nitish kumar pakistan visit

Amid the war of words between the BJP and Grand Alliance leaders over CM Nitish Kumar after his meeting with PM Narendra Modi during the G20 Summit dinner, political analysts think the speech of Union home minister Amit Shah at his scheduled rally at Jhanjharpur in Madhubani on September 16 will make the picture clear over the bonhomie shown by the two leaders in New Delhi on September 9.

On Monday, Rahul Gandhi, accused the RSS and BJP of promoting violence and animosity across the nation. Speaking at a public rally during his 'Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra,' he claimed that under the BJP-led NDA government, people from diverse religious and caste backgrounds are engaged in conflicts.

Congress said invites have been sent to chief minister Nitish Kumar who has agreed to come. In the event of his getting caught up elsewhere, the JD(U) president has assured that a senior leader will be sent to represent his party. RJD supremo Lalu Prasad, a staunch ally of the Congress may attend the rally in Purnea, or at Katihar scheduled on January 31, as per his availability in view of ED summons.

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Nitish Kumar gets warm welcome in Karachi

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Biharis have enriched Karachi’s cosmopolitan culture and their imprint on the city is perhaps best reflected in making famed Bihari kebabs an integral part of its culinary attractions.

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'We welcome all': Nitish Kumar on Amit Shah's Bihar visit to chair 26th Eastern Zonal Council meeting

Union home minister amit shah will chair a meeting of the eastern zonal council to be held in patna on december 10 where a host of issues like minimum price for a number of minor millets, creation of infrastructure, water sharing are expected to be discussed..

Watch what Nitish Kumar said

"Everyone will be present in the meeting tomorrow. All the states will say what they want to say. We will welcome all," said Kumar.

Amit Shah to chair the 26th meeting of Eastern Zonal Council 

Union Minister Amit Shah will chair the 26th meeting of the Eastern Zonal Council in Patna on Sunday (December 10). Eastern Zonal Council comprises the states of Bihar, West Bengal, Odisha and Jharkhand.

The meeting is being organized by the Inter-State Council Secretariat under the Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India, in collaboration with the Government of Bihar. The 26th meeting of the Eastern Zonal Council will be attended by the Chief Ministers of the member states along with two senior ministers from each state. The Chief Secretaries and other senior officers of the State Governments and senior officers of the Central Government will also participate in the meeting.

Five Zonal Councils were established in the year 1957 under Section 15-22 of the States Reorganization Act, 1956. The Union Home Minister is the Chairman of these five Zonal Councils, while the Chief Ministers of the States and the Administrator/Lieutenant Governor of the Union Territories from the respective Zonal Council are its members, one of whom is the Vice-Chairman by rotation every year. Two more ministers from each State are nominated by the Governor as members of the council. Each Zonal Council has also constituted a Standing Committee at the level of Chief Secretaries. The Chief Minister of Bihar is the Vice Chairman of the 26th meeting of the Eastern Zonal Council, according to an official statement.

The issues proposed by the States are first presented for discussion before the Standing Committee of the concerned Zonal Council. Issues which cannot be resolved by mutual consent are presented for discussion in the Zonal Council meeting.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has stressed the need to leverage cooperative and competitive federalism to achieve all-round development. Zonal Councils believes that strong states create a strong nation and provide a platform and systematic mechanism for regular dialogue and discussion on issues affecting two or more states or the Center and the States. Over the last 9 years, since 2014, a total of 55 meetings of various Zonal Councils have been held including 29 meetings of Standing Committees and 26 meetings of Zonal Councils.

The Zonal Councils play an advisory role, but over the years these councils have emerged as an important mechanism for promoting mutual understanding and cooperation in various fields. In council meetings many important decisions such as the minimum support price of Kodo, Kutki and other minor millets crops at par with Ragi, the release of the National Framework for Sediment Management in 2022 by the Ministry of Jal Shakti under the Comprehensive Silt Management Policy, decision by the State Level Technical Committee to decide the scale of finance for lac cultivation and to include lac cultivation in Kisan Credit Card from 2022-23. 

The Zonal Councils discuss a wide range of issues including mining, central financial assistance on certain items, creation of infrastructure, land acquisition and land transfer, water sharing, implementation of Direct Benefit Transfer Scheme (DBT), state reorganization and other matters of common interest at the regional level.

Many issues of national importance are also discussed in every meeting of the Zonal Councils. These include operationalization of Fast Track Special Courts (FSTC) for speedy investigation and speedy disposal of rape cases against women and children, facility of banks/India Post Payment Bank branches within 5 km of every village, formation of two lakh new Primary Agricultural Credit Societies (PACSs) in the country, eliminating malnutrition among children through nutrition campaign, reducing the drop-out rate of school children, participation of government hospitals in Ayushman Bharat-Pradhan Mantri Jan ArogyaYojanaand other issues of common interest at the national level.

