Against Police Atrocities leader Chhatradhar Mahato said the arrested duo — Ajit Mana of Madhupur village, on the edge of Memul forest, and Gautam Mahato of Goaltore — were not guerrillas but supporters of his outfit. |
Durgapur, Sept. 2: Maoists tried a forest officer in a kangaroo court last night and fined him Rs 25,000 for allegedly turning a blind eye to felling in the Ayodhya hills of Purulia.
"We will return in a week, the money should be ready," a guerrilla leader shouted at beat officer Naresh Kumar Shit before ransacking his office and setting documents on fire.
Some of Shit's juniors were also herded to the "trial" under a tree outside the Balarampur beat office and accused of irregularities in the distribution of "pattas (tilling rights)" for forest land, but only he was fined.
Fifteen armed men in olive green fatigues arrived at the single-storey office at the foothills of Ayodhya around Tuesday midnight. The guerrillas called a forest guard, Jawaharlal Majhi, by his name and asked him to wake up the others. "They told us we'll be tried for our faults," said another guard, Rabilochan Hembram.
http://www.telegraphindia.com/1090903/jsp/bengal/story_11444912.jsp
Andhra was warned of naxal hit | |||||
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Secret document on VVIP security states Maoists had enough military intelligence to bring down 'Enemy' aircraft |
WAR-LIKE HUNT FOR YSR Forces sweep forest tied to Maoists | |
| G.S. RADHAKRISHNA | |
Hyderabad, Sept. 2: A helicopter carrying Andhra Pradesh chief minister Y.S. Rajasekhar Reddy disappeared over the Naxalite-dominated jungles of Nallamala an hour after lifting off around 8.35 this morning, prompting a search effort that resembled a military operation as the hours wore on. The 60-year-old Congress leader, a devout Catholic considered close to 10 Janpath and known for his administrative and financial acumen, had left for Chittoor, around 600km from here, in a 10-year-old government Bell 430 helicopter. With him were principal secretary S. Subramanyam, chief security officer A.S.C. Wesley and two pilots, captains S.K. Bhatia and M.S. Reddy. YSR, as the chief minister was known, was to have launched his ambitious rural programme called "Rachha Banda (taking administration to the villages)" in Chittoor. The helicopter lost contact with the air traffic control at Begumpet — from where it had lifted off — and Shamshabad airports in Hyderabad around 9am and was in touch with Chennai radio control till 9.02am. At that time it was flying over Mahboobnagar and Kurnool, around 270km southwest of the state capital. A copter ride from Hyderabad to Chittoor usually takes around two hours. A statement issued by the Andhra Pradesh Aviation Corporation Limited, which operates the Bell, said the chopper was equipped with an Emergency Locator Transmitter (ELT) which would have activated in case of any crash landing. A Dornier 228 air force aircraft, which can pick up ELT frequency transmission, did not get any, sparking hope that the Bell may have landed at an inaccessible location. Chief secretary P. Ramakanth Reddy said as much. "So far we have not been able to make any contact. It is possible, because of strong winds and inclement weather, it may have landed in an unfamiliar area from where getting out can be difficult," he said. What he did not mention is the danger from Naxalites who have made the Nallamala jungles their den. Even after the Andhra police flushed out Maoists from Nallamala in 2006, the forests have continued to be the centre of Naxalite activities. Through the morning, the government, which had been sending out conflicting information since news broke about the missing copter, fumbled to explain why Reddy was allowed to fly in spite of reports of bad weather. Heavy rain lashed the Nallamala region from 11am and was preceded by dense clouds and severe wind. The government was also at a loss to say why Reddy went on the Bell 430, an ageing machine that had been taken out of the chief minister's service. As replacement, the government had purchased a spanking new Augusta 139, which was grounded today for servicing. By mid-afternoon, the war-room shifted from Hyderabad to North Block in Delhi with Union home minister P. Chidambaram taking charge and mounting the biggest search operation in recent times. Sources in North Block wondered why the Centre was informed three hours after the copter vanished from radar screens. Eleven