Month: June 2011

New Delhi, June 05: Civil society members Sunday condemned the midnight police crackdown to end yoga guru Baba Ramdev’s anti-corruption mass hunger strike, calling as “undemocratic” the use of force against peaceful protesters at Ramlila Ground here.

Swami Agnivesh, a leading member of social reformer Anna Hazare’s anti-graft movement distanced himself from Ramdev but termed the police action as “unfortunate”.

“This is an unfortunate incident… It cannot be condoned in any manner,” Agnivesh said.

New Delhi, June 05: The RSS today condemned the “brutal” mid-night action on Baba Ramdev and his followers and said it was crude attempt by the government to protect the corrupt.

RSS spokesman Ram Madhav wondered whether it was democracy and rule of law in India or it is a police state where action is taken on peaceful protesters at mid night without notice.

He said the police action only showed the government was going out of the way to protect those who break laws and attack those who raise issues.

——–PTI

Lucknow, June 06: The Bharatiya Janata Party here on Saturday attacked the United Progressive Alliance government at the Centre for eroding the federal structure of polity to move towards excessive centralism and from democracy to autocracy.

New Delhi, June 05: The Bharatiya Janata Party on Saturday attacked the United Progressive Alliance government for allegedly breaching the federal set-up by targeting opposition-ruled states and warned of legal recourse if this was not stopped.

A day after the BJP national executive took on Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh on the issue of corruption, senior BJP leader L K Advani sent a blunt message to the Centre that his party will look at such options to combat attacks on opposition-ruled states.

Lucknow, June 04: Raising the pitch against corruption and black money, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) senior leader L.K. Advani here Saturday called upon party workers to launch country-wide “agitational programmes” in the next three months, a senior party leader said.

Advani suggested the programmes for awakening the masses over the corrupt practices of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government, the leader said.

New Delhi, June 05: A confidant of yoga guru Baba Ramdev Sunday called the police crackdown on his campaign against corruption “state terrorism”.

“This is state terrorism. This is the terrorism of the corrupt,” Vedprakash Vaidik told Times Now TV.

Vaidik, who has known Ramdev since he was a young boy, said he had been fearing such a government response .

“This is a barbaric action by a government ironically headed by a gentleman,” he said.

New Delhi, June 05: Some 30 people were injured in a pre-dawn police crackdown to end yoga guru Baba Ramdev’s anti-corruption hunger strike at Ramlila Ground in the capital, officials in a hospital said.

A medical officer of the Lok Nayak Jai Prakash Narayan Hospital (LNJP) hospital told IANS that some 30 mildly injured people were brought there.

The LNJP is some five kilometres from the Ramlila Ground where police in a midnight action broke up Ramdev’s protest fast he had launched less than 24 hours earlier.

New Delhi, June 05: Sadhvi Ritambhara shared the dais with Baba Ramdev today, triggering disquiet in the Anna Hazare group, although her presence should not have come as a surprise given the yoga practitioner’s links with the RSS.

The saffron-robed sadhvi, an accused in the Babri Masjid demolition, was greeted with chants of Bharat Mata ki jai when she showed up in the morning at Ramlila Maidan, Ramdev having officially begun his fast against black money at midnight on Saturday.

New Delhi, June 04:Amidst demand by Yoga guru Ramdev of banning currency notes of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000, the Reserve Bank today said the decision to demonetise a currency is taken by the government not the regulator.

“These decisions (of banning Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes) are taken by the government and not the RBI. The central bank only prints currency notes, denominations are decided by the government,” Reserve Bank Deputy Governor K C Chakrabarty said here, to a query over Baba Ramdev’s demand on discontinuation of high value currency notes.

Washington, June 04:Hundreds of Indian-Americans in cities across the United States today started meetings and observed fast in support of the anti-corruption crusade launched by yoga guru Baba Ramdev in New Delhi.

Baba Ramdev solidarity meetings are being held in some two dozen cities across the US, according to latest news reports coming from the organizers, Bharat Swabhiman Overseas (BSO), a US-based organization which supports the ideology and goal of the Indian guru.