The Hindu : New Delhi News : ‘Attacks on prayer halls grossly exaggerated’

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Tuesday, Nov 18, 2008
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New Delhi

‘Attacks on prayer halls grossly exaggerated’

Special Correspondent

Official admits to deficiency in infrastructure

Business leaders urged to invest in State
Yeddyurappa addresses World Economic Summit

NEW DELHI: It may perhaps take a long time for the Bharatiya Janata Party Government in Karnataka to live down the controversy over the attacks on Christian prayer halls in the State a few months ago. The issue came up for discussion once again on Monday at the end of a special lecture by Chief Minister B.S. Yeddyurappa here at the ongoing World Economic Summit.

A member of the audience wanted to know what the State Government was doing to prevent such attacks. Chief Secretary Sudhakar Rao chose to respond to the question and reiterated that what had happened in Karnataka was “grossly exaggerated in the media.”

“A few events certainly took place on September 14 and 15. The Chief Minister rushed to Mangalore and met with various parties. No incident worth mentioning occurred after that,” he said.

He said that when some persons tried to justify the attacks on September 14 and 15 as being in the nature of retaliation, the Chief Minister had refused to accept that and directed the administration to take strong corrective measures.

To another query on infrastructure development in the State, Mr. Rao conceded that there was a lot of deficiency in terms of infrastructure and said that the Government was doing its best to improve the situation. “Please have a little patience. The new Chief Minister and the administration are doing everything possible on the infrastructure front,” he said

Earlier, during the lecture, Mr. Yeddyurappa called upon industrialists and business leaders from across the world to partner with the State Government in promoting growth in industry, agriculture and service sectors in the State. “I must confess that I am a Chief Minister in a hurry. We need to hasten the pace of Karnataka’s economic growth. And while doing so, we need to ensure that we achieve inclusive growth.”

The lecture was on the theme of inclusive growth in Karnataka, particularly in the context of the State emerging as a world-class hub for information technology.

Listing out the various initiatives taken by his Government to promote growth in the State with the benefits accruing to all sections of society, Mr. Yeddyurappa said the Government was in the final stages of formulating a vision for Karnataka by 2020 and has identified several key focus areas including improvement of the overall viability of agriculture, all-round improvement of both urban and rural infrastructure, creation of more employment opportunities in labour intensive sectors of industry and services, improvement of health care services at all levels, social empowerment of women, and improvement of economic status of backward and weaker groups of society such as the disabled and senior citizens.

Noting that the “Arogya Kavacha” scheme launched recently in collaboration with Emergency Medical Relief Institute to cut down on maternal mortality was “an outstanding example” of public-private partnership, he said the industry could particularly help in realising the Government’s goal of creating one million jobs in the next five years.

Introducing the Chief Minister, Chairman of software major Wipro Azim Premji emphasised the need for greater attention to address issues such as infrastructure, regional imbalance and women empowerment. Women can become excellent entrepreneurs if given proper training, he said.

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