helicopters were pressed into service through the day, some of which had to return in the evening because of poor weather. By evening, the army had pushed in three columns into Nallamala. A Sukhoi-30 fighter was conducting sorties over the area, apparently for thermal imaging. It will be aided by two refuelling aircraft. Commandos from the army and the CRPF as well as the elite anti-Naxalite force of Greyhounds were sent into the forests to conduct searches that will continue through the night. "We have nothing to indicate that he is held by the Naxalites, but we are keeping our fingers crossed," said a home ministry official. The search has narrowed to a 10km by 20km forest area spread over Guntur, Kurnool and Mahboobnagar districts. Isro satellites were sending images of the area, but it was the agency's helicopter from Bangalore that is expected to give a realistic picture. The chopper with remote-sensing capability flew low over the forests and took 41 images that will give a better idea to security forces. Results would be available by tomorrow morning, national security adviser M.K. Narayanan told a TV channel. At first light tomorrow, the army's special forces from north India will drop commandos at an area demarcated through the analysis of the Isro pictures. State finance minister K. Rosaiah asked forest officials and residents of hamlets around the Nallamala forest to help in the search. Some ministers from Kurnool and Mahboobnagar set out with supporters into the forest zone. A search in Nallamala, the largest stretch of undisturbed forest in south India apart from the Western Ghats, could be long and arduous. The last time a chopper disappeared over the thick forests of Andhra, it took three months to trace the machine and bring back the bodies. On August 8 last year, a Bell 430 Ran Air chopper, which took off from Raipur carrying four crew members, went missing. The wreckage was found three months later in the forest area of Andhra's Khammam district, about 400km from Hyderabad, and similar to the Nallamala terrain. | |
| With inputs from Nishit Dholabhai and Ananya Sengupta |
Prized asset with Midas touch | |
| SANJAY K. JHA AND RASHEED KIDWAI | |
Sept. 2: Y.S.R. Reddy, known in Congress circles as the leader who never sleeps without reading a few pages of the Bible, is one of the most trusted lieutenants of the leadership with an ability to arrange funds as effectively as crowds. YSR is gifted with many skills a politician requires — mass appeal, resources, political acumen and administrative experience. The Congress, which almost looked jinxed at one point when the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi was followed by the untimely deaths of other frontline leaders like Jitendra Prasada, Rajesh Pilot and Madhavrao Scindia, considers YSR as one of its most valuable assets. It was YSR's famous padyatra before the 2004 Andhra Assembly election that turned the tide against Chandrababu Naidu, setting the stage for the NDA's exit from power at the national level. Even in the 2009 general election, the Congress wouldn't have done as well without YSR's astonishing act of slaying the anti-incumbency demon. He emerged as the undisputed leader of the state after his second victory, wiping out whatever challenge that existed in his first tenure. The abilities of YSR first caught the attention of P.V. Narasimha Rao. Rao had just taken over as Prime Minister and, in the home state of Andhra Pradesh, he was not too happy with the old guard represented by N. Janardhan Reddy (NJR) and the towering NTR in the Opposition ranks. At the Tirupati plenary in April 1992, the temple-town saw larger-than-life cut-outs of YSR all over. YSR contested the Congress Working Committee elections and did not make it to the top 10 but his vote share had surpassed those of the standing of N.D. Dutt Tiwari and Bhajan Lal. Since 1992, YSR, aka "Lion of Kadapa", emerged as a principal dissident leader in Andhra, constantly challenging the might of Janardhan, Vijaya Bhaskara Reddy and M. Chenna Reddy. YSR could become a minister in the state only once and was never included in the Union cabinet despite being a four-time MP primarily because of his rebellious ways. Post-Babri demolition, YSR looked at 10 Janpath for "direction" and joined the ranks of Rajesh Pilot, Digvijay Singh, Ashok Gehlot, Ramesh Chennithala and other young turks. By 2004, YSR had pulled past his peers in the Congress. On May 11, 