Cyclical Overheating

Cyclical Overheating

Indian Holocaust My Father`s life and Time- One Hundred Twenty Three

Palash Biswas



Economy witnessing cyclical overheating: Rangarajan
Prime Minister's Economic Advisory Council chairman, C Rangarajan, today in Mumbai said the economy was witnessing "cyclical overheating" but expected inflation to soften in coming months with good monsoon this year.."Yes, to some extent there is cyclical overheating... inflation would soften this year partly because of factors operating in the current year and monsoon leading to a good agricultural season this year," he told reporters on the sidelines of a conference.

Brand India and shining India is on Sale. ambanies have captured Bengal. Gurgaon resists. How long will be this resistance of peasant ladies, yet to be seen. Maharashtra is going to be handed over. Buddhadev has managed to clear the decks for Tata Motors in Singur with the help of a nonogenerian patriarch. Mamata has no option but to compromise as she has no grassroot level organisation to lead a mass movement. The Nandigram Singur allaince is broken, thanks to All Party Meeting. Ruling Left has its commitment to the MNCs!
Thus, the Indira Bhavan witnessed the entry of the fire Brand Lady who always hesitated to go to the Writers!

Day before yesterday I wrote:

Afriad of Dalit Muslim Unity, the traditional Dalit mobilisation and social equation, Mamta Bannerjee suddenly meets Basu for peace in Nandigram. Yesterday I wrote that national convention to say NO to SEZ witnessed tens of thousands Muslims in a public Rally on Metro Channel in Kolkata on Sunday with Dalits. This is a red Alert for ruling Brahminical Classes in Bengal. I had been consistantly writing that Mamata and Mahashweta are after all Brahmin ladies and the caste Hindu politicians, social activists and intellectuals are not interested in any socil change resulting the annihilation of Brahminical dominance. Only day before yesterday , the Dalit leaders addressing the anti SEZ convention alleged that political parties are misusing Muslim and Dalit bases for political gains. They support Nandigaram but are detached from every Dalit and Muslim issue!

Not only Dalit equation, a very hard corporate management has got the most expected breakthrough! Well! The intellectuals of Kolkata, writing, singing, dancing and prtraying have maintained Silence sice the National convention against SEZ organised in the Metro Kolkata! Mahasweta Devi has not written any fresh thing and her column has not appeared till date. This silence is very symbolic as the Elit in Kolkata is worried of the emerging subaltern equations!

See the UP scenerio also to understand the apathy!Strong reactions are emerging against the Uttar Pradesh Govenor's decision to decline permission to prosecute Chief Minister Mayawati in the Taj Corridor case.

In Amritsar, Security has been beefed up for the 23rd anniversary of Operation Bluestar, being observed as “Ghalughara Divas” (genocide day), here at Akal Takht tomorrow

A day after the meeting between Jyoti Basu and Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee, West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee Tuesday met the CPM patriarch to discuss the Nandigram and Singur issues. Industry Minister Nirupam Sen and Land Reforms Minister Abdul Rezzak Mollah were also present. They had an in-depth discussion to end the deadlock on Nandigram and Singur issues.Nandigram, where the state government's move to acquire land for industries had met with stiff resistance from Trinamool Congress and local residents, and Singur, where the Tata Motors' small car project on farmland is being set up, have been on the boil since long. On the other hand, The Bhumi Ucched Pratirodh Committee (BUPC), spearheading the protests against acquisition of land for industry in Nandigram, Tuesday said Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee had not taken it into confidence before her talks with CPM patriarch Jyoti Basu.

"The Trinamool Chief neither took us into confidence nor consulted the people of Nandigram before attending yesterday's meeting with Basu," BUPC convenor Nanda Dulal Patro told agencies.

The CPM, he said, was trying hard to win over Banerjee so that she did not insist on a full-fledged investigation by the CBI or the setting up of a judicial commission into the March 14 violence in Nandigram in which 14 people were killed in police firing.

