KALIMPONG NEWS...Morcha pooh-poohs CM stand

TT, Siliguri, Feb. 14: The Gorkha Janmukti Morcha today ridiculed the chief minister for ruling out Gorkhaland and reminded him that the party was demanding a separate state from the Centre, not the state government.

“First of all, we are not demanding Gorkhaland from the state government which has no powers to decide on such matters and the chief minister should know this very well. Our demand is very much constitutional and we are fighting for it in a democratic way. It is unfortunate that the chief minister ignored our demand at a public meeting in an undemocratic manner,” H.B. Chhetri, the spokesperson for the Morcha said today.

The chief minister, Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, had told a meeting in Siliguri on Friday: “We are willing to confer more powers and money on the hills, but don’t talk of statehood … I would like to make it clear to the leaders of Darjeeling not to utter the names of Siliguri, the Terai and the Dooars and demand the inclusion of these areas.”

“The issue of separate statehood is under the jurisdiction of the central government, which is going to arrange for the next tripartite meeting,” said Chhetri.

The Akhil Bharatiya Adivasi Vikas Parishad welcomed Bhattacharjee’s assertion that the Dooars and Terai would not form parts of any constitutional arrangement for the Darjeeling hills.

The KPP said its demand for a Kamtapur state be referred to the state reorganisation commission.

Buddha welcomes KLO prodigals-Adivasis told not to form garden units in Dooars

Bhattacharjee talks to a schoolgirl at the Falakata Community Hall after handing her a bicycle. As many as 402 students received bicycles from Bhattacharjee on Sunday. Picture by Anirban Choudhury TT, Feb. 14: Chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee said Adivasis should not form units in the Dooars gardens and assured the handful of audience who assembled in Falakata this morning to hear him speak that it was the government’s responsibility to look after the families of KLO rebels willing to return to the mainstream. “First of all, I want to say that I will not allow any division of north Bengal. See the condition of Jharkhand (after it was carved out of Bihar)…. Some youths were misguided and joined the KLO but now they have returned and we will take responsibility for their families,” Bhattacharjee told a 1,000-strong crowd at the Falakata Town Club grounds, 34km from Alipurduar in Jalpaiguri district. He appealed to the Adivasis to refrain from calling strikes in the gardens. “If the Adivasis start forming units in the tea gardens, the existing trade unions (read Citu) will lose strength and the workers will not be able to bargain with the management, which will be in a better off position. The Adivasis should not go for strikes either because that would make everyone suffer,” said Bhattacharjee on the last day of his three-day trip to north Bengal. He will leave for Calcutta tomorrow. He asked the farmers not to marry off their daughters before they attain adulthood. “Let them go to colleges and universities. The women earn good amounts from the self-help groups.” Later at a programme in the community hall, Bhattacharjee presented 11 Forest Protection Committees 15 per cent of their share in the sale of timber by the forest department. A little after noon, the chief minister left Falakata for Jalpaiguri town. The Trinamul Congress today said the party would observe a black day tomorrow to protest Bhattacharjee’s statements in Cooch Behar yesterday that the Left Front and its supporters “would strike back against Trinamul men creating… anarchy”. Trinamul state president Subrata Bakshi said party workers across the state would wear black badges and organise meetings and processions to protest the chief minister’s “provocative language against the Opposition”. Telangana: JAC asks public reps to resign Hyderabad, Feb 14 (PTI) The Joint Action Committee (JAC) of various organisations in Telangana today asked the public representatives in the region to resign in support of the separate state demand by tomorrow, failing which it would mount pressure on them through various means. The committee decided to tom-tom (propagation) in villages and elsewhere for five days, beginning Tuesday, about the reluctance of the public representatives to quit, JAC Convener C Kodandaram told reporters here. From February 17 to 20, the committee leaders would submit memoranda to all the public representatives, from a ward member to MP, urging them to quit their posts.The JAC convener said relay hunger strikes would be held in front of the houses of public representatives from February 21 to 27. A social boycott would be imposed on the public representatives from February 28, he said. Telangana News TNN, HYDERABAD: Upset over the terms of reference for the Srikrishna committee, 15 Telangana MLAs submitted their resignations to the Speaker N Kirant kumar Reddy on Sunday afternoon. Among those who resigned are 10 TRS MLAs, two Congress MLAs, one TDP MLA, one PRP MLA, and the lone BJP MLA. Considering that Telangana returns 119 MLAs, this means that only a little over 10 per cent of the legislators have  put in their papers. In addition to this, all TDP MLAs from Telangana have decided to boycott the budget session of the assembly that begins on Monday and the Speaker announced the acceptance of the resignation of TDP MLA Ch Ramesh. Ramesh was the only TDP MLA to submit his resignation on December 13 which was as per the prescribed format. Unlike last time, the MLAs submitted individual one-line letters to the Speaker expressing their desire to resign from the assembly and urged him to accept it with immediate effect, senior Congress leader R Damodar Reddy told media. The letters read :”I am hereby tendering my resignation from the Andhra Pradesh Assembly. Please accept it with immediate effect.” This according to TRS leader T Harish Rao was as per the prescribed format. The Speaker spoke to the MLAs individually before receiving the letters. Damodar Reddy hoped that other Telangana Congress MLAs would also submit their resignation letters by Monday evening. The Speaker is likely to announce his decision on Monday. .... Serious differences erupted among Telanagana Congress legislators on Saturday with four MLAs announcing their resignations while remaining saying they would boycott the Assembly session scheduled to start from Monda.... The Congress leaders took strong objection to the Centre linking the Telangana issue with the demand for a united Andhra Pradesh. They, however, were unanimous in their view that the time limit for the Srikrishna committee had to be reduced to six months. They said they would write a letter to Sonia Gandhi on the issue. ... Osmania University turned volatile yet again on Sunday evening. Police and students fought pitched battles for over five hours. At the end  of he police mayhem, nearly 40 students, including seven girls students, suffered injuries. Police fired teargas shells, rubber bullets, snapped power to some hostels, broke streetlights and tried every trick in the book to quell the agitators, but the students fought pitched battles. At around 6 pm, OU Joint Action Committee (JAC) wanted to take out a rally with hundreds of students demanding public representatives quit their posts. ... Trouble started when one of the students, Bhaskar, was roughed up by police personnel for trying to lead the rally out of the campus. A heated argument ensued between the two groups. With police refusing to allow the students to take out the rally, the agitating students reportedly set fire to tents of police and paramilitary personnel near Arts College and a lathicharge ensued. At around 6.30 pm, police personnel, in small groups, tried to chase away students from Arts College to their hostels and in the process rained lathis on students. Several students who had stayed back in their hostels without participating in the agitation were alsotargeted. With some students retaliating with stones, the seething policemen damaged many vehicles, including OB vans of some news channels, parked near Arts College. Meanwhile, policemen sealed off all entry/exit points to the campus with barbed wires turning it into a virtual police camp. They did not allow even ‘108’ ambulances into the campus. “We were chased like dogs and beaten. I saw many girl students running helter-skelter. One girl was dragged by her hair by policemen and kicked on the stomach,” Bujji Babu, an OU student, said. Nagamani, a post-graduate student of politicalscience department, suffered severe injuries on her neck as she was hit by the heel of a lathi. However, violence spilled over to the nearby Manikeswari Nagar when the local residents tried to march to OU campus to assist the injured students. The residents who had gathered in hundreds were chased away by the cane-wielding policemen