2004, two days before the verdict of the general election was delivered, the counting of votes in the Andhra Assembly polls began at 7.30am. By 10am, the rout of Chandrababu Naidu and the rise of YSR were being beamed on television screens across the country. Outside 10 Janpath, a small crowd from the Delhi Congress had gathered. The then DPCC general secretary, Shamim Ahmad, could not resist prophesising: "Aaj Andhra Pradesh, kal saara desh (Andhra today, the whole country tomorrow." Two days later, the Congress was on its way back to power at the Centre. The Congress' tally of 148 (as a single largest party then) had 29 out of 42 MPs from Andhra. Five years later, it was once again Andhra Pradesh that led from the front. Since 2004, YSR's standing has been several notches above the other chief ministers of the Congress-ruled states. If some of the welfare schemes in irrigation and rural healthcare helped him score points, so did his loyalty to the Nehru-Gandhi family. In 2005, he equated Sonia with "Mahatma Gandhi", even though he took care never to flaunt his proximity to 10 Janpath. In 2006, he and his wife served Rayalaseema cuisine to Rahul, Sonia and Manmohan Singh. Rahul later reportedly took down the recipe for a groundnut chutney from "Vijayalakshmi aunty". Although an MBBS, YSR engrossed himself so deeply in politics that he hardly practised medicine. Tonight, several Congress colleagues were praying for YSR, recalling his frequent references to how he keeps the Bible under his pillow. |
Fit to fly, says govt amid airworthiness debate | ||
| JAYANTA ROY CHOWDHURY AND G.S. RADHAKRISHNA | ||
Sept. 2: The helicopter that disappeared from radar screens with the Andhra Pradesh chief minister on board was fit to fly, a statement released by the civil aviation authority said this evening, amid raging questions about its airworthiness. The Andhra Pradesh Aviation Corporation Limited said the helicopter had a "valid certificate" of airworthiness till December 5, 2010, and "fully airworthy" and "suitably equipped" for the planned 600km flight to Chittoor from Hyderabad. Earlier searches on the Directorate General of Civil Aviation website had shown that the 10-year-old aircraft had not been certified in the last two years, but officials said the site had not been updated properly, which is why it gave an erroneous picture. Officials of the DGCA, the civil aviation regulator, said all aircraft that flew out of an airport had to file their flight plan, copy of the airworthiness certificate and pilot licence with the authorities before taking off. A statement released by the aviation corporation said the two pilots, Capt. S.K. Bhatia and Capt. M.S. Reddy, were fully qualified and experienced. While Capt. Bhatia had flying experience of more than 5,600 hours, Capt. Reddy had logged more than 3,200 hours of flying. Official sources said the chopper had fuel for a maximum endurance of three hours, about an hour more than what a helicopter usually takes to reach Chittoor from Hyderabad. Officials of Bell Textron, the makers of the missing chopper, said it was mandatory for any aircraft to renew its licences every year. Besides, flight engineers have to sign documents every day after carrying out required maintenance. However, sources in Y.S. Rajasekhar Reddy's office said in Hyderabad that this particular aircraft had been experiencing technical trouble and was, therefore, being used to train pilots. A few months ago, the helicopter had suffered a fault mid-air while carrying Tibetan spiritual leader Dalai Lama from Hyderabad to Gulbarga, a source told PTI, though nothing untoward happened. The sources told the agency that often "wrong handling and non-compliance" with set procedures led to the problems and also said the seven-seater Bell 430 had recently suffered a crack in its windshield. The windshield was replaced during routine maintenance, the sources added. Sources in Andhra said the Bell 430 was being taken out of the chief minister's service because of its limited seating capacity and night-landing capability. Bell choppers, however, remains the most popular among businessmen. Among those who fly Bell helicopters are the Ambani brothers Mukesh (6-seater Bell 407) and Anil (13-seater Bell 412). The twin-engine Bell 430, a light-medium helicopter that can cost up to $4.5 million (Rs 22 crore), is considered a safer and better version compared with the earlier Bell versions. It is twin engines — a