'This Is A Betrayal Of The People'— Uma

The BJP legislators' meeting in Bhopal was stormy. Here's a fly-on-the-wall account of it.
The Hindi weekly Outlook Saptahik literally had its ear to the ground inside the venue where a stormy meeting of BJP legislators in Bhopal took place. Arun Jaitley and Pramod Mahajan flew in from Delhi to ensure that Shivraj Singh Chauhan is "elected" the new CM by the legislators. Excerpts:

(There is chaos in the first 34 minutes. Finally, proceedings begin.)

Arun Jaitley: "We are gathered here today under special circumstances. For some weeks now, there has been a fierce debate over the leadership of the legislative party. Many of you friends have expressed different opinions on this. On November 26, the parliamentary board met, had a discussion and took a decision. The meeting of the legislators has been called to ratify the decision."

Uma Bharati: "According to the party constitution, the legislators have the right to elect their leader. The parliamentary board has the right to call a meeting of the legislature party, but not to elect the leader. Here 106 of 172 legislators have demanded that a new leader be elected with their support (applause). I request you to call each legislator individually and take a secret ballot. Or should we believe that the BJP does not follow its own constitution?"

Jaitley: "I ask Pramod Mahajan to reply to Umaji's point about the party constitution." (Gauri Shankar Shejwar repeats Uma's question. ).

Pramod Mahajan: "The BJP's central leadership is supreme. As legislators, you should know that the central constitution is superior to conventions guiding a legislative party." (He says he has a copy of the BJP constitution which clarifies the point he's making.)

Uma: "Take a decision after asking the legislators. We will all accept the majority decision of legislators. I will accept Shivraj and welcome him if the MLAs back him."

Mahajan: "Umaji, let us take the decisions. The decision of the parliamentary board is final."

Babulal Gaur: "My name had come from Delhi" (laughter).

Shejwar: "I propose Umaji's name as leader."

Jaitley: "I propose Shivraj's name." (An argument follows. Jaitley asks those in favour of Shivraj to raise their hands. Uma again asks for a secret ballot.)

Uma: "This is a betrayal of the people, the legislators. I will go to Ayodhya."

Jaitley: "This is not a forum for speeches."

Uma: "I am leaving."

Mahajan: "Those who are getting up to leave, please sit down."

Jaitley: "No one will leave." (Most of them listen to him and return to their seats.)

‘Kituu…’, in-sync with the trend

Rachna Kanwar

Sahara One Television has come up with yet another daily soap called ‘Kituu...Sabb Jaantii Hai’, at the primetime slot of 9.30 pm. The story is in line with the current trend of soaps with ordinary looking girls with middle-class values achieving extraordinary success in life. ‘Kituu...’ is about a girl Katyayani Purohit aka Kituu who comes from a humble background and becomes a successful Television journalist.

The title role of ‘Kituu...’ has been essayed by Ami Trivedi, a young, vivacious Gujarati girl. Kituu has been conceived as a powerful character of an honest girl whose convictions and integrity are a rarity in today’s world. She is a fiery crusader who dreams of changing the world. She is the life of her neighbourhood, her father’s pet, someone who is a complete tomboy, talkative and totally lovable.

This full-of-beans girl at the tender age of 20 takes up the challenge to bail her family out of a financial crisis. With her steely grit and determination this ’mohalla’ girl becomes a force to reckon with in electronic journalism. She becomes the face of the new generation of young women achievers. Her middle-class values and sensitivities endear her to the masses. She also becomes a role model for the young girls as despite her middle-class morals and views she refuses to be a doormat.

Ami who plays Kituu is a young graduate from Jai Hind College, Mumbai. She has dabbled in theatre for 6 years where she got the opportunity to act with the likes of Tiku Talsania, Homi Wadia, Dharmesh Vyas and Siddharth Randheria.

BSNL to offer FTTH broadband service

PTI[ MONDAY, DECEMBER 12, 2005 12:45:04 PM]

NEW DELHI: State-run BSNL has stepped up efforts to grab a bigger share of rising broadband demand in the country with the PSU planning to provide Fibre-to-the-Home (FTTH) based broadband services for offering Next generation services to its subscribers.

BSNL started broadband services in January 2005 with the 'ADSL' systems. We are now planning to offer broadband service on fibre also by using the FTTH systems, a senior BSNL official said adding the PSU today issued a tender to procure FTTH equipment for providing the next generation broadband services to its customers.

There are more than 4.5 lakh route kms of optical fibre laid by BSNL/MTNL and more than 1 lakh route kms laid by private operators.

The fibre optics technology can provide unlimited bandwidth potential and is steadily replacing copper network specially in intra-city backbone networks. This is being deployed in commercial buildings and complexes in big cities with high-density potential broadband users.

TRAI has identified five different access paths to cover the last mile -- Local Loop Digital Subscriber Line (DSL), Cable, Satellite, Terrestrial Wireless and Fibre to Home.

Hybrid Fibre Coaxial (HFC), Fibre-to-the-Curb and FTTH make use of fibre cabling into last mile. The fibre based models are future proof as they can provide huge bandwidth in the last mile and also a IP and converged network that can deliver high quality voice-video and data, he said.

DoT had set a target of 3 million broadband subscribers by December 2005. The total number of broadband internet subscribers in the country as on October 31, 2005 was 7.1 lakhs. BSNL and MTNL have contributed 3.1 lakh subscribers.

स्वानुकूल जग

आँखें बंद करके देखो, तो अनदेखा भी दिखाई देगा.
अंतरात्मा की सुनो, तो अनकहा भी सुनाई देगा.
मैं सदाएं दे देकर थक गया, किसी ने सुना ही नहीं.
तो महसूस हुआ कि...
बिन रसना भी कहा जा सकता है बहुत कुछ
अधरों को ज़रा दबा के तो देखो, जग स्वानुकूल दिखाई देगा.

'अशोका'

Disclaimer: This poem is not mine, written by someone close to me.
If you are not able to read hindi fonts then please mail me for english version.