BBC News – Protests after India West Bengal minister Amit Mitra assault

Wednesday, 10 April 2013. Protest rallies are being held in India after West Bengal state Finance Minister Amit Mitra was beaten up by protesters in Delhi on Tuesday.

Mr Mitra’s boss – West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee – was also heckled by communist students.

The demonstrators were angry over the death of a student activist in police custody in Calcutta last week.

Sudipta Gupta died while being taken in a bus to prison for defying police prohibitory orders during a protest.

The Students’ Federation of India (SFI), of which Mr Gupta, 22, was a member, claimed that he died after being assaulted by the police.

The police say he hit a pole while hanging out of the bus and died of the injuries sustained in the accident.

On Wednesday, supporters of Ms Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress party (TMC) took out rallies in Calcutta and Delhi, demanding immediate arrest of those who heckled Ms Banerjee.

Ms Banerjee, who had arrived in Delhi on Tuesday to attend a series of meetings with the federal government, has cancelled all her meetings, including those with the prime minister and the finance minister.

On Tuesday, she was on her way to the planning commission office with Mr Mitra when SFI activists accosted them.

While Ms Banerjee was escorted safely to the office by policewomen, the protesters blocked Mr Mitra’s way and pushed him around.

The mob shouted slogans and tore his shirt, until he was rescued by policemen. He was later admitted to hospital where he is undergoing tests.

Meanwhile, media reports from Calcutta said that TMC supporters had on Tuesday night vandalised several offices of left-wing parties in retaliation.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-22090179

The Asian Age – Allies under fire at CWC meeting

Asian Age Correspondent

New Delhi, 5 June 2012. Trinamul Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee and NCP chief Sharad Pawar came under attack at the Congress Working Committee meeting with leaders from West Bengal and Maharashtra resenting the “one-upmanship” of the two leaders. Even Comptroller and Auditor General of India Vinod Rai too was criticised.

The attack on Ms Banerjee and Mr Pawar is significant as it came ahead of the presidential and vice-presidential elections.

According to sources, Maharashtra PCC president Manikrao Thakre virtually pleaded for going alone in the state. He said Mr Pawar is taking credit of Centre’s announcements before it was made officially and thereby suggested the Congress cannot take any credit. He suggested if the Congress contests alone in the next Assembly polls in the state, it will get more seats than it secures in alliance with the NCP.

Mr Thakre praised chief minister Prithviraj Chavan who was present in the meeting. Mr Chavan is also not on the best of terms with the NCP chief.

Mr Thakre complained that Mr Pawar, being part of the Central government, utilises his position to appropriate credit for the NCP for all the good things done by the Centre.

West Bengal PCC chief Pradip Bhattacharya was agitated because state chief minister Mamata Banerjee does not count the Congress despite the party being part of the government.

He was also critical of her for “behaving like an Opposition leader” at the Centre despite her party being a key constituent of the Congress-led UPA government. The CLP leader in West Bengal too criticised Ms Banerjee, they said.

Party spokesperson Manish Tewari wanted the Congress to be ready to change the political landscape of the country “if your allies oppose you”.

Some members were critical of the CAG’s current role saying that it is crossing limits. If this (national loss) continues, then the party will have to pay a price in the Lok Sabha elections, they predicted.

Mr Tewari, who was the last speaker at the meeting, is learnt to have said that the government needs to be seen as one that is functioning. Urging the government to bring the big ticket reforms, he said that if allies are opposing then “be prepared to change the political landscape”.

Uttarakhand chief minister Vijay Bahuguna is learnt to have said that there is an impression that the government at the Centre is weak, sources said. Haryana chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda wanted farmers’ interests to be protected at any cost.

Recalling the adage that charity should begin at home, Mr Hooda told Mrs Gandhi that he was ready to take up any work assigned by her.

http://www.asianage.com/india/allies-under-fire-cwc-meeting-976

The Hindu – India, Bangladesh to resume talks on Teesta Treaty

Sandeep Dikshit

New Delhi, 10 February 2012. The treaty was put on hold after West Bengal CM protested against its provisions.