safety requirement mandated by the Indian government for all dignitaries — are powered by Rolls Royce engines and have four motor blades. The fuel system is rupture resistant and equipped with self-sealing breakaway units. The 6,400kg helicopter, which can fly at a cruise speed of 306kmph, can land in an area as small as a tennis court. The helicopter is equipped with at least two radio systems and weather radar and emergency locator transmitter among other sophisticated equipment. Aviation experts said aircraft or helicopter airworthiness did not depend on the age but on how rigorously maintenance and inspection engineers adhered to rules governing replacement and servicing of different parts of the aircraft. | ||
| WITH AGENCY INPUTS | ||
|
An eye on the groomed son | ||||
| G.S. RADHAKRISHNA AND SANJAY K. JHA | ||||
Hyderabad, Sept. 2: Many Congress leaders are too shaken to discuss the sensitive issue but some have started wondering if the worst fears come true, which way will the Andhra chief minister's baton pass. One name doing the rounds is that of Y.S. Jaganmohan Reddy, the son of Y.S. Rajashekhar Reddy. Jagan, as he is known in the state, has been following in his father's footsteps in politics. The son became a sarpanch of Pulivendula, the same post held by his father, in the early eighties when YSR entered the Assembly. However, Jagan ran into a hitch in 2004 when YSR asked his older brother Y.S. Vivekananda Reddy to vacate the Kadapa Parliament seat for Jagan. The brother agreed but the Congress high command did not. But Jagan, the "Prince of Pulivendula", stayed in touch with Congress leaders like Ghulam Nabi Azad, Digvijay Singh and also Veerappa Moily.
This year, by when YSR's political fortunes had soared, Jagan got a Lok Sabha ticket from Kadapa and won the election. During the campaign, he used to say: "It is just natural that not only do I speak and have the mannerisms of my father, but I also enjoy the adulation of the people." In Delhi, Congress sources said the thought of succession had not crossed anyone's mind. Party spokesperson Manish Tiwari said: "We are praying for him. This is not the time for any other talk." In private, some Congress leaders said YSR's relentless rise had ensured there was no clear-cut number two. The two important leaders in the ranks are K. Rosaiah and D. Srinivas. While finance minister Rosiah is only a member of the legislative council, PCC president Srinivas has lost the election, leaving YSR as the biggest mass leader in the state. Other senior leaders Janardhan Reddy and Hanumantha Rao have virtually been cut off from state politics. |
South Asia |
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| A suicide bomber near Kabul kills Afghanistan's deputy chief of intelligence and 22 others. | | Pakistan's minister for religious affairs is wounded and his driver killed in an attack in Islamabad. |
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http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/default.stmFemale gorillas use sex as a tactic to thwart their rivals
London, September 3 : A new study has shown that female gorillas use sex as a tactic to thwart their rivals.
Diane Doran-Sheehy, a primatologist at Stony Brook University in New York, has found that pregnant apes court their silverback male to stop other females conceiving."It seems to us that mating is another tactic that females use to compete with each other – in this case to gain favour with another male," New Scientist magazine quoted her as saying.
She and her colleagues studied the sex lives of five female western lowland gorillas and one silverback, almost every day for over three years.
"We wondered if, basically, (pregnant) females can mimic (ovulating) females and dupe the male into mating with them and distract him from what those other girls are doing," Doran-Sheehy said.
She believes that such a competitive behaviour in gorillas may help understand how humans evolved into a mostly monogamous species.
Her team recorded most copulations and all births among a human-habituated group of gorillas at the Mondika research centre in the Republic of Congo for 1147 days between September 2003 and January 2007.
According to the researchers, all five females gave birth to one infant during the study, and all engaged in sex after pregnancy.
However, females seemed to time such post-conceptive romps with the fleeting fertility of another female, the researchers said.
