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Nitish Kumar opposes Narendra Modi as NDA's prime ministerial candidate for 2014 polls

August 5, 2012

Nitish

New Delhi, August 5: BJP has assured BIhar CM Nitish Kumar that it would decide on its prime ministerial candidate in consultation with NDA allies.

Party chief Nitin Gadkari gave this assurance to Kumar when he recently sought a guarantee from the saffron partner that the BJP would not project Gujarat CM Narendra Modi in the 2014 parliamentary polls.

According to sources, Kumar sought the specific assurance from Gadkari at a quiet meeting they had here on July 25.

Kumar had earlier stressed — in an interview with the Economic Times and while addressing a convention of party workers — the need for the NDA to project a "secular" person as the PM. His conversation with Gadkari over dinner marked the first instance when the JD(U) leader spelt out his opposition to Modi, potentially complicating BJP's challenge of assuaging a crucial but restless ally without annoying the Gujarat strongman.

When contacted by TOI, Gadkari confirmed that the Bihar CM raised the leadership issue with him. "We had a good meeting in Delhi about a week ago. I told him that we have taken no decision yet on the leadership issue. it is too early for that. Whenever we take a decision, we will do so after consulting all the NDA partners," the BJP chief said.

The meeting had been sought by the BJP against the backdrop of Kumar's anxiety that the main Opposition may declare Modi to be its prime ministerial candidate. The Bihar CM plans to wean Muslims away from arch-rival Lalu Prasad, and has worked on the BJP to ensure that the Gujarat CM was not assigned campaign duty in any election in Bihar since 2005. However, with a section in the BJP keeping up a steady support for Modi as the PM candidate, the JD(U) leader worries that the momentum for the Gujarat CM may become irresistible if he scores his third straight win in Gujarat polls likely to be held in November.

Sources said that in the meeting, Kumar had insisted on an early decision on the leadership issue, and there are indications that he may press his demand again in view of the looming Gujarat polls as well as the projections that Modi is the odds on favourite this time as well.

Despite being a partner of the BJP since the 1996 Lok Sabha elections, Kumar prizes his "secular" credentials: something which in the last election hindered the effort of his rivals to get Muslims to vote against him. Estimates of the actual support that he got from the community diverge, but there is consensus that the BJP-JD(U) alliance does not evoke the same hostility that NDA would otherwise face.

The CM's worry is that the entry of Modi into the fray would not only frustrate his effort to build upon the goodwill he has among Muslims, but would trigger a sharp polarization against him, distracting the attention from his development agenda and handing an advantage to Prasad, Congress and Ram Vilas Paswan.


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News Network
August 8,2020

The Kozhikode International Airport located at Karipur is not safe for the landing of flights in rainy season, according to an air-safety expert, who had warned the aviation ministry and the civil aviation regulator about this in 2011. 

The warning was particularly about the dangers of permitting passenger aircraft to land on runway 10 of the airport during rains and unfavourable wind conditions. 

Nine years later, on August 7, 2020, the warning became a reality when an Air India Express pilots landed in tailwind conditions and the aircraft overshot the tabletop runway to drop off the end and crash.

 “An aircraft landing on runway 10 in tailwind will experience poor braking action due to heavy rubber deposits … All such flights … are endangering the lives of all on board,’’ said Capt Mohan Ranganathan, in a letter sent on June 17, 2011 to then director general of civil aviation Bharat Bhushan and Nasim Zaidi, chairman of a civil aviation safety advisory committee, which was formed after the May 2010 Mangaluru air crash which killed 158 people.

“My warning issued after the Mangaluru crash was ignored. It is a table-top runway with a down slope. The buffer zone at the end of the runway is inadequate,” Capt Ranganathan said. Given the topography, he pointed out, the airport should have a buffer of 240m at the end of the runway, but it only has 90m (which the DGCA had approved). “Moreover, the space on either side of the runway is only 75m instead of the mandatory 100m,” he added.

Capt Ranganathan said there is no guideline for operations on a table-top runway when it is raining. “Runway 10 approach should not be permitted in view of the lack of runway end safety area (RESA) and the terrain beyond the end of the runway. RESA of 240m should be immediately introduced and runway length has to be reduced to make the operations safe,” his letter said.

If an aircraft is unable to stop within the runway, there is no RESA beyond the end. The ILS localiser antenna is housed on a concrete structure and the area beyond is a steep slope. “The Air India Express accident in Mangalore should have alerted AAI to make the runway conditions safe. We have brought up the issue of RESA during the initial Casac-sub group meetings. We had specifically mentioned that the declared distances for both runways have to be reduced in order to comply with ICAO Annex 14 requirement,” Capt Ranganathan said.

He said the condition of the runway strip was known to DGCA teams that have been conducting inspection and safety assessments. “Have they considered the danger involved? Did the DGCA or the airlines lay down any operational restrictions or special procedures?”

The letter also refers to Approach and Landing Accident Reduction (ALAR) training, which is supposed to be mandatory before every monsoon, but airlines don’t follow it, he said. “70% of accidents take place during approach and landing and that is why this training is essential,” he added.

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News Network
March 2,2020

New Delhi, Mar 2: Senior Congress leader P Chidambaram on Sunday hit out at Union Home Minister Amit Shah for his comments that no one from the minority community will be affected by amended Citizenship Act and asked why then was the community excluded from the law in the first place.

Addressing a rally in Kolkata, Shah assured people of the minority community that not a single person will lose citizenship due to the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA).

"The Home Minister says that no minority will be affected by CAA. If this is correct, they should tell the country who would be affected by CAA. If no one would be affected by CAA, as it currently is, why did the government pass the law?

"If the CAA aims to benefit all minorities (no one will be affected, says HM), then why are Muslims excluded from the list of minorities mentioned in the Act?," the former finance minister asked in a post on Twitter.

At his first public rally in Kolkata after the 2019 general elections, Shah said, "The opposition is terrorising the minorities. I assure every person from the minority community that the CAA only provides citizenship, does not take it away. It won't affect your citizenship."

"The opposition parties are spreading canards that refugees will have to show papers but this is absolutely false. You don't have to show any paper. We will not stop until all refugees are granted citizenship," Shah told the public.

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Agencies
May 19,2020

New Delhi, May 19: Former Union Minister P Chidambaram said that as the fourth phase of the nationwide lockdown amid the coronavirus scare began from Monday, his thoughts were with the people of Kashmir who were in a "terrible lockdown within a lockdown."

The senior Congress leader said that at least now, the people in the rest of India will understand that he dubbed the "enormity of the injustice" done to those who were detained in Kashmir and those still under detention" immediately before and after the abrogation of Article 370 of the Indian Constitution on August 5, 2019.

Chidambaram said that former Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti was the "worst sufferer" of preventive detention and even courts had shirked their constitutional duty with respect to detainees.

"The worst sufferers are Mehbooba Mufti and her senior party colleagues who are still in custody in a locked-down state in a locked-down country. They are deprived of every human right," he said in a statement.

"I cannot believe that for nearly 10 months, the courts will shirk their constitutional duty to protect the human rights of citizens," he added.

The detention on Mehbooba Mufti under the Public Safety Act (PSA) had been extended for three more months on May 5. Booked under the stringent PSA, she was initially kept at the Hari Niwas guesthouse in Srinagar but later shifted to a Tourism Department hut in the Chashma Shahi area.

She was shifted to her Gupkar Road official residence on April 7.

Besides Mehbooba Mufti, two other former Chief Ministers -- Omar Abdullah and his father Farooq Abdullah -- were also detained under the PSA but later released.

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