India and Bangladesh will take the first step towards revisiting the proposed Teesta river treaty when officials exchange river flow data at a technical meeting of the inter-governmental Joint Rivers Commission in Kolkata on Friday.

India had put the treaty on hold after West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, unhappy over the treaty’s provisions, pulled out of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh delegation to Dhaka last year.

Official sources here said the West Bengal government has been taken on board this time, which Ms. Banerjee’s aides had alleged was not the case when the Teesta Treaty was finalised. “The involvement of the West Bengal government is of paramount concern as far as the Government of India is concerned,” said the sources. In case of Teesta, both sides are also thinking of involving Sikkim, the uppermost riparian State.

“Essentially we are going ahead with different elements of reaching an agreement. The issue is not dormant,” added the sources.

While agreeing to put off the signing of the Teesta Treaty, Dhaka had asked New Delhi to ensure that the agreement would be examined after some time. An agreement is expected to pave the way for the signing of a similar agreement on the Feni river and five minor ones — Dudh Kumar, Manu, Khowai, Gomti and Muhuri.

The sources said West Bengal or any of the other State through which over 50 rivers flow into Bangladesh will be kept in the loop while signing water sharing agreements. The States were briefed and their advice taken during negotiations on a protocol on land boundary that was signed during Dr. Singh’s September 2011 visit to Dhaka.

In fact, senior officials from the Foreign Office here had travelled twice to Kolkata to brief the State government during negotiations on the demarcation of the entire land boundary and the status of enclaves and adversely possessed areas.

The Centre had also obtained the written consent of States and kept its negotiating brief within the parameters of their advice, especially from the West Bengal government, on taking “pragmatic steps”, which meant retaining the status quo, on enclaves and exclaves. “We had gone along with the West Bengal government’s desire to use Sui River for demarcation of the South Berubari sector,” said the sources.

http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/article2876246.ece

The Asian Age – Centre is hopeful of Teesta solution

Parul Chandra, Asian Age Corespondent

New Delhi, 20 September 2011. The Centre is hoping that the proposed Teesta Waters Treaty with Bangladesh may still happen once the “small technical misunderstanding” between it and West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee is sorted out. The proposed treaty, which had been billed as one of the high-points of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s recent Dhaka visit, could not be signed leading to considerable disappointment on both sides.

Officials here admitted that “there was a little bit of technical misunderstanding over the wording of the agreement”.

They added, “We assumed that West Bengal had agreed”.

However, with Didi clearly not on board, the Centre is hopeful that it will be able to bring her around once this “misunderstanding” has been cleared.

The treaty’s signing fell through after the Trinamul Congress leader dropped out of the PM-led delegation to Dhaka at the 9th hour earlier this month. Ms Banerjee was apparently miffed that Bangladesh would be getting more than the water share she had acceded to under the proposed pact.

Her last-minute decision not only scuppered the proposed Teesta agreement but also left New Delhi red-faced and Dhaka considerably unhappy.

The bone of contention between the two nations, expectedly, is the quantity of water they are willing to share with each other. While Bangladesh wants 75 per cent of the Teesta waters, Bengal wants the sharing to be in the 50:50 ratio.

However, water experts note that the treaty is really “academic in nature” as there is no way that India can hold back the Teesta waters beyond a certain quantity as north Bengal would then get flooded. They also note that north Bengal can use only about 30 to 40 per cent of the Teesta waters as it is still to get the extensive canals system which was envisaged under the Teesta Barrage Project for making this water available to a larger area.

Indeed, the project, has been bedevilled by delays ever since it was approved in 1976. One of the reasons for the delay are land acquisition issues, said experts.

The Centre finally decided to declare the project a “national project” in 2009 which entails that it will shoulder 90 per cent of the costs with the state government chipping in with the remaining 10 per cent.

Expected to cost `69.77 crores when approved, the last project cost as approved by the Planning Commission in December 2010 had spiralled to roughly `2,988 crores.

http://www.asianage.com/india/centre-hopeful-teesta-solution-171