Tara Stoinski, a primatologist at Zoo Atlanta in Georgia, said that delaying the pregnancy of others could give females a reproductive advantage over competitors.
"I agree with Diane''s assertion that females are competing with each other," said Stoinski, who found that pregnant female gorillas in captivity also time their sexual advances to coincide with those of other females.
A research article on the study has been published in the American Journal of Primatology.
--ANI
Maoism
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Maoism |
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Maoism, variably and officially known as Mao Zedong Thought (traditional Chinese: 毛澤東思想; simplified Chinese: 毛泽东思想; pinyin: Máo Zédōng Sīxiǎng), is a variant of Marxism derived from the teachings of the late Chinese leader Mao Zedong (Wade-Giles Romanization: "Mao Tse-tung"), widely applied as the political and military guiding ideology in the Communist Party of China (CPC) from Mao's ascendancy to its leadership until the inception of Deng Xiaoping Theory and Chinese economic reforms in 1978. It is also applied internationally in contemporary times. Maoist parties and groups exist throughout the world, with notable groups in Peru, India, and Nepal. Notably, in Nepal they won the country's first free elections in 2008.[1]
The basic tenets of Maoism include revolutionary struggle of the vast majority of people against the exploiting classes and their state structures, termed a People's War. Usually involving peasants, its military strategies have involved guerrilla war tactics focused on surrounding the cities from the countryside, with a heavy emphasis on political transformation through the mass involvement of the basic people of the society. Maoism departs from conventional European-inspired Marxism in that its focus is on the agrarian countryside, rather than the industrial urban forces. Notably, successful Maoist parties in Peru, Nepal and Philippines have adopted equal stresses on urban and rural areas, depending on the country's level of development.
In its post-revolutionary period, Mao Zedong Thought is defined in the CPC's Constitution as "Marxism-Leninism applied in a Chinese context", synthesized by Mao Zedong and China's first-generation leaders. It asserts that class struggle continues even if the proletariat has already overthrown the bourgeoisie, and there are capitalist restorationist elements within the Communist Party itself. It provided the CPC's first comprehensive theoretical guideline with regards to how to continue socialist revolution, the creation of a socialist society, socialist military construction, and highlights various contradictions in society to be addressed by what is termed "socialist construction". The ideology survives in name today on the Communist Party's Constitution; it is described as the guiding thought that created "new China" and a revolutionary concept against imperialism and feudalism.[2]
Maoism broke with the state capitalist framework of the Soviet Union under Nikita Khrushchev and dismisses it as modern revisionism, a traditional pejorative term among communists referring to those who fight for capitalism in the name of socialism. Some critics claim that Maoists see Joseph Stalin as the last true socialist leader of the Soviet Union, although allowing the Maoist assessments of Stalin vary between the extremely positive and the more ambivalent.[3] Some political philosophers[who?] have seen in Maoism an attempt to combine Confucianism and Socialism - what one such called 'a third way between communism and capitalism'[4]
Contents[hide] |
[edit] Maoism in China
 | The introduction to this article provides insufficient context for those unfamiliar with the subject. Please help improve the article with a good introductory style. (March 2009) |
Since the death of Mao Zedong in 1976, and the capitalist reforms of Deng Xiaoping starting in 1978, the role of Mao's ideology within the People's Republic of China (PRC) has radically changed.[5] Although Mao Zedong Thought nominally remains the state ideology, Deng's admonition to seek truth from facts means that state policies are judged on their practical consequences and the role of ideology in determining policy has been considerably reduced. Deng also separated Mao from Maoism, making it clear that Mao was fallible and hence that the truth of Maoism comes from observing social consequences rather than by using Mao's quotations as holy writ, as was done in Mao's lifetime.
In addition, the party constitution has been rewritten to give the capitalist ideas of Deng Xiaoping prominence over those of Mao. One consequence of this is that groups outside China which describe themselves as Maoist generally regard China as having repudiated Maoism and restored capitalism, and there is a wide perception both in and out of China that China has abandoned Maoism. However, while it is now permissible to question particular actions of Mao and to talk about excesses taken in the name of Maoism, there is a prohibition in China on either publicly questioning the validity of Maoism or questioning whether the current actions of the CCP are "Maoist."