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Nitish Kumar’s special package from Pakistan?

BY RSN SINGH

In December 2012, the Chief Minister of Bihar, Nitish Kumar, visited Pakistan. The fact that the main perpetrator of 26/11 attack, Hafiz Saeed, is being treated as a ‘national hero’ did not deter Nitish Kumar and various other delegations from India to Pakistan. Those political leaders keen to visit Pakistan have all but abandoned any pretense of even a modicum of empathy for the victims of Mumbai attack. Are the jihadi terrorists therefore only based in Pakistan?

This author is at loss to fathom the reasons for Nitish Kumar to undertake a tour to a country with which Bihar shares no borders. Did he go to Pakistan to learn lessons of ‘secularism’? Did he visit Pakistan to elicit Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) or was the purpose to get ‘special package’ ( Vishesh Rajaya Darza ) from the federal authorities based in Islamabad? The plausible reason could be ‘special package of vote-bank’. If going to Pakistan were to enhance vote-banks then the idea of Indian nation-state is over.

In an interview to a TV channel the CM implied that following LK Advani’s commentary on Jinnah during his visit to Jinnah’s mausoleum in Karachi, the latter’s secular credentials could not be doubted. At this juncture, it will be worthwhile to briefly recount why Jinnah wanted Pakistan. On 23 March 1940, Jinnah in his address to the Lahore Session of the All India Muslim League said: “We are a nation of a hundred million, and what is more, we are a nation with our distinctive culture and civilization, language and literature, art and architecture, names and nomenclature, sense of value and proportion, legal laws and moral codes, customs and calendar, history and tradition, aptitude and emotions; in short we have our own distinctive outlook on life and of life. By all canons of international law, we are a nation”.

Now look at the abysmal level of religious discourse that Jinnah entertained. Mrs K L Rallia Ram, an Indian Christian, founder of Indian Social Congress, who supported the cause of Pakistan wrote to Jinnah on 22 September 1946 from Lahore: “I wish you can also win over Sikhs. But the difficulty is that the Hindus are trying their level best to keep the Sikhs to themselves to fight their battles with Muslims. Hindus are morally and physically a coward race and so they want Sikhs to act as their militia. Do you know that 4000 Hindus left Murree two days before when somebody gave out that Muslims would create trouble”.

In the same interview, the Chief Minister boasted about Imran Khan’s laudatory comments about Bihar’s developmental model. It is yet another matter that Imran Khan is yet to prove his mettle in governance. His politics has been absolutely communal and undemocratic even by Pakistan’s standards. Both he and Nawaz Shariff partnered with the most rabid fundamentalist parties/organizations during the recent General Elections. The relatively secular parties like the Pakistan’s Peoples’ Party (PPP) and the Awami National Party (ANP), particularly the latter, were so intimidated that most of their supporters chose life over votes. The leader of the ANP said that while other parties were counting votes, we were counting dead bodies. Imran’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) has formed government Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK) Province with the support of radical outfit Jamat-e-Islami.

With this kind of untimely, uncalled and illogical romance with Pakistan, is it surprising that the northern parts of Bihar are emerging as the strong hold of the ISI backed terrorists outfits. The culprit of the most obnoxious and provocative act of kicking the ‘Jai Jawan Memorial’ in Mumbai was finally traced to the same region.

The apathy of politicians is not only confined to the victims of jihadi terrorism. The Bihar chief minister continued with his political yatra even as a passenger train was attacked by the Maoists. To top it all, he chose to give ‘political interviews’ to a series of television channels on a day when thousands were reported dead and several thousands were oscillating between life and death in one of the most revered Indian pilgrimage axis in Uttarakhand. A substantial number, including one of the former cabinet colleagues of the Chief Minister, were from Bihar. At least 30 percent were still battling death. If this is politics and political acumen, shame on our parliamentary democracy!

What was Osama bin Laden to the Americans, Hafiz Saeed is to India. Only a few days ago, the Punjab government in Pakistan, headed by Shahbaz Shariff (Nawaz Shariff’s brother) announced a grant-in-aid of Rs.61 million in the current fiscal to Hafiz Saeed’s Markaz-e-Taiba, ostensibly for setting up a knowledge park. The said organization was rechristened after the UN Security Council designated the Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD), a front organization of Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) in the wake of Mumbai attacks. The funding to the LeT, which is an armed organ of the ISI is no more covert but open.

