18May 2011

ULFA keen on talks: Chidambaram

 Agartala: Union Home Minister P. Chidambaram on Tuesday said ULFA leaders had expressed their willingness to resume peace talks.

“ULFA leaders met Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and expressed willingness to resume peace talks. We advised them to prepare a document on the basis of which talks would start soon to reach an honourable solution to the problem,” the Minister said. “We will start talks with [Arabinda] Rajkhowa and his friends. Paresh Barua should come back to India for the talks.”

 

Governor invites Mamata to form government

KOLKATA: Governor M. K. Narayanan has issued an order appointing Mamata Banerjee as Chief Minister of West Bengal.

This is “in exercise of the power conferred on him [the Governor] by Article 164 (1) of the Constitution of India,” said a statement issued by the Governor's secretariat at Raj Bhavan here on Tuesday.

Ms. Banerjee, along with other members of her Ministry, will be sworn in by the Governor on Friday. The ceremony will commence at 1.01 p.m.

Mr. Narayanan had invited Trinamool Congress chief Ms. Banerjee, to form a new government in the State in a letter on Monday, a day after the Trinamool Congress leadership had formally staked its claim to do so, submitting a list of 184 newly-elected MLAs of the party.

Ms. Banerjee had been unanimously elected leader of the Trinamool Congress Legislature Party on Sunday. She had announced then that her Ministry would be, for now, “small” in size.

The Congress with which the Trinamool Congress had forged an electoral alliance has already submitted a letter of support to the government to be headed by Ms. Banerjee.

Though Ms. Banerjee, who had called on Congress president Sonia Gandhi in New Delhi on Monday, has invited the Congress to be part of her new government, a final word on the matter is awaited.

She had also invited both Ms. Gandhi and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to the swearing-in ceremony. But neither of the two leaders is likely to attend because of commitments.

Mamata meets Somnath

Ms. Banerjee called on the former Lok Sabha Speaker, Somnath Chatterjee, at his residence here late on Tuesday evening.

Arrangements have begun in earnest within the Raj Bhavan compounds in preparations for the swearing-in ceremony to which nearly 3,200 persons from various walks of life have been invited.

Last function as Railway Minister

Staff Reporter writes:

In what was her last function as Union Railway Minister, Ms. Banerjee on Tuesday thanked every member of the “railway family” for the “support and cooperation” extended to her in the last two years, and promised her successor all possible help for the all-round development of the Railways.

With Ms. Banerjee all set to become the next Chief Minister, the cabinet berth for Railways will most probably be handed over to a Trinamool Congress nominee. Party MP and Minister of State for Shipping Mukul Roy is being touted as the frontrunner.

Pointing out that both the State government and the Railways Ministry will henceforth be overseen by the Trinamool, Ms. Banerjee said both would “make giant strides towards development simultaneously.”

“The Railways and the West Bengal government are now linked to each other and will remarkable progress by working together. I will extend a helping hand to my colleague and successor for the development of the Railways alongside running the State government,” she said amid applause from the audience at the Howrah station, where she flagged off seven trains and laid the foundation for a host of projects.

Claiming that ‘Vision 2020' she prepared for the Railways was enough to keep it on the development track for the next 20 years, Ms. Banerjee said her successor would work on the same lines.

India and Uzbekistan to firm up communication, security links

NEW DELHI: Uzbekistan President Islam Karimov arrived here to hold talks on strengthening security, communication and energy links.

This would be the first high level India-Uzbekistan interaction after the killing of Osama bin Laden, whose ideology had caused violence and mayhem in several Central Asian countries, particularly Uzbekistan, which is contiguous to Afghanistan.

The convergence of views on Afghanistan, Uzbekistan's efforts to enhance ties with South Asia, particularly India and Pakistan, and its bid to diversify customers for gas and oil will occupy centre stage during talks between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Mr. Karimov, who is on his fourth visit to India.

Afghanistan situation

The views of Uzbekistan and India converge on regional security especially with respect to the situation in Afghanistan. Tashkent agrees with New Delhi's reasoning of winnowing the bad Taliban from the good and then going in for reconciliation with sections that have repudiated the al-Qaeda ideology of militancy and violence to usher a universal Islamic caliphate.

At the receiving end of an al-Qaeda inspired militancy, Uzbekistan has cracked down ruthlessly and nearly decimated the feared Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan especially after the Andijan stand-off with its security forces in 2005.

In opening up communication links, India will be especially interested in two proposed routes that would bypass Pakistan and the restive southern Afghanistan while giving it access to Central Asia. Both originate from Tashkent, pass through Termez in Uzbekistan and Mazar-e-Sharief in Afghanistan. They then branch off from the western Afghan city of Herat.

The proposed western spur goes to Delaram, follows the India-built road till the Iran border and, if the missing links are put in place, connects to the Iranian port of Chabar. The second alternative would pass through Iran's Sangan and Kerman cities before ending at the Banda Abbas port.

In both cases, India will have to ship its goods to the Iranian ports and then transport them by land into Afghanistan and Central Asian countries that lie in the north and the east.

Currently, part of the route in Uzbekistan is used by the NATO to send supplies to its forces in Afghanistan.

Another promising area of cooperation is energy. National companies have reached an understanding over sourcing underground coal gasification technology from Uzbekistan and are likely to sign a pact over identifying blocks for exploration, said senior Ministry of External Affairs official Ajay Bisaria.

The Gas Authority of India Limited is engaged in talks with Uzbekneftgas for scouting for gas in Karakal-Pakistan region.