Karunanidhi b'day celebrations marred by Raja reports -Governance Now

Karunanidhi b'day celebrations marred by Raja reports

And other buzz from corridors of power

Ashish Mehta | June 3, 2010

The president, the vice president and the prime minister as well as Congress chief Sonia Gandhi sent congratulatory messages to DMK chief and Tamil Nadu chief minister M Karunanidhi on his 87th birthday on Thursday but the occasion was marred by media reports that A Raja of the DMK could be dropped from the union cabinet following the controversy over 2G allocation.

Karunanidhi says Raja is being hounded because he is a dalit. During his visit to Delhi last month, the DMK supremo had personally appealed to Sonia Gandhi and Manmohan Singh to save Raja from the opposition onslaught.

But now the speculation within DMK is that Raja is being asked to take moral responsibility and quit till the CBI completes its probe – the way George Fernandes did after the Tehelka episode.

Spike in militancy in Punjab?

The Intelligence Bureau is concerned about the upsurge of militancy in Punjab, as indicated by a lot of intercepts. Phone calls from and to the Canada-based Khalistan Organisation through ISI are increasing and cells are being establishing in rural Punjab. The state police are being alerted off and on, but the centre seems not satisfied with the follow-up action. The RAW with the help of
military and air intelligence has proved that conference calls between rural areas of Punjab, Islamabad and Canada are being made quite often.

Farook's prayers

Jharkhand governor MOH Farook prays every day that he should not be defamed like his predecessors Pabhat Kumar or Sibti Rizvi who were sacked unceremoniously.

Farook is proud to say that during his tenure as ambassador to Saudi Arabia he went seven times to Mecca and Madina. And he ensured the Haj pilgrims from India, especially the elderly, are not inconvenienced. His stay as chief minister of Puducherry was a turning point in his life. But now he is frustrated because of the corrupt regime in Jharkhand.

When he met the prime minister on Thursday, Farook had with him a two-page confidential report on the political situation in the state. In his report, he has advocated conducting panchayat elections in the state by September 2010 – Jharkhand has not held panchayat elections since its inception 10 years ago.

Farook is also meeting UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi and home minister P Chidambaram before returning to Ranchi on Friday.

Comments

Other News

Report of India’s G20 Task Force on Digital Public Infrastructure released

The final ‘Report of India’s G20 Task Force on Digital Public Infrastructure’ by ‘India’s G20 Task Force on Digital Public Infrastructure for Economic Transformation, Financial Inclusion and Development’ was released in New Delhi on Monday. The Task Force was led by the

How the Great War of Mahabharata was actually a world war

Mahabharata: A World War By Gaurang Damani Sanganak Prakashan, 317 pages, Rs 300 Gaurang Damani, a Mumbai-based el

Budget expectations, from job creation to tax reforms…

With the return of the NDA to power in the recently concluded Lok Sabha elections, all eyes are now on finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s full budget for the FY 2024-25. The interim budget presented in February was a typical vote-on-accounts, allowing the outgoing government to manage expenses in

How to transform rural landscapes, design 5G intelligent villages

Futuristic technologies such as 5G are already here. While urban users are reaping their benefits, these technologies also have a potential to transform rural areas. How to unleash that potential is the question. That was the focus of a workshop – “Transforming Rural Landscape:

PM Modi visits Rosatom Pavilion at VDNKh in Moscow

Prime minister Narendra Modi, accompanied by president Vladimir Putin, visited the All Russian Exhibition Centre, VDNKh, in Moscow Tuesday. The two leaders toured the Rosatom Pavilion at VDNKh. The Rosatom pavilion, inaugurated in November 2023, is one of the largest exhibitions on the histo

Let us pledge to do what we can for environment: President

President Droupadi Murmu on Monday morning spent some time at the sea beach of the holy city of Puri, a day after participating in the annual Rath Yatra. Later she penned her thoughts about the experience of being in close commune with nature. In a message posted on X, she said: