Jaswant Singh maintained that he never expected his book to cause such a furore. When asked why he was expelled without being given a chance to explain his stand, Singh said,"This question should now be addressed to the party, which decided to expel me. I am a member of Parliament and have more then one hunered books to my credit and hence I would like to be remembered both as a parliamentarian and an author."
In a startling revelation, expelled Bharatiya Janata Party leader Jaswant Singh said on Wednesday that he had sent an advance copy of his latest book "Jinnah -- India-Partition-Independence" to senior party leader and Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha L K. Advani, and therefore, this made his removal from the party after 30 years of association even more painful and shocking.
The Bharatiya Janata Party's 'Chintan Baithak' or assessment-cum introspection exercise will begin in Shimla on Wednesday.
Opposition parties, though resigned to the fact that they lack the numbers to defeat or stall the bill in the two Houses, have decided upon different tactics that they would employ to highlight their reasons for opposing it.
Having failed to wear down the protesters, the government has now resorted to a bare-knuckle campaign to discredit them by portraying them as pawns in a wider plot bankrolled by shadowy 'anti-national' and 'Islamist' forces, notes Hasan Suroor.
'Our policy seems to be to give away part of J&K, even though we are entitled to the entire state.' 'The Congress has done so, and the BJP is following the same policy.' 'No one is applying their mind to the legal position.' 'Kashmir is not a part of Pakistan under its own constitution.'
Senior BJP leader and Rajya Sabha member Pyarelal Khandelwal died in New Delhi on Tuesday, following a cardiac arrest at AIIMS.
'In economic matters governments should not take sides based on religion and caste,' says T C A Srinivasa-Raghavan.
It seems that Jaswant Singh, expelled from the Bharatiya Janata Party for his controversial book on Jinnah, is likely to visit Pakistan for the launch of the book after Ramzan, but sources close to him are yet to confirm the report.
Union Minister of State for External Affairs Sashi Tharoor on Sunday said that it was not proper to ban the book authored by Jaswant Singh for his references on Muhammad Ali Jinnah. Talking to reporters, Tharoor said that in a democratic country like India, people have the right and freedom to speak and write. "If a person is not interested in reading the book, let him not read it," he said.
Member of Rajya Sabha from Bharatiya Janata Party, on returning after attending they party's three-day long Chintan Baithak in Shimla, told rediff.com that he was shocked to read former Union minister and recently expelled leader Jaswant Singh's controversial book on Mohammad Ali Jinnah and the way "he degraded the iron man of India Sardar Vallabh bhai Patel."
Eight security personnel were killed and five injured when a suicide bomber targeted a camp of paramilitary troops assigned to guard VIPs in the heart of the Pakistani capital near the United Nations office tonight.
'For Muslims it is time to understand what sense of fears are in the minds of Hindus.' 'I think the conversation somewhere is not taking place.'
Amidst unprecedented security arrangements to ward off any anti-China protest and militant threat, the Pakistani leg of the Olympic torch relay kicked off in Islamabad on Wednesday at a colourful ceremony attended by President Pervez Musharraf and Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gillani.
Jaswant Singh's book has raised a fresh controversy on who was responsible for the Partition of India. Some think it was Mohammed Ali Jinnah; others say Jawharlal Nehru/Sardar Patel. The truth is that the seeds for Partition were sown at least 80 before Partition actually happened.
Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa said the state has no plans to follow in Gujarat's footsteps and ban the book. He was speaking at a press conference on the just concluded by-elections in Karnataka.
"Our government has invariably made efforts to initiate the process of meaningful dialogue and adoption of peaceful means to resolve the issues but unfortunately the expansionist designs of India have remained the main hurdle in this regard," Abbasi said.
Musharraf is out but not dead. The political forces created by him are around though out of power. His old friends in the US would not dislike the idea of keeping around a former trusted ally.
'This time, even the professedly secular parties have maintained a conscious distance from being identified with Muslims.' 'This could be interpreted as a success of the BJP campaign of what it has been calling 'minority appeasement', says Mohammad Sajjad.
During Vajpayee's tenure, he was there as an indispensable insider, witness to every action that had an impact on history: Pokhran-II (nuclear tests in 1998), the 1999 Kargil conflict between India and Pakistan, the Indo-Pak Agra Summit in 2001, intense engagement with the United States on nuclear issues besides the Kandahar hijack.
The resignation is a fallout of Advani's statements made in Pakistan where he had described Mohammed Ali Jinnah as a 'secular leader'.\n
"Desh ke chowikdar ki pehredari mein, sansadhono ki chori karai ja rahi hai (the country's resources are being looted under the watch of the country's gateman)," she said in a derisive reference to Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Jinnah Creation's Seval, directed by Hari and starring Bharath is a potpourri of drama, romance and action which makes for watchable fare despite some melodramatic hiccups.
Advani said Golwalkar, who took over the reins of the RSS after the death of its founder Keshav Baliram Hedgewar, firmly believed that rule on the basis of religion is not possible in India and RSS does not approve of such a system.
The MQM lawyers were holding a protest against the manhandling of former Federal minister Sher Afgan by lawyers in Lahore on Tuesday night. Eyewitnesses and police said lawyers at the civil court attacked the rally and badly injured around nine lawyers including a female lawyer.
Almost all security measures agreed to by the government and the Pakistan People's Party for the homecoming of former premier Benazir Bhutto were compromised due to the massive turnout of her supporters.
The accident occurred when Zakaria Express collided with the stationary Fareed Express at Juma Goth Train station. Two bogies of Fareed Express and one bogie of Zakaria Express were completely destroyed in the collision.
Brig Ejaz Shah has been strongly criticised by Benazir and her supporters for the security failure and they have demanded his removal and arrest. When he was in the ISI, he used to be the handling officer of Osama bin Laden and Mulla Omar
An interview with ad guru Alyque Padamsee.
Over 300 people were also injured in the attack and many of them were in a critical condition.
'We have done majoritarianism through other means.' 'The Citizenship Amendment Act, read together with the National Register of Citizens, will prove what I mean,' notes Aakar Patel.
Vishwa Hindu Parishad on Monday took a dig at BJP president L K Advani saying "she divided Pakistan and never changed her stand like some big leaders".
Advani's brief address to the party workers had no references to the four-day leadership crisis in the party triggered by his resignation.
'Rightly or wrongly, 1962 got ascribed to Krishna Menon and him alone. That's unfair.' 'Certainly, he was one of the guilty men, but he was not the only guilty man. Mistakes were made all around.'
Uma Bharti has said she will file a petition in the displinary committee.
Pakistan's former president Asif Ali Zardari has returned to the country, ending his 18-month-long self-imposed exile, amidst speculations about his future role in the Pakistan Peoples Party, which has threatened a major protest against the Nawaz Sharif government.
All sports activities in the city of Sukkur in Pakistan's Sindh province have been suspended for three days after a promising young cricketer, Zulfiqar Bhatti died here after being hit on the chest by a rising ball.
The Pakistan army killed at least 120 suspected terrorists in the North Waziristan tribal region during the Zarb-e-Azb operation.
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