He warned Banerjee not to have any understanding with the CPM or the left front government without consulting the BUPC. If she did so, the BUPC would not listen to her, he said.

"The people of Nandigram and Singur are not bothered about who is holding meetings with whom. They want to know when those responsible for the March 14 genocide (in Nandigram) will be punished," CPI-M(L) state secretary Kartik Pal said at a press conference in Kolkata. Stating that violence again erupted in Nandigram since last night, he said people there would not accept "any decision taken at any peace meeting" unless Chief Minister, Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, and local MP Lakshman Seth resigned. Alleging that the state government had forcibly taken over land for the Tata Motors project in Singur under the Land Acquisition Act, he said "owners of 287 acre do not want to hand over their land. Besides 3,500 agricultural workers would be affected. They will not accept any meeting unless the land is returned to them."

Unless the government revised its land acquisition policy, any discussion on Singur would be fruitless, he said.

Pal said his party would organise demonstrations in front of the offices of all district magistrates on June 26 to oppose the state government's policy and to demand the resignation of the chief minister. It would also organised protest rallies all over the state.

Meanwhile, another naxal outfit CPI (Marxist-Leninist) described the Monday's meeting as a conspiracy to suppress the "genocide" at Nandigram and turn people's attention from the anti-SEZ agitation.


All India Confederation of SC/ST members staged a dharna at Jantar Mantar, New Delhi, on Wednesday to protest against the formation of a three-member panel to look into the issue of including Gujjars into the ST list. They demand the inclusion of the community in the OBC list. Enraged mobs from one of India's myriad lower castes blocked roads with fiery barricades, stoned police and battled rival castes across a wide swath of northern India for a week to make a single, simple point: They want to be even lower. With 25 people dead, the unrest spread to the fringes of the capital before the Gujjars - a class of farmers and shepherds - called off their protests. They did so only after officials agreed to consider their demand to be officially shunted to the lowest rung of India's complex hereditary caste system, so they can get government jobs and university spots reserved for such groups. Caste-related violence is nothing new, but in the Gujjars' bloody race to the bottom many see a paradox of caste in modern India: Its political importance keeps growing, even as the rise of an increasingly urbanized and educated middle class has weakened the system's grip socially, making it more acceptable for a group to try to fight its way down instead of pushing its way up.


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Profit booking drags Sensex down by 279 pts

After opening with modest gains and keeping quiet through the mid-day, it turned out to be a sellers` day at the bourses, with the benchmark index plunging as much as 300 points in intra-day trade.
FDI in aviation sector set for overhaul
Faced with huge infrastructure requirements for the fast growing aviation sector, the government will soon announce a major liberalisation in FDI policy, hiking the threshold limit in many of the ground handling and support services to 100 per cent. "The annual FDI policy review has already started and aviation services is one area where the government wants to go all out to attract investment from overseas," a senior official said.
Helped by intense competition and burgeoning of low-cost carriers, the Indian aviation industry is growing at the annual rate of 25-30 per cent. However, the growth has generated the need for improving aviation services like ground-handling, maintenance and training, according to analysts.


Brazil, India Aim To Boost Trade Fourfold By 2010


It’s all about the money, honey. On a three-day visit to India, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and key officials here set a target of quadrupling bilateral trade by 2010 to $10 billion a year.

With the economies of both countries growing at a brisk pace, such goal-setting was to be expected on this visit, for which Lula was accompanied by a team of 100 officials. Media reports emanating from Brazil called the India trip the “most important visit” of the year for the Brazilian leader given their increasingly coordinated stands on global trade and environmental issues. This is his second visit to India in three years.

