Most wanted Maoist Telugu Dipak caught

The West Bengal CID arrested one of AP’s most wanted Maoist leaders, Venkateswara Reddy alias Telugu Dipak alias Prabahakar alias Dileep, from Behala on Tuesday. He carries a reward of Rs 10 lakh on his head.

A member of Central Military Commission, Venkateswara Reddy is believed to have taken a front position during the Maoist attack on the EFR camp at Sildah.

He is also a close aide of CPI (Maoist) politburo member Kishenji alias Mallojula Koteswara Rao, and was in the thick of the Maoist movement in Lalgarh and Nandigram.

“He is a big catch,” said the director general of police, Mr Bhupinder Singh “He has had a role to play in almost all the big Maoist attacks in the recent past. We