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YEH HAI INDIA!

No question of succumbing to pressure, says PM
Making his maiden speech from the ramparts of the Red Fort on the country's 51st independence day, Vajpayee said India was all for a nuclear-free world, and therefore had announced a unilateral moratorium on further nuclear tests. ''Our tests of May 11 and 13 were not meant for any war,'' he maintained.

Montek, N K Singh shifted out in major bureaucratic reshuffle
In a major secretary-level reshuffle effected by Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee on Friday night, Revenue Secretary N K Singh was shifted as secretary in the Prime Minister's Office while Finance Secretary Montek Singh Ahluwalia was made a member of the Planning Commission.

Speaker disqualifies Goa CM, nine others
The political drama in the tourist heaven took yet another twist on Friday, with the speaker ruling that Wilfred de Souza's disqualification will be effective retrospectively, from July 27. However, the new CM plans to turn to the judiciary for redressal.

George meets Jaya for second time in three days
Although the defence minister described the meeting as good and useful , the substantive aspects of the talks were not revealed by Fernandes, while talking to reporters outside Jayalalitha's Poes Garden residence in Madras, saying he would first brief the prime minister before revealing the gist of the talks to the media.

N-bombs are useful only when they are not used, says Narayanan
During the course of his Independence Day-eve interview telecast on Doordarshan, K R Narayanan said the President had a constitutional role to play. ''My image of President before I came here, and before I had any hope of coming here was that of a rubber stamp President, to be frank. But having come here, I find the image is not quite correct. So my image of a President is of a working president, not an executive president, but a working president and working within the four corners of the Constitution," he told journalist N Ram.

UP landslide kills 69
Unofficial reports put the death toll in Garhwal region at more than 100. Several persons are reported missing.

Jethmalani feels President should accept defeated government's advice on dissolution of House
The urban development minister feels the President's powers to dissolve Parliament, use of Article 356 and judicial appointments are three major areas of the Constitution which need a review.

Home ministry sanctions three-tier security grid for Jammu
The new strategy involves deploying 17,000 more army and security personnel, and setting up 516 operational, defence and border pickets covering all areas of Rajouri, Poonch, Doda and Udhampur districts of the Jammu region.

'We watched them dying. We were helpless'
Twenty minutes before the blue skies rained death and destruction, the Nambla high school in Jammu and Kashmir's Uri sector was teeming with students, all ready to take their exams. But headmaster Habibullah had a premonition. "Leave," he told the students, "I sense trouble..." Mukhtar Ahmed, the first journalist to visit the shell-struck village, reports on what happened that July morning.

Ravi Varma paintings fade away in Kerala's humidity and heat
The museum authorities have recently identified five of the Ravi Varma works as requiring immediate attention. These include two renowned works -- Mohini and Rukmangada -- and a portrait study, Dadabhai Naoroji.
Nuke bomb is anti-democratic, anti-national, anti-human: Arundhati
Rivers will be contaminated, the air will be poisonous, land will be polluted and everything will be on fire. Smoke will engulf the earth. And no life -- animal, vegetation, fish or even the creator of the nuclear bomb -- will escape its effects, the Booker-winning novelist said in Bombay.

Independence Day schedule
India's celebrations for its 51st year of Independence will begin with the hoisting of the national flag by Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee early on Saturday morning.

THE REDIFF COLUMNISTS

The Easy Way Out
'Today, there are those who accuse Justice Srikrishna of bias. Of course, that's easier by far than punishing the guilty. Of course, too, bias lies in the eyes of the biased. Or in the eyes of the guilty. Now if you're one of those who dislikes the conclusions Srikrishna has drawn, that may be something for you to think about,' says Dilip D'Souza.

Najma's game
'Rajya Sabha Deputy Chairperson Najma Heptullah has had her eyes on becoming the vice-president of India for quite some time. She narrowly missed the bus last year when then prime minister Inder Kumar Gujral managed to prop up his fellow-Punjabi, Krishan Kant. Now she hopes to realise her ambition...' Capital Buzz. Political gossip from the Delhi Durbar.

The marvels of thair sadam
'During his tenure as the chief election commissioner, Seshan often blew hot and cold on many issues and invited the wrath of his colleagues. Those must have been the days when he had to make do with alu paratha and was denied his beloved thair sadam,' says V Gangadhar.

