Mulayam hints at mid-term elections in his speech to party workers

Lucknow:  With UPA allies pushing the Congress in a tight corner over several issues, the Samajwadi Party chief who is extending outside support to the UPA government at the centre, has hinted at more political uncertainty and the possibility of a mid-term Lok Sabha election.

Speaking to party workers on the 102nd birth anniversary of socialist leader Ram Manohar Lohia, Mulayam Singh Yadav said that the party must implement its policies and poll promises efficiently, initiating programmes within the next 6 months.

"I'll tell Akhilesh to have all officers get a copy of the SP manifesto and read up on the promises made by us pertaining to their department. Implementation programmes should start delivering in six months or  a maximum of one year.  It should not take more than a year, because you never know when the 2014 (sic) elections happen. The government has to decide and act soon," said the Samajwadi Party chief.

Mr Yadav said he did not become chief minister but he continues to monitor his party's government in the state. "I will keep an eye on government's functioning and ensure that the promises in manifesto are fulfilled," he said.

There has been much speculation that the 72-year-old, who has just installed his 38-year-old son Akhilesh Yadav as Chief Minister of UP after a spectacular electoral performance, might join the Union Cabinet as the Congress looks for new political alignments to bolster its very fragile coalition at the Centre.
The SP gives outside support to the UPA government and has bailed it many times during Parliament votes. It voted in support of the UPA earlier this week on the issue of the National Counter Terrorism Centre. The government won those votes. Mr Yadav insists his support is based on keeping communal forces away from the Centre.

The Congress is reportedly keen that the SP join the coalition formally  - Mulayam Singh Yadav has 22 MPs in the Lok Sabha, which would more than offset the 19 MPs that the troublesome Trinamool Congress threatens to withdraw regularly.

For NDTV Updates, follow us on Twitter or join us on Facebook

View the original article here

Gurgaon unrest: Construction workers go on a rampage, torch vehicles

Gurgaon:  Angered over the death of a co-worker, labourers at a construction site here pelted stones at private vehicles and torched a police gypsy, police said on Friday.

Labourer Babul Hasan, 25, from Baghpat in Uttar Pradesh died after falling from the seventh floor of an under-construction multi-storey building being built by Larsen & Toubro at Behrampur Road here.

Alleging that the contractor had not provided safety equipment, the workers turned violent. They pelted stones outside the company premises while shouting slogans against the contractor. They blocked the road and vandalized several vehicles including a BMW car.

"When police arrived at the spot, the labourers set the Badshahpur SHO's gypsy on fire," said assistant sub-inspector Subhash. However, no one from the police party was injured.

Later, additional forces were called in. Senior officials arrived at the spot and a number of protestors were taken into custody.

Badshahpur police station SHO inspector Rajpal said police have registered a criminal case against the labourers and detained some people.

For NDTV Updates, follow us on Twitter or join us on Facebook

View the original article here

Akhilesh Yadav sworn in as Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister; SP workers on bad behaviour

Lucknow:  New Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav will be hoping hard this is not a portent. Barely had the 38-year-old been sworn in as  the state's youngest Chief Minister, that his biggest challenge was demonstrated by his party workers who shoved their way onto the stage and were seen climbing on sofas.

So shortly after being sworn in, the young SP leader assured the people of his state that his government "will not tolerate lawlessness and will tackle it with an iron hand." "Samajwadi Party will fulfill promises made in the manifesto. Law and order will be our responsibility from today," he said. During extensive campaigning in Uttar Pradesh during the recently held polls, Mr Yadav had vowed to cleanse his party of "goonda-giri" or hooliganism; he had also said
that his top priority would be to deliver law and order to a state besieged by crime.

Earlier in the day, Mr Yadav, dressed in white kurta pyjama and black sleeveless jacket and looking uncannily like his father Mulayam Singh Yadav, took oath at 11.34 am at the La Martiniere College grounds in Lucknow.  He firmly shook hands with Governor BL Joshi, and then, a picture of calm, reached into his left breast pocket for a pen, signed and waved to the hundreds of SP supporters who had gathered at the venue since early morning.
Nineteen Cabinet ministers and 29 ministers of state also took oath, among them the controversial independent MLA with criminal antecedents, Raghuraj Pratap Singh or Raja Bhaiyya, who expectedly thrown his lot with the SP. After taking over as the CM, Akhilesh defended Raja Bhaiyya, who has been a minister before in a Mulayam Singh government, and accused his predecessor Mayawati of filing false cases against him. "We all know how cases against Raja Bhaiyya were filed," he said.
"Organised corruption as happened in the previous regime never took place in the state. There were restrictions during the previous government and UP is now celebrating democracy," he added.

In the star-studded audience cheering Mr Yadav at the swearing-in ceremony were Sitaram Yechury, Biman Bose and industrialist Anil Ambani.

His unruly cadres are already proving to be the new UP Chief Minister's Achilles Heel. He has the advantage of having come to power with an unambiguous majority with 224 seats in the 403-seat UP Assembly. He scripted that Samajwadi Party win with a forward-looking agenda that has promised the people of UP freedom from goonda raj and good law and order, jobs and education, and good economics. He now has his task cut out - he has vowed to implement his election manifesto to the full.

Rival parties wager that law and order will deteriorate in a Samajwadi Party regime, as has happened before. Even before Akhilesh was sworn in, he has been called upon to explain violent conduct of SP workers in several places. He had so far pleaded that officials of the old dispensation were to blame. Now, having taken charge, he has to prove that those were not empty words.
Among other things he promised in that document were sops like laptops students who passed class 10, tablet computers to those who passed class 12, allowance to unemployed youths, free treatment to patients suffering from serious ailments and loan waivers for farmers.

Akhilesh will also have to take a call on constituting a commission for taking legal opinion on providing reservation to Muslims and implementing recommendations of the Ranganath Mishra Commission and the Sachar Committee.

The SP leader has also said that rooting out corruption in the state is among his top priorities. And has promised to remove the ban on student politics in the state.

For NDTV Updates, follow us on Twitter or join us on Facebook

View the original article here

Britain may have to admit 12,000 Indian workers: Report

London:  Brussels has drawn up a plan that could force Britain to admit 12,000 workers from India despite soaring unemployment at home, the Daily Mail reported.
The order is part of an EU-wide plan to boost trade with India.

EU officials say that, in return for opening up the jobs market, countries such as Britain will be helped to land lucrative export deals.
But, of 40,000 workers who will be allowed to live and work in Europe, Britain has been told it must take 12,000, according to leaked EU documents. (Read: 40,000 Indians to be allowed to work in Europe, says report)
This is far more than any other EU nation - and three times the number which will be permitted France, the newspaper said on Friday.
Even Germany, which has one of the world's largest economies, will admit only 8,000 workers.
The Indian migrants, who can live and work in Britain for six months, will be in addition to people given visas under Britain's supposedly strict immigration cap.

It comes at a time when British unemployment is close to a 17-year high, at 2.67 million.
A large number of the beneficiaries will be IT workers, who already arrive in large numbers from India.

The details emerged in a leaked copy of the EU/India Free Trade Agreement, which is due to be signed later this year.

The aim is to encourage greater export trade between the EU and India.

For NDTV Updates, follow us on Twitter or join us on Facebook

View the original article here