India-Brazil trade amounted to $2.4 billion in 2006. “[The $10 billion target] is perfectly feasible if we work to achieve the full potential of our two economies,” Lula told reporters in New Delhi. He also wants more Indian businesses, which are aggressively expanding abroad, to set up bases in Brazil. Officials said he met the heads of Indian firms keen on doing

trouble-torn Nandigram

In the first signs of peace returning to trouble-torn Nandigram, an all-party meeting held in Nandigram (WB) to resolve the issue of repairing roads, which dug up by protesters opposing the state government`s move to acquire farm land for industries. The meeting came in the wake of a successful discussion between Marxist patriarch Jyoti Basu and Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee in Kolkata. The meeting, convened by East Midnapore District Magistrate Anup Agarwal, was attended by all political parties including those belonging to the Bhumi Ucched Pratirodh Committee (BUPC) an union of Opposition parties leading the anti-land acquisition movement.

Earlier, BUPC had boycotted the all-party meetings at the local level.


The leaders of Bhumi Uchhed Pratirodh Committee (BUPC) in Nandigram welcomed Mr Jyoti Basu’s admission of CPI-M cadres’ part in stoking violence in the region.Reliance Communications, a company of Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group(RADAG), will invest Rs 3,000 crore for expanding its wireless business in Eastern India.This is a part of the RADAG's total national investment plan of Rs 10,000 to 11,000 crore.Speaking to mediapersons, Reliance Communications Personal Business President S P Shukla said the company would expand its network in 22,000 cities from 10,000 in this fiscal.


Communist patriarch Jyoti Basu, after an unprecedented meeting with his arch-rival Mamata Banerjee of Trinamool Congress Monday, recognised her anti-land acquisition movement, admitted his party workers were launching attacks on Nandigram villagers and citicised the Tata Motors project in Singur. At their joint press conference, Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) leader and former West Bengal chief minister Basu stunned all when he said,'a car factory does not need more than 600 acres', referring to the controversial Tata Motors plant to be spread over 997 acres.
Bannerjee told reporters after the meeting that Basu has assured her that he would take up all outstanding issues with the State Government. The meeting took place at Basu's residence at Salt Lake. The former Chief Minister had invited Banerjee to discuss the issue.


'I cannot say about the government. They perhaps have to talk afresh with the Tatas or if the Tatas would still remain in the project if the land was reorganised,' Basu said.

Over 997 acres of land in Singur, about 40 km from Kolkata in Hooghly district, have been chosen by Tata Motors for its small car project. The issue has triggered a violent face-off between the government and farmers led by civil society groups and parties like the Trinamool.
Naxal outfit CPI-M (Liberation) today said the recent meeting between veteran Marxist leader, Jyoti Basu, and Trinamool Congress chief, Mamata Banerjee, had failed to address the "key issues" in Nandigarm and Singur.
On the other hand, The government gave formal approval to a multi-services special economic zone of Mukesh Ambani-promoted Reliance Industries in Haryana and in-principle nod to its port-based SEZ in Maharashtra, besides clearing 31 others including that of GMR`s Hyderabad airport. The Board of Approvals in the Commerce Ministry at its meeting gave formal clearance to the 440 hectare SEZ of RIL in Gurgaon and in-principle nod to its 2,850 hectare zone at rewas in Maharashtra.

"Of the 44 proposals on the agenda, we have given formal approvals to 24 and in-principle to nine, while the rest were deferred," Commerce Secretary and BoA chairman Gopal K Pillai told reporters here.

The Rewas SEZ is strategically important since it would be the last halt on railways` Delhi-Mumbai freight corridor and is close to the Jawaharlal Nehru port. According to officials, about 200 high-speed freight trains would run on the corridor which will also link SEZs, industrial complexes and ports.

Infrastructure firm GMR received formal approval for its 101 hectare SEZ linked to the Greenfield airport under construction in Hyderabad. With this multi-product zone, Hyderabad will become a cargo hub for airlines.

Uttar Pradesh government again asked the Centre to defer three of the proposals referred by the previous Mulayam Singh government as the new Mayawati regime wanted to review all SEZs proposed in the state. Those deferred at the instance of the state government were IT SEZs of DLF, Falcon and Perfect in Noida. The state government had earlier withdrawn Anil Ambani Group`s proposal for an SEZ in Noida.