The common Indian is befuddled about the flirtation of the Indian establishment with Hafiz Saeed. The Home Minister alludes to him as ‘Hafiz Sahab’, a delegation of Hurriyat leaders are given visa to confabulate with him, and brazenly in Pakistan Hafiz Saeed is allowed to share dias with Yaseen Malik, another separatist leader! No questions are asked about this from Yaseen Malik.

Was America wrong in targeting Osama bin Laden and are we right in indulging with the perpetrator of 26/11? This is for the Prime Minister to answer because he knows both the American establishment and Indian establishment equally well.

Why some of our politicians are so afraid of Hafiz Saeed? Does he blackmail them? Was he used for staging 26/11 in the bid to balance jihadi terror with so called ‘Hindu terror’? Ajmal Kasab’s love for life probably spoilt the script!

Why the desperate emphasis on Ishrat Jahan, an established LeT operative? At whose behest? The desperation could not have been more indicative than in the CBI summoning a Special Director of IB for questioning. The job of Intelligence officials is to disseminate intelligence to designated consumers, and it is done after thorough internal appraisal and vetting process. This development is unprecedented in Independent India and hereafter the apolitical character of Intelligence organizations will be in question.

In yet another case of the Malegaon blast in 2006, the investigation of the Maharastra ATS and the CBI has been nearly overturned by the NIA. As a consequence, all the nine accused are clamoring for release from prison on the grounds that NIA has already labeled the incident as the handiwork of so-called ‘Hindu terrorists’.  Will NIA now prosecute the CBI and the Maharashtra ATS?

Mr B Raman, unarguably India’s best Intelligence analyst, had decried the creation of the non-existent phenomenon called ‘Hindu terror’.  In an article where he disabused this fabrication, he was visited by some most unsavory comments. Some of the respondents went on to the extent of labeling him as a BJP ideologue looking for sinecures in case the party came to power. A completely distraught Raman blogged that he was in terminal stages of cancer and the only sinecure was the ‘inevitable’. Mr B Raman departed for the heavenly abode on 16 June 2013.

CBI versus Intelligence Bureau, NIA versus CBI and ATS – the country’s intelligence apparatus is being wrecked not by external forces, but by inimical forces within.

The ISI has been funding politicians earlier. In the intelligence circles the identity of these politicians are very well known. Has the ISI found new recruits?

(RSN Singh is a former military intelligence officer who later served in the Research & Analysis Wing. The author of two books: Asian Strategic and Military Perspective and Military Factor in Pakistan , he is also a  guest blogger for Canary Trap)

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Is Bihar CM Nitish Kumar ‘trapped’? Tejashwi Yadav says 'a thing to ponder upon...'

Janata dal (united) leader nitish kumar has not joined prime minister narendra modi, or other bharatiya janata party (bjp) leaders in their lok sabha elections rallies in bihar..

Bihar's former deputy chief minister and Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) leader Tejaswi Yadav took a dig at Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, flagging his absence from Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) rallies for Lok Sabha Elections 2024. Tejaswi Yadav, son of former Bihar CM Lalu Prasad Yadav , ally commented ‘Whether he is staying at home or he has been trapped, this is a thing to ponder upon’.

Janata Dal (United) leader Nitish Kumar has not joined Prime Minister Narendra Modi , or other Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders in their Lok Sabha Elections rallies in Bihar.

CM Nitish Kumar broke off his alliance with RJD for Bihar government and walked out of the Opposition INDIA bloc, a front he had orchestrated in creating. CM Nitish Kumar had joined hands with BJP for the upcoming Lok Sabha Elections 2024.

On Tuesday, Tejaswi Yadav had made similar statement. “Where is Nitish Kumar ji? Why is the BJP not inviting him to its rallies? He could not be seen at either rally of the PM on Tuesday. I still have respect for the CM... BJP, which is his current ally, needs to come clean on the matter," Yadav, whose RJD lost power after Kumar's return to the NDA in January, had said.

Tejaswi Yadav has been raising allegations of rising unemployment against the BJP-led regime in the Centre.

On Tuesday, Tejaswi Yadav reiterated an opposition claim. Yadav claimed that all BJP candidates have said that the saffron party will change the constitution when PM Modi comes to power. "Why is the PM not taking action against them?" the former deputy CM of Bihar asked.

PM Modi has charged that opposition leaders, including those of the RJD and the Congress, were spreading lies regarding the Constitution.

"Why is he (PM) not talking about price rise, providing employment to youths, reducing poverty, bringing back black money back to India? They only talk about Hindu-Muslim . While we talk about distributing pens among youth, BJP leaders, including the PM, talk about giving swords to job-seekers. They (BJP leaders) can't evade issues related to the masses," he added.

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