Although Mao Zedong Thought is still listed as one of the four cardinal principles of the People's Republic of China, its historical role has been re-assessed. The Communist Party now says that Maoism was necessary to break China free from its feudal past, but that the actions of Mao are seen to have led to excesses during the Cultural Revolution. The official view is that China has now reached an economic and political stage, known as the primary stage of socialism, in which China faces new and different problems completely unforeseen by Mao, and as such the solutions that Mao advocated are no longer relevant to China's current conditions. The official proclamation of the new CPC stand came in June 1981, when the Sixth Plenum of the Eleventh National Party Congress Central Committee took place. The 35,000-word "Resolution on Certain Questions in the History of Our Party Since the Founding of the People's Republic of China" reads:
"Chief responsibility for the grave `Left' error of the `cultural revolution,' an error comprehensive in magnitude and protracted in duration, does indeed lie with Comrade Mao Zedong . . . . [and] far from making a correct analysis of many problems, he confused right and wrong and the people with the enemy. . . . Herein lies his tragedy."[6]
Both Maoist critics outside China and most Western commentators see this re-working of the definition of Maoism as providing an ideological justification for what they see as the restoration of the essentials of capitalism in China by Deng and his successors.
Mao himself is officially regarded by the CCP as a "great revolutionary leader" for his role in fighting the Japanese and creating the People's Republic of China, but Maoism as implemented between 1959 and 1976 is regarded by today's CPC as an economic and political disaster. In Deng's day, support of radical Maoism was regarded as a form of "left deviationism" and being based on a cult of personality, although these 'errors' are officially attributed to the Gang of Four rather than to Mao himself. Thousands of Maoists were arrested in the Hua Guafeng period after 1976, with prominent Maoists sentenced to death.
[edit] Maoism outside China
From 1962 onwards, the challenge to the Soviet hegemony in the World Communist Movement made by the CPC resulted in various divisions in communist parties around the world. At an early stage, the Albanian Party of Labour sided with the CPC. So did many of the mainstream (non-splinter group) communist parties in South-East Asia, like the Burmese Communist Party, Communist Party of Thailand, and Communist Party of Indonesia. Some Asian parties, like the Workers Party of Vietnam and the Workers Party of Korea attempted to take a middle-ground position.
In the west and south, a plethora of parties and organizations were formed that upheld links to the CPC. Often they took names such as Communist Party (Marxist-Leninist) or Revolutionary Communist Party to distinguish themselves from the traditional pro-Soviet communist parties. The pro-CPC movements were, in many cases, based amongst the wave of student radicalism that engulfed the world in the 1960s and 1970s.
Only one Western classic communist party sided with CPC, the Communist Party of New Zealand. Under the leadership of CPC and Mao Zedong, a parallel international communist movement emerged to rival that of the Soviets, although it was never as formalized and homogeneous as the pro-Soviet tendency.
In the United States, the Black Panther Party, especially Huey Newton, was profoundly influenced by Maoist thought.
After the death of Mao in 1976 and the resulting power-struggles in China that followed, the international Maoist movement was divided into three camps. One group, composed of various ideologically nonaligned groups, gave weak support to the new Chinese leadership under Deng Xiaoping. Another camp denounced the new leadership as traitors to the cause of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong Thought. The third camp sided with the Albanians in denouncing the Three Worlds Theory of the CPC (see Sino-Albanian Split.)
The pro-Albanian camp would start to function as an international group,[7] led by Enver Hoxha and the APL, and was able to amalgamate many of the communist groups in Latin America, including the Communist Party of Brazil.