TODAY'S WEATHER

Wet spell in Bengal, Sikkim
Heavy rains are likely to occur at isolated places in West Bengal, Sikkim, Orissa, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, East Madhya Pradesh, Konkan and Goa, Vidarbha, coastal Karnataka, Kerala and Lakshadweep during the next 48 hours.

AUGUST 14

BJP looks ahead, at life without Jaya
The assessment in the BJP camp is that Jayalalitha is not at all averse to the idea of dumping the Vajpayee government to join hands with the Congress. But Sonia Gandhi has not yet made up her mind to accept the AIADMK with a set of similar demands in a Congress-led coalition.

Jayalalitha puts decision on hold
The AIADMK and allies have put the ball back in the Bharatiya Janata Party's court, to end the stalemate caused by Jayalalitha's public announcement of 'review' of support to the Vajpayee government over the Cauvery waters accord. In New Delhi, meanwhile, BJP spokesperson M Venkaiah Naidu announced that the party was not looking for a compromise, and was prepared for any eventuality.

Pawar expects 'decisive news' on Jayalalitha's threat
The senior Congress leader on Thursday said he expected "decisive news" regarding the lingering threat by the AIADMK to withdraw support to the Vajpayee government.

Congress, Mulayam disagree over prime ministerial nominee
Ever since the SP and the RJD formed the Rashtriya Loktantrik Morcha, the chiefs of these two parties have been projecting their newly formed alliance as an alternative to the BJP-led government at the Centre. But the Congress does not appear to be too enamoured of this move for a very cogent reason -- it is getting used to the idea that its chief, Sonia Gandhi, would be the next prime minister.

Akalis' visit to Udham Singh Nagar spark off apprehensions
Exacerbating tension was the recent visit of Akali Dal-Mann chief Simranjeet Singh Mann with a band of 150 supporters from Punjab. Mann traversed every nook and corner of the long strip of Udham Singh Nagar that was sliced off the hill resort of Nainital to be made into an independent district some three years ago, meeting with locals and assuring them of his support to their cause.

Delhi HC orders deletion of 'unnecessary' references in petition against RGF
The petition, filed by advocate P N Lekhi, alleged mass irregularities in the functioning of the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation at the hands of its functionaries, including chairperson Sonia Gandhi, Dr Shankar Dayal Sharma and Amitabh Bachchan. It had gone into the history and lives of various national leaders to show that the Gandhi family has floated the RGF to sustain its present standard of living.

New Pak foreign minister swears by old dogma on India
In an interview a week after switching from finance minister to foreign minister, Sartaj Aziz said Kashmir must be the centre of negotiations between the two countries. If the Indian side wants to use discussions of other issues to relegate Kashmir, then the other issues of course will not move forward, he said.

Congress heading for setback in
Goa assembly polls
Several municipal and panchayat councils in the state are either shifting loyalties to the Goan Rajiv Congress or are being toppled overnight. And, if the shift-overs continue, it would be tough for the Congress to face the assembly elections, which are barely 16 months away.

Karnataka Congress unit claims infirmities in Cauvery scheme
The Congress party in Karnataka on Wednesday gave a new twist to the Cauvery row, claiming that there were "constitutional infirmities" in the scheme notified by the Centre for implementing the interim award of the Cauvery Water Dispute Tribunal and that it would not stand the test of law.

THE REDIFF SPECIAL

Cause for the carnage
What made a respected and successful businessman, Natarajan Ramachandran gather his wife and two children in the bedroom and shoot them before he killed himself? People close to the family may not know what's wrong, but the FBI has the answers.

THE REDIFF COLUMNISTS

Politicians and Commissions
'The Congress simply refused to let the Jain Commission report be discussed, making the unreasonable demand that the DMK ministers be sacked from the government. The rejection of the Srikrishna Commission report by the Shiv Sena-BJP government is no surprise. Will politicians or political parties ever accept any report that indicts them? Extremely unlikely. Can India allow that?' says Amberish K Diwanji.



Tamil Nadu:19 killed in train-bus smash near Karur
AUGUST 13

Govt teeters as AIADMK-BJP talks fail
The Vajpayee government appears to be in trouble after Defence Minister George Fernandes and BJP MP Pramod Mahajan reportedly failed to mend fences with AIADMK leader J Jayalalitha. With this, all eyes are on Thursday's meeting of the AIADMK and its alliance leaders in Madras where the front is expected to take a final decision on continuing support to the government. Sources do not rule out the possibility of the two AIADMK ministers in the Vajpayee government submitting their resignation letters to the party supremo to be forwarded to Delhi, or displayed at Thursday's meeting.