Pillai also said the BoA was awaiting views of promoters Mukesh Ambani and his associate Anand Jain as well as the Maharashtra government on the Navi Mumbai SEZ.


Indira Bhavan became a beehive again today, this time the chief minister calling on Jyoti Basu to explore options to address Mamata Banerjee’s concerns on Singur.The discussions are said to have focused on accommodating Mamata’s demand to return land to “unwilling” donors, voiced yesterday when she met Basu, without compromising the basic contours of the Tata Motors unit. An option on the table is to give the unwilling alternative land outside the perimeter of the plant. Mamata had rejected such an offer once but sources in her party said circumstances have changed now.The presence of land and land reforms minister Abdur Rezzak Mollah, who was apparently briefed during the day by Hooghly officials on vested land near Singur, at Basu’s home lent credence to suggestions that the proposal had been revived.Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee was accompanied by CPM state secretary Biman Bose, industry minister Nirupam Sen, Mollah and housing minister Gautam Deb. They had met at the party office in the morning.

After the meeting with Mamata, Basu had indicated that the next all-party meeting would discuss Singur along with Nandigram. Basu had invited Mamata with the CPM’s consent but his suggestions to consider “reorganising” the site were apparently not scripted by his party. Since the Tata mother plant will be confined to a little over 645 acres — most of the remaining 350 acres is for ancillary units and a power plant — a section of the party assumed that some adjustments could be made without disturbing the main unit.But the chief minister as well as the industry minister are learnt to have told Basu that the layout of the project could not be changed now. “They (the Tatas) may withdraw from the project and Jyotibabu himself admitted that possibility,” a source quoted Sen as telling a party official.

A Citu leader said all options were open, though the law does not have a provision to return acquired land to erstwhile owners.


Mr Basu also asked his party leaders to stop the five-month-long conflict and restore peace in the trouble-torn region. The BUPC leaders, however, said that unlike Mr Basu, neither the district leadership nor the party brass at Mujaffer Ahmed Bhavan conceded that cadres of the party had been wreaking havoc since 3 January, rendering the peace initiative futile. BUPC leader Mr Nanda Patra expressed doubt whether the CPI-M leaders would act on Mr Basu’s directions. He said normalcy could have been restored in Nandigram by now if his junior leaders wanted so. Still they hoped that after the dialogue between Mr Basu and Miss Mamata Banerjee, those driven out of their homes could now return to Khejuri. Miss Medha Patkar, who visited Nandigram on Monday, also said the CPI-M was reluctant to restore peace in the region. She demanded that the BUPC men be invited to the all-party-meeting. She addressed a meeting at Hajrakata held in remembrance of those who died in the anti-land-acquisition movement against the proposed chemical mega -hub in Nandigram. Miss Patkar said the movement against land acquisition in Nandigram should inspire countrywide agitation against setting up of SEZs. The district magistrate has called a meeting of the gram pradhans of Sonachura, Kalicharanpur and Gokulnagar at his office today to find out a way of begin development activities in their respective areas.

Unlike Jamiat, which has taken up the “no-Special Economic Zones” stand and has opposed the state government’s land acquisition programme, Jamaat has said that it is in favour of industrialisation. “But industries should be established keeping in mind the well-being of the poor. The poor should be given a stake in the project, if their land is acquired for industry,” Jamaat said. The Andhra Pradesh Congress Legislature Party (CLP) is sending a fact-finding team to Kolkata tomorrow to study three decades of Left Front welfare and development initiatives.

In Hyderabad, former Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu has brought together a few more ex-chief ministers to once again revive the idea of a third front.