The new Chinese leadership showed little interest in the various foreign groups supporting Mao's China. Many of the foreign parties that were fraternal parties aligned with the Chinese government before 1975 either disbanded, abandoned the new Chinese government entirely, or even renounced Marxism-Leninism and developed into non-communist, social democratic parties. What is today called the "international Maoist movement" evolved out of the second camp – the parties that opposed Deng and claimed to uphold the legacy of Mao.
During the 1980s two parallel regrouping efforts emerged, one centered around the Communist Party of the Philippines, which gave birth to the ICMLPO, and one that birthed the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement, which the Shining Path communist guerrilla group and the Revolutionary Communist Party USA played a leading role in forming.
Both the International Conference and the RIM tendencies claimed to uphold Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong Thought, although RIM was later to substitute that ideology with what they termed 'Marxism-Leninism-Maoism'.
[edit] Maoism today
| | This article's tone or style may not be appropriate for Wikipedia. Specific concerns may be found on the talk page. See Wikipedia's guide to writing better articles for suggestions. (March 2009) |
Today, Maoist organizations, grouped in RIM, have their greatest influence in South Asia. They have been involved in violent struggles in Bangladesh and, until recently, Nepal. The Nepalese Maoist militant struggles have ended and the Maoists have peacefully negotiated to become the majority party in the newly formed republic. There are also minor groups active in Afghanistan, Peru[8] and Turkey[9][10].
In the Philippines, the Communist Party of the Philippines, which is not part of the RIM, leads an armed struggle through its military wing, the New People's Army.
In Peru, several columns of the Communist Party of Peru/SL are fighting a sporadic war. Since the capture of their leadership, Chairman Gonzalo and other members of their central committee in 1992, the PCP/SL no longer has initiative in the fight. Several different political positions are supported by the leadership of the PCP/SL.
In India, the Communist Party of India (Maoist) have been fighting a protracted war.[11] Formed by the merger of the People's War Group and the Maoist Communist Center ("notorious for its macabre killings") originating from the 25 May 1967 peasant uprising.[12], they have expanded their range of operations to over half of India and have been listed by the Prime Minister as the "greatest internal security threat" to the Indian republic since it was founded.[13][14][15]. The central government declared them as banned terrorists as of June 22, 2009.
In Germany, the ICMLPO-affiliated MLPD is the largest unambiguously-Marxist group in the country.
A Nepalese Maoist insurgency fought a drawn out insurgency against the Royal Nepalese Army and other supporters of the Shah Dynasty of Nepal. The Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) (CPN (M)), a RIM member, has conditionally halted its armed struggle under a UNMIN. It participated and won the largest number of seats in the 2008 Nepalese Constituent Assembly election[16] and now leads a coalition government under Prime Minister and party chairman Prachanda. The party led the successful effort to arrange for a peaceful dissolution of the monarchy and formation of a republic.
[edit] Military strategy
Mao is widely regarded in China as a brilliant military strategist even among those who oppose his political or economic ideas.[citation needed] His writings on guerrilla warfare, most notably in his groundbreaking primer On Guerrilla Warfare,[17] and the notion of people's war are now generally considered to be essential reading,[citation needed]both for those who wish to conduct irregular revolts and for those who oppose them.[citation needed]
As with his economic and political ideas, Maoist military credo seems to have more relevance at the start of the 21st century outside of the People's Republic of China than within it. There is a consensus both within and outside the PRC that the military context that the PRC faces in the early 21st century are very different from the one faced by China in the 1930s. As a result, within the inner circle of the People's Liberation Army there has been extensive debate over whether and how to relate Mao's military doctrines to 21st-century military ideas, especially the idea of a revolution in military affairs.
[edit] See also
- Quotations from Chairman Mao Zedong
- History of the People's Republic of China
- Cult of Personality
- New Democracy (concept)
- Deng Xiaoping Theory
- Three Represents
- Chinese New Left
[edit] External links
[edit] General
- Marx2Mao.org Mao Internet Library
- The Encyclopedia of Marxism Mao Zedong Thought.
- The Encyclopedia of Marxism Mao's life.
- Monthly Review January 2005 Text of the leaflets distributed by the Zhengzhou Four.
