Divya Kaeley
Myanmar’s pro-democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi has described Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru among her “greatest sources” of influence, as she encouraged American students to read the works of India’s Father of the Nation. Suu Kyi, said Gandhi, civil rights activist Martin Luther King and her father and “political mentor” Aung San were all men of principles and she read works by them to keep herself disciplined when she was placed under house arrest by her country’s military dictators.
Addressing a packed hall of students at Columbia University here yesterday, where she got a standing ovation, the 67-year-old Nobel Peace Prize winner said she has been very inspired by Gandhi’s writings and strongly urged the students to read his works.
Slamming Prime Minister Manmohan Singh over the issue of allowing FDI in multi-brand retail, BJP leader L K Advani today recently said the red carpet was being rolled out for Walmart when it faced protests even in the US and New York City “shut Walmart out”. Advani also said BJP had opposed the measure when NDA was in power.
Slamming Trinamool Congress, Union Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad on Sunday said steps like allowing FDI in retail sector, hiking diesel prices and limiting cap on domestic LPG could have been taken earlier if there was no pressure from parties like the one headed by Mamata Banerjee. Ruling out any threat to the UPA government following withdrawal of support by TMC, the senior Congress leader said, “Our government has support of over 300 MPs in the Lok Sabha, including members from parties giving inside and outside support.”
Four days after a bitter split on the issue of forming a party, Arvind Kejriwal on Sunday expressed hope that Anna Hazare will be back with his group in another “three-four months” if it can work honestly in politics. “Some people say Anna has left us. He hasn’t. He is in our hearts. None can take him away from us. It is just that while he believes that politics is a dirty thing, we are of the view that we have to enter politics to clean it.
Meanwhile, chief minister Sheila Dikshit on Sunday slammed activist Arvind Kejriwal and his team for asking Delhi residents not to pay electricity bills and accused them of spreading anarchy in the national capital. If people don’t pay their electricity bills as asked by Kejriwal, then people would have to face consequences, she said.
India is expected to soon seek consultations with the US under the aegis of World Trade Organization (WTO) on visa fee hike for professionals, which discriminates against Indian software companies that send employees to America on short-term contracts.
Although the commerce ministry had internally started the process in April, collecting all the relevant information and data to make a strong case in the WTO is taking time, a senior official told PTI.
BJP Sunday accused the Samajwadi Party of entering into a deal with the UPA government and playing the “communal card” to justify its support to the Congress-led government at the Centre. BJP spokesperson Shahnawaz Hussain claimed that people of the country were forgetting the word communalism. ”Barring Assam and Uttar Pradesh, there is no communal strife in the country. There is no communalism especially in NDA-ruled states. People are forgetting the word communalism. But some are using it to serve their political interests,” Hussain said here.
Press Council of India Chairman Markandey Katju on Sunday appealed to the President and Prime Minister of Pakistan to release Indian prisoner Sarabjit Singh, who is on death row for over two decades, on humane grounds. “I am appealing to you in the name of humanity to release Sarabjit Singh, who is in a Pakistan jail, and send him back to India as soon as possible,” Katju, a former Superme Court judge, said.