Mainstream, Vol XLV No 24

A Fresh Look at Singur in the Light of Climate Change Warning
by Kunal Ghosh

Saturday 2 June 2007

The recent Bangkok meeting of scientists from all over the world has warned of dire changes in earth’s climate due to global warming caused by green-house gases. The polar ice will melt; the sea will rise and inundate coastal cities, such as Venice, Mumbai, Chennai, Shanghai etc. These are prognosis for the future. Let us look at what has already happened or is happening:

1. The Gangotri, Jamunotri and many other glaciers of the Himalayas have been receding by as much as several tens of metres every year. This means that these glaciers are shrinking fast and rivers fed by them would stop being perennial.

2. The Sagar island, off the coast of West Bengal, has lost 70 square kilometres of its land mass to the rising sea rendering thousands of people homeless.

3. The rising sea has caused the rivers of the Sundarbans to swell and erode banks reducing the size of many deltaic islands. If the sea takes a few decades to erode the mangrove forests of the Sundarbans, and thereafter Kolkata would not last much longer.

4. Flood waters in Bangladesh are taking much longer to drain out because of the higher sea level. The whole of the deltaic Bengal, that sustains the cities of Kolkata, Khulna and Chittagong, is in the grip of potential danger. It can safely be asserted that the two Bengals would be the first to feel the pinch due to global climate change.

In this backdrop the West Bengal Government wishes to expand the most eco-hostile of all industries, the car industry, the biggest emitter of green-house gases. The car from Singur will be the cheapest and that is why the ‘most irresponsible’ car of the world.
http://www.mainstreamweekly.net/article151.html


AFTER Siddiqullah Chowdhury-led Jamiat Ulama-e-Hind made its presence felt in Nandigram as an opponent to the land acquisition drive, it is now the turn of the Jamaat-e-Islami Hind — a national Islamic organisation — to visit Nandigram. Jamaat, which has a strong national presence and maintains a pro-Left stance in Kerala, will soon be sending a delegation to Nandigram for relief and rehabilitation work. Jamaat sources told that the organisation will offer cash to a number of families affected in March, this year, which left more than a dozen dead and several injured. “Jamaat will distribute around Rs 2.5 lakh among 900 people, which includes the injured, students and relatives of the dead,” said a Jamaat official.


The focus of the investigation is the recent land struggle controversy which has been raging in West Bengal and it seems the impetus for the inquiry is a cooling of relations between Congress and the CPI-M and CPI. Although the Left was the Congress ally in the 2004 elections in Andhra Pradesh, the CPI-M has broken ties and the relationship with the CPI is tenuous. And it seems finding potential flaws in Left Front schemes in West Bengal could prove good ammunition in any political battles at home and a way of making a political point to the CLP’s CPI and CPI-M counterparts.
Chief minister Dr YS Rajashekar Reddy is miffed with the Left, not because of their opposition to the government, but because they have turned their attention to an issue which his government has been keenly focussing on over the past two years, Chief Whip Mr N Kiran Kumar Reddy told The Statesman. The senior politician is leading a six member team, which includes deputy chairman of AP Agriculture Technology Mission Mr B Somayajulu.
Over the last three years Dr Reddy’s government has distributed 5 lakh acres to landless poor in the state. When the CLP checked details of land distribution in West Bengal they found that since the state’s formation only 11 lakh acres have been distributed. The team will be looking specifically for details such as the number of house sites and housing schemes, the extent of land distribution and the number of BC, SC and ST scholarships. It will also look at old age and widows’ pensions, interest rates for farmers and self help groups.