BJP says it's ready for life without Jaya
"This threat is nothing new to us. Ever since we formed the government with her support she has been troubling us almost every month. So we have prepared (a plan) long back to tackle the situation in case she withdraws support," a senior leader told Rediff On The NeT from New Delhi.

Congress gets ready for the kill
While party strategists are making vital plans for a post-Vajpayee phase, the question that is troubling the party leadership is the choice of the party's prime ministerial candidate. The Congress's Lok Sabha leader Sharad Pawar is persona non grata before Sonia as a section of senior party leaders are dead against the Maharashtra leader as prime ministerial candidate. Sonia is said to be willing to entrust the top job to a senior leader like former finance minister Dr Manmohan Singh. But many believe the choice will narrow down to Sonia herself as nearly all senior leaders across the country are unanimous on her candidature.

Karnataka, Tamil Nadu get cold feet on the Cauvery issue
Karnataka has expressed its reservations about the Cauvery accord. And, with Tamil Nadu seeking time to study the accord, the Supreme Court today posted the case for hearing on August 17.

Akalis repeat threat to pull out of coalition
Party general secretary Prem Singh Chandumajra, who is the Akali Dal whip in the Lok Sabha, said there was no question of softening his party's stand on the issue.

Karnataka assembly is not Rotary club to meet whenever members please: Patel
Chief Minister J H Patel has rejected the Congress demand that the state assembly be convened to discuss the Cauvery water agreement.

Cold Beijing tells Jaswant Singh to stay at home
The prime minister's special emissary proposed visit to China to discuss the thorny border issue has been called off due to 'unenthusiastic' response from Beijing.

Army rules out war with Pakistan
There is no danger of the current situation in Jammu and Kashmir triggering another Indo-Pak war, the Indian army has said.

Fresh court notice against Bhagat
The Delhi high court has directed that the show-cause notice issued to senior Congress leader H K L Bhagat in connection with a 1984 riot case should be served on him in person.

Custodial killing rocks Kerala
Sixtyfive-year-old A Thangal Kunhu, who retired from the government public relations department, died half-an-hour after being taken into custody by the South Alappuzha police. Kunhu ended up with the law because his son, who was involved in a brawl, escaped from the police net.

THE REDIFF INTERVIEW

'It is the religious fundamentalists in both countries who have made persecution a religious business'
'Aren't our politicians ashamed to feel so much poverty, illiteracy, unemployment around them even 50 years after both the countries were divided? At the time of Independence, India and Pakistan were not worse off than Germany and Japan were. Germany and Japan were destroyed and their cities were bombed in the Second World War. But today they are economic giants and world powers. And look at where India and Pakistan are today.' Bishop of Islamabad and Rawalpindi, Anthony T Lobo,who is leading minority campaigners against religious persecution in Pakistan, in an exclusive interview.


THE REDIFF COLUMNS

Jayalalitha is fishing in the troubled waters of Yamuna, not of Cauvery
'Jayalalitha hoped to make an issue of the Cauvery. The accord negotiated by the chief ministers took her surprise, but she won't let the truth stand in her way. But I do have a question: given the abundance of water, can she convince the voters of Tamil Nadu that they are dying of thirst?' asks T V R Shenoy.


Delhi: Police arrest three Dawood men
Gujarat: Freedom fighter Bhanushankar Hariram Dave passes away
Karnataka: Ranebennur situation returns to normal
Madhya Pradesh: BJP lacks political will to create Chhattisgarh state, alleges Digvijay Singh
Uttar Pradesh: Differences over including Hardwar in Uttaranchal will be sorted out, says Kalyan
Jammu and Kashmir: Five killed in the valley

TODAY'S WEATHER

Arunachal, Assam in for bad weather
Heavy rains are likely to occur at isolated places in Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Meghalaya, Nagaland, Manipur, Mizoram, Tripura, West Bengal, Sikkim, Orissa, Bihar plains, Uttar Pradesh, west Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, north Konkan, Goa and north central Maharashtra during the next 48 hours.

