Other States - Puducherry   

CPI warns Centre against strategic ties with Israel

PUDUCHERRY: The Communist Party of India on Monday cautioned the Centre against striking a strategic partnership with Israel in the name of cooperation in space science.

Answering questions at a press conference here on the launch of an Israeli satellite by the Indian Space Research Organisation, party national secretary Shameem Faizee said, “We are very much worried by the way the Government is getting closer to Israel as part of the strategic partnership India had built with the United States.”

He, however, said the party would not demand that the programme to launch Israeli satellites be scrapped, as ISRO was launching satellites of other countries as an economic venture.

“The CPI is trying to change the agenda of Muslim politics from emotional issues to socio-economic matters by mobilising them in support of the demands evolved on the basis of the Sachaar Committee report,” Mr. Faizee said.

During the last six decades, he said, Muslim leaders concentrated on emotional issues, ignoring the socio-economic problems. The CPI formed a forum, ‘Insaf,’ to mobilise the Muslims to highlight their problems. Its units had been set up in Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and West Bengal.

He criticised the United Progressive Alliance Government for not initiating a debate on the Sachar Committee report in Parliament, though it was submitted in November 2006.

Mr. Faizee called for “affirmative action” under Article 16 (4) of the Constitution. The CPI had formulated 15 demands. Evolving a mechanism to end discrimination against minorities in education and employment, scrapping of the Reserve Bank of India’s directive on giving loan to the Muslims and adequate funds for the Minorities’ Finance Corporations were some of them.

The CPI demanded that 20 per cent of the funds under the Sarva Siksha Abhiyan be earmarked for setting up primary and secondary schools in predominantly Muslim areas. This was necessary in the light of the Sachar Committee’s finding that there was no school in 1,161 blocks where Muslims accounted for 40 per cent of the population, he said.

The CPI made it clear that the reservation benefits should not be garnered by the creamy layer of the Other Backward Classes.

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Stories in this Section

Parliamentary panel visits schools
Commune panchayat councillors create ruckus at training programme
Migrant labourers leave Puducherry
Petit Seminaire students make good marksmen
Students participate in kolam competition with enthusiasm
CPI warns Centre against strategic ties with Israel

Copyright © 2008, The Hindu. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of The Hindu