Govt warned of Bhopal re-run

Statesman News Service
KOLKATA, June 5: To avoid a rerun of the Bhopal gas tragedy, organisations of the survivors of the December 1984 disaster have condemned the West Bengal state government’s move to invite American multinational Dow Chemical Company to the proposed chemical hub at Nandigram or Haldia.
Mr Satinath Sarangi, a member of Bhopal Group for Information and Action, said: “Dow Chemical Company, which is the owner of Union Carbide Corporation, was responsible for killing over 20,000 people in Bhopal and injuring over half a million by the leak of toxic gases. Even at present, 25,000 people are affected by contamination in ground water as over 5000 tones of chemical waste still lie in and around the abandoned Union Carbide pesticide factory in Bhopal.”
The Bhopal survivors’ organisations have criticised the West Bengal state government for not having learnt a lesson from the Bhopal carnage. Even after writing letter to the CPM Polit Bureau in December 2005 requesting the leadership of the party to deny entry of Dow Chemical Company to West Bengal, the organisations have not received any reply.
The organisations are forming a national delegation to combat the government’s invitation to Dow Chemical Company. Social worker Mrs Medha Patekar has already given her consent to be part of the delegation. Mr Sarangi added that supporters of the organisations in the USA will be protesting against industries minister Mr Nirupam Sen’s participation in a a meeting of US-India Business Consul in Washington DC on 27 June.
http://www.thestatesman.net/page.news.php?clid=6&theme=&usrsess=1&id=158390


Evictions in West Bengal a violation of rights: report


Kolkata: The eviction of peasants in West Bengal's Singur and Nandigram areas amounts to a violation of human rights and democratic norms, according to the report of an international people's tribunal, released here on Tuesday.The tribunal, whose hearings were held here on January 31, 2007, was organised at the initiative of the Institute for Motivating Self-Employment (IMSE) and 25 other civil society organisations of India and abroad. The nine-member bench was headed by retired Justice P.D. Muley and it consisted of five other former judges as well as social activists.

The tribunal, which heard the victims and experts and examined documents, concluded that the acquisition proceedings at Singur were in violation of the fundamental rights of the peasants and labourers, including the rights to life and food security.

Stop evictions


The tribunal asked the State to stop eviction of farmers and end acquisition of agricultural land at Singur, Nandigram and other places and award compensation to the victims of police atrocities. It asked the Government to amend the Land Acquisition Act and implement agrarian reforms that would benefit women, Dalits and other landless workers.

While the directives of the tribunal were not enforceable, it was expected that the Government would treat them as public opinion and that the findings would be used for advocacy and lobbying in future, said Biplab Halim, executive director, IMSE.
http://www.hindu.com/2007/06/06/stories/2007060609241200.htm



1,500 km away, Nandigram comes alive
6 Jun, 2007 l 0041 hrs ISTlAvijit Ghosh/TIMES NEWS NETWORK

NEW DELHI: In the ragpickers' shantytown behind Ghazipur dairy, just off NH-24 and next to a eucalyptus grove, life is unhappening after nightfall. But for a drunkard occasionally walking its narrow, stench-filled lanes, post-dinner activity generally means watching movies on television or gossiping by the teashops inside the colony.

But in the past three months, the unassuming nocturnal conversations have often turned into intense debates. There are two views on everything: you either favour the CPM line or support the Trinamul position. New words — SEZs, Salim Group, police firing — have crept into their chat sessions. And the discussion often steers towards the shocking events back home. A home called Nandigram.

That's no surprise. At least 80% of the 120-odd families of ragpickers living in this slum, located on the edge of east Delhi, are migrants from the impoverished Nandigram block in West Bengal's East Midnapore district. And some of them even carry voter identity cards issued by the Election Commission to prove it. Most of them are either marginal farmers or landless labourers back home.

They came to work as daily wagers but were reduced to picking waste from the nearby dump for lack of alternative employment. Rummaging through the putrid waste of metals and plastic, they earn anything between Rs 75-150 every day: enough to pay for two daily meals and Rs 100 every month for cable television.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/India/1500_km_away_Nandigram_comes_alive/articleshow/2101652.cms

A nun prevents Pakur from flaring up like Nandigram

Having led tribals against a coal project in Jharkhand for 10 years, Sister Valsa John stepped aside once their relief demands were met. The story of a gritty nun.


