Newsreel: 25.05.03

• GOING a step ahead in its crackdown on militants, Pakistan virtually bans Hizbul Mujahideen, the Kashmiri militant outfit. Though it ...

• GOING a step ahead in its crackdown on militants, Pakistan virtually bans Hizbul Mujahideen, the Kashmiri militant outfit. Though it clarifies it was not a ‘‘ban’’, the government says it would not allow militant outfits to use its soil for posing a ‘security threat’ to its neighbours and imposes ‘‘restrictions’’ on the group.

Though the Hizbul later claim there was no ban, former Hurriyat chief Syed Ali Shah Geelani, who the Hizb considers as its patron, says India has delivered a diplomatic punch to Pakistan by ‘‘catalysing’’ the ban. ‘‘India is the clear winner today,’’ he says, admitting that the ban is a ‘‘big jolt to the freedom movement’’.

• SENIOR Congress leader Arjun Singh, known to play his cards carefully, speaks out against what he calls ‘‘groupism’’ in the party and blasts his party colleagues’ ‘‘self-centred approach’’. He says ‘‘the people around’’ Sonia Gandhi would not allow her to realise her dream. Singh does not name names but the signals were not subtle. Observers say that with just a few months to go for the polls and the possibility of the Congress opting for a coalition, Singh could well be trying to position himself as the rallying point for all dissident Congressmen.

• The government officially shifts by a year the deadline for the Prime Minister’s dream 5,846 km-long four-lane highway project, the Golden Quadrilateral. The project, connecting the four metros, now has December 2004 as the target completion date.

When asked about the exact status of the project Minister BC Khanduri says the Ministry was now back to following the original deadline of December 2004 after earlier advancing it by a year to prevent cost and time overruns.

• Former CBI additional director U N Biswas is caught unawares when his tenants are found to be engaged in making drugs by officers of the Narcotics Control Bureau. On a tip-off from the US narcotics control agency, they raid the house of Biswas at Salt Lake in eastern Kolkata on Monday morning and arrest five people — three Burmese and two Chinese nationals.

They have been staying at the ground floor of Biswas’s house since March. The officers recover 24 kgs of ephedrine hydrochloride and other chemicals, laboratory equipment which were all meant to manufacture drugs, Indian and foreign currencies and mobile phones. The banned substance would cost Rs 5 crore in international market, according to NCB officials.

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• Even by Bihar standards, the release of Dr Ramesh Chandra, after four days in captivity verge on the bizarre. Drama, caste, politics — Union minister CP Thakur has been implicated — and an improbably hitch-free rescue mission combines to make this yet another talking point. Police say they were led to the kidnapped neurosurgeon by Babloo Singh, whom they had arrested in connection with the case.

• Justice G T Nanavati, heading the two-member Commission probing the Gujarat riots, remarks that the evidence recorded so far did not indicate any serious lapse on the part of the police or administration in controlling the clashes.

A day later, he backtracks saying he was misquoted. The Commission, which recorded evidence in all areas except Ahmedabad and Vadodara as also Bharuch and Narmada, will begin its last leg of recording evidence on July 15.

• Strange are the ways of the International Cricket Council. On the day when its chief Malcolm Speed criticises two top umpires for being soft on sledging, it allows repeat offender Shoaib Akhtar to escape with a two-match suspension for his second ball-tampering offence in six months.

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There was every reason to believe that Akhtar would face harsher punishment from match referee Gundappa Vishwanath. The rules were clear: since Shoaib had earlier committed a Level Two offence — bringing the game into disrepute — the latest transgression would mean a level Three offence and a minimum four-to-eight-match ban.

Shoaib had first committed a Level Two offence last year, when he instigated the crowd in Zimbabwe by throwing a bottle into the stands. On that occasion, umpires David Orchard and S Venkataraghavan had also twice warned the Pakistani pacer for ball tampering.

• THE UN Security Council votes overwhelmingly to end the 13-year-old sanctions on Iraq and gave the United States and Britain extraordinary powers to run the country and its lucrative oil industry. Despite misgivings by many council members the 14-0 vote was a victory for the Bush administration, which made some last-minute concessions that opened the door to an independent, albeit limited UN role and the possibility of UN weapons inspectors returning to post-war Iraq.

The only opposition came from Syria, Iraq’s neighbour and the only Arab member of the council. Syria left its seat empty and did not cast a vote in the 15-member council.