AUGUST 12

Jaya to review support on Thursday
The AIADMK-led front will meet in Madras on Thursday to decide whether or not to continue support to the Vajpayee government.

Jaya could be just sabre-rattling
While keeping an "open mind" on continued support to the BJP, the AIADMK leadership is piqued that party ministers could lose their politically sensitive portfolios. Added to that, the AIADMK may want to be considered for some 'productive ministries' in the expansion.

Vajpayee govt notifies new Cauvery scheme
The Union government has formally notified the revised scheme notwithstanding stiff opposition from the AIADMK.

Kumaramangalam finds Jaya's stand on Cauvery 'unfair'
The Union power minister has urged the AIADMK chief not to politicise her opposition to the new agreement on the Cauvery water dispute.

Vajpayee doesn't belong to Poes Garden: Karunanidhi
The Tamil Nadu chief minister is confident that the prime minister would stand by the recent accord on the Cauvery dispute, and not buckle under pressure from the AIADMK.

Congress panel to study Srikrishna report
In a significant political development, Congress president Sonia Gandhi has constituted a five-member committee to study the Srikrishna Commission report. The members are Arjun Singh, Ghulam Nabi Azad, Pranab Mukherjee, Murli Bhandare and Kapil Sibal.

Congress likely to examine Pawar's role in Bombay riots
The Congress leadership is likely to look into the allegation that the senior party leader deliberately soft-pedalled the deployment of army during the 1992-83 riots.

I did not apologise to Pawar: Joshi
The Maharashtra chief minister has vehemently denied that he apologised to the leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha for speaking bitterly about him in the legislative assembly during the tabling of the Srikrishna Commission report.

More trouble brewing in Goa
The state governor and the assembly speaker differ over the date for the confidence motion.

Govt nod for Agni-II
The defence minister told the parliamentary consultative committee of the defence ministry that Agni-II would use state-of-the-art technologies developed indigenously.

Kerala women fight for sex scandal report
Women's organisations in Kerala are up in arms against the Committee for Welfare of Women and Children for its failure to publish the long-awaited report on the Kozhikode sex scandal.

THE REDIFF SPECIAL

Indo-Pak dialogue -- A damp squib
'The recent spurt in killings across the Line of Control highlights the deficiency in Indian security policy. It also displays Pakistan's nuclear blackmail tactic. There is a strong need to educate the people in general that we are fighting a war in a new dimension,' says Savita Pande, Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Defence Studies and Analyses.


THE REDIFF COLUMNS

Natural Born Killers!
'Today, the BMC is about to kill dogs. Tomorrow, they will pick up stray cattle from the streets and kill them, uncaring about the feelings of millions of Hindus. After that (who knows?) it may be stray children. When you desensitise the society you live in, the violence you spawn will one day turn on you, enter your own home, destroy those whom you love,' says Pritish Nandy.


Assam: Fire damages oil depot

TODAY'S WEATHER

Wet spell in parts of Bengal, Orissa
Heavy rains are likely to occur at isolated places in Gangetic West Bengal, Orissa, Bihar plateau, West Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, East Rajasthan, West Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Maharashtra, coastal Andhra Pradesh, coastal Karnataka and Kerala during the next 48 hours.

AUGUST 11

Jaya's threat fails to alarm BJP
However, sensing that the AIADMK chief could put the government in troubled waters on the Cauvery row, Prime Minister A B Vajpayee has deputed BJP vice-president Jana Krishnamoorthy to sort out the matter with Jayalalitha.

Jaya threatens BJP over Cauvery issue
"We are absolutely clear that the agreement (reached by the four chief ministers in the presence of Prime Minister Vajpayee on solving the Cauvery waters dispute) has to be totally rejected, lock, stock and barrel," said the AIADMK chief. In its place, the original draft scheme has to be placed before the Supreme Court, she added.

Talks take Cauvery another step closer to finish
The four riparian states have reached an agreement on the implementation of the Cauvery water tribunal's interim order.

No more Hiroshimas, says PM
"Our status as a nuclear weapon state, we believe, enables us to pursue the goal of speedy nuclear disarmament with greater vigour and success," says Vajpayee.

Nuclear command to rest with political leadership: Fernandes
Defence Minister George Fernandes says India's nuclear command and control system would rest with the political leadership and will necessarily be exclusively its own.