PAKUR: When the Pachuwara Coal Project started operations last year, the news barely travelled outside Jharkhand. But before Nandigram and Singur, here in this district, a decade-old battle over land acquisition had been quietly settled, thanks to the intervention of a nun from Kerala.
Having led the tribal agitation against the project under the banner of the Raj Mahal Pahar Bachao Andolan (RMPBA) since early 1995, Valsa John, who is in her 30s, agreed to the compensation package offered by Panem Coal Mines Ltd when the conditions set by the agitationists were met, paving the way for an agreement in December 2006.

Now, the Pachuwara Coal Project —- a joint venture of the Punjab State Electricity Board (PSEB) and the private firm Eastern Mineral Trading Agency, called Panem —- dispatches tonnes of coal everyday to the Guru Hargobind and Bhatinda Thermal Power Plants in Punjab, thousands of kilometres away, helping meet the northern grid’s power demand.
Such is the traffic that Pakur district, falling in the Kolkata division, has emerged as the highest revenue earner for the Railways, its earnings shooting up from Rs 14.90 crore in 2005-06 to Rs 59.73 crore in 2006-07. The figures are set to further zoom, with Panem hoping to increase its production from three million tonnes to six million tonnes per annum.

Meanwhile, Valsa John —- who is hard to track, given her low profile —- continues to fight, now to ensure that the project displaced get the promised package. “She is busy mobilising the people in adjoining areas to demand implementation of the compensation,” says Peter Hembrom, a government employee.
The compensation that the Catholic nun fought for, and ensured, includes:
• The cost of the land acquired at the current market rate
• A job
• A school, education for students of the displaced families free of cost
• A hospital to provide them free treatment
• Rs 6,000 per acre per annum to compensate for the loss of agriculture income
• Rs 210 sq m of land for home stead
• After mining complete, the land to be reclaimed and returned to its rightful owner

“Valsa John gave her consent only after she was convinced that the company had offered the best compensation to the people,” says Deputy Chief Minister Stephen Marandi, who backed her and signed the agreement between the Andolan and Panem as a witness.

John came to be involved with the fight during her work among students of Fatima Madhya Vidalaya. Supposed to be dressed in a habit as per the guidelines of the Church, she worked among the people in either sari or salwar-kameez. “This helped her mobilise all the people, otherwise divided along caste, tribal and religious lines,” says Dinesh Murmu, a schoolteacher.
http://www.theindiancatholic.com/newsread.asp?nid=7778

Basu effect riles Buddha
http://www.thestatesman.net/page.news.php?clid=1&theme=&usrsess=1&id=158361
Statesman News Service
KOLKATA, June 5: Photographs of Mr Jyoti Basu and Miss Mamata Banerjee holding hands might have convinced many that the CPI-M is in control of the peace initiative, thanks to its most veteran leader. But, for the chief minister ~ not to mention Alimuddin Street mandarins ~ an awkward chapter is unfolding.
After maintaining for months that a majority of the Singur farmers voluntarily sold their land for the Tata small car factory and only a handful of people, mostly outsiders, were carrying out the agitation, the chief minister was forced to take a U-turn today ~ the government is ready to discuss with Miss Banerjee her demand that plots which were allegedly acquired without consent in Singur be returned, Mr Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee said today at Writers’ Buildings. “First we need to know her specific demands. After that I will ask the commerce and industry minister to talk to the Opposition leader. We need to know what the problems are... what’s the solution. I don’t know whether the controversy is over 200 acres or 300 acres, but the demand should be specific,” Mr Bhattacharjee said.
Twenty four hours after the meeting between Mr Basu and Miss Banerjee that marked a watershed in state politics, the Trinamul Congress was visibly upbeat while top CPI-M leaders including the chief minister, party state secretary Mr Biman Bose, industries minister Mr Nirupam Sen and land reforms minister Mr Abdur Rezzak dashed to Mr Basu’s residence in the evening for a detailed discussion in the light of what had transpired at yesterday’s meeting.