- World Revolution Media Maoist revolutionary film, music, and art archive
- Maoismo.org Maoism is the Third, New and Superior Stage of Marxism!
[edit] Selected organizations
- The Kasama Project
- Chinese Communist Party *in Chinese*
- Freedom Road Socialist Organization
- Revolutionary Internationalist Movement
Committee of Marxist-Leninist-Maoist parties from around the world
- Revolutionary Communist Party, USA Revolution newspaper online
- www.cpnm.org Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist)
- www.sarbedaran.org Communist Party of Iran (MLM) *in Persian*
- Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP)
- Revolutionary Communist Party of Canada (PCR-RCP)
- Communist Party of the Portuguese Workers PCTP/MRPP (Portugal)
- Monkey Smashes Heaven, Journal of Maoism-Third Worldism
[edit] Revolutions
[edit] References
- ^ http://www.india-defence.com/reports-2361
- ^ Xinhua: Constitution of the Communist Party of China
- ^ Graham Young On Socialist Development and the Two Roads The Australian Journal of Chinese Affairs, No. 8 (Jul., 1982), pp. 75-84 doi:10.2307/2158927
- ^ Political Philosophy from Plato to Mao, by Martin Cohen, page 206published 2001 by Pluto Press, London and Sterling VA ISBN 0745316034
- ^ UC Berkeley Journalism - Faculty - Deng's Revolution
- ^ http://www.country-studies.com/china/the-four-modernizations,-1979-82.html
- ^ ROMA OF THE FORMER YUGOSLAVIA Author: Judith Latham DOI: 10.1080/009059999109037. Published in: journal Nationalities Papers, Volume 27, Issue 2 June 1999 , pages 205 - 226
- ^ The Shining Path: The Successful Blending of Mao and Mariategui in Peru
- ^ RW ONLINE: First Congress of the Maoist Communist Party of Turkey
- ^ [09-04-96] FRANZ SCHURMANN, MORE DESTABILIZING THAN SADDAM HUSSEIN - TURKEY'S KURDISH LEADER SPREADS MAOIST INSURGENCY
- ^ Reuters AlertNet - Indian Maoist violence
- ^ Maoist Communist Centre (MCC) Maoist Coordination Committee (MCC)
- ^ Jo Johnson, Leftist Insurgents Kill 50 Indian Policemen. Financial Times, March 15, 2007.
- ^ Impasse in India - The New York Review of Books
- ^ The biggest threat to Indian elections
- ^ Nepal (11/07)
- ^ On Guerrilla Warfare
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In need of cash, Hollywood looks to India, China
 |
By Alex Dobuzinskis
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Disney's $4 billion purchase of "Iron Man" moviemaker Marvel Entertainment signals a possible wave of media industry consolidation, but the cash to do deals may come from India or China, not Hollywood or Wall Street.
Even before Walt Disney Co and Marvel Entertainment Inc made their announcement on Monday, Hollywood watchers said Indian firm Reliance ADA Group's recent $325 million investment in Steven Spielberg's DreamWorks movie studio was a sign that opportunity exists for similar deals.
As the recession took hold in late 2007, Hollywood saw financing from U.S. hedge funds and banks dry up, and experts say Indian and Chinese firms are now in a better position to invest. For its part, Hollywood needs overseas cash to continue expanding globally where growth opportunities are strongest.
"If you have capital to invest, you can probably cut a better deal now than any time in the last ten years," said Larry Gerbrandt, principal at consultancy Media Valuation Partners.
"A lot of Indian and Chinese companies have excess capital these days and Hollywood, aside from the fact there's a certain glamour factor, those (Indian and Chinese) markets also need content, so there's interesting deals to be made."
Sky Moore, an attorney who worked with Reliance as it put together the DreamWorks financing package, said a bigger deal could be in the offing within two years.
"I think the bigger move is buying a studio, and I don't know if it will be (a company from) India or China, but I think somebody is going to buy a studio," Moore said.
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