China's occupation of Kashmir can't be ignored, says Fernandes
The defence minister stressed that the Chinese occupation of some part of Jammu and Kashmir ''can't be lightly dismissed."

Congress again calls for Advani's resignation
This follows the report of an AICC team that the situation in Jammu has deteriorated considerably.

Delhi HC dismisses Quattrochi's plea for cancelling NBW
The Delhi high court has said the arrest of Italian businessman Ottavio Quattrocchi is required to uncover the truth of the Bofors scam.

Congress threatens stir for ouster of Sena-BJP alliance govt
The party would also demand action against all those indicted by the Justice B N Srikrishna Commission for the December 1992-January 1993 Bombay riots, Congress state president Prataprao Bhosale said.

VHP goes hammer and tongs at National Commission on Minorities
VHP national joint secretary Dr Praveen Togadia and Gujarat unit general secretary Dilip Trivedi claimed that the Commission's visit - to probe alleged atrocities against minorities -- seemed to be part of the Congress's ''strategy to instigate and excite minorities''.

Cleared names to be appointed as judges despite presidential reference: govt
The pendency of the presidential reference before a nine-judge constitution bench would not come in the way of appointment of judges in the high courts where there was no difference of opinion between the CJI and the Centre, the government assured the Supreme Court.

Pak resumes fire in North Kashmir
Pakistani troops have resorted to unprovoked artillery and mortar shelling on Indian positions in Nowgam sector.

25 killed in Kashmir
The dead include 14 militants, two army personnel, and three members of a family -- a mother and children, one of them a six-month-old baby -- at Kurhama, a village in Chief Minister Dr Farooq Abdullah's constituency.

9 Naxals, 3 commandos killed in encounter
In yet another blow to Left wing extremism, the police have shot dead nine Naxalites of the banned People's War Group in a fierce encounter in the dense forests of Kuppaguda, on the Andhra Pradesh-Orissa border.

President will not address nation on Independence Day eve
Instead, President K R Narayanan will be interviewed by journalist N Ram of the weekly Frontline magazine. This interview will be telecast on August 14 around 2000 hours.

Bypass technique used to save gangrenous leg
The operation, carried out at a Jalandhar hospital, involved removing the radial artery from the left arm and using it as a bypass graft for leg which had turned pre-gangrenous from lack of circulation.

THE REDIFF INTERVIEW

'Pakistan's economy is extremely sound, perhaps sounder than India as far as potential is concerned'
"Will it surprise you to hear that Pakistan's ruling elite has stashed $100 billion in the US alone during the last two-three decades, whereas the country's total debt is only $32 billion? This figure was revealed to me by the American consul general in Karachi on March 21," says former Pakistani finance minister Dr Mubashir Hasan.


THE REDIFF SPECIAL

He Ram! Another Gandhi controversy
Mahatma Gandhi's dying words, He Ram, have kicked off a raging controversy in Kerala. And at the centre is Bahumanapetta Kodathi Mumbake (May It Please Your Honour), the Malayalam version of Gopal Godse's book on Gandhi.


THE REDIFF COLUMNS

Hiroshima, Mon Amour
'If China were to nuke India with no fear of retaliation, I suspect there would be some hand-wringing and some breast-beating by the Yanks et al, but then they'd move on to the next headline. Just like they did with the Chinese conquest of Tibet. A million vaporised Indians will be forgotten,' says Rajeev Srinivasan.


Rowing back in time on Cauvery...
'Just before the beginning of the Christian era, the rulers of Tanjavur impounded the waters of river Cauvery which originates in the Brahmagiri ranges of Kodagu district. No attempt was made to utilise it for irrigation until 1883 when the diwan of the princely state of Mysore launched a scheme...' V C Bhaskaran traces the origin of Cauvery issue.



Madame can read Hindi now!
Congress president Sonia Gandhi no longer depends on English for her Hindi speeches.

Srikrishna report recommends image-lift for Bombay cops
Among all those 'bad' things he noted in his report about Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray, Justice B N Srikrishna has also written a nice suggestion.

TODAY'S WEATHER

Rains continue in Andamans
Heavy rainfall is likely to occur at isolated places in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, sub-Himalayan West Bengal, Sikkim, Orissa, East Rajasthan, West Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Maharashtra, coastal Andhra Pradesh, north interior Karnataka and Kerala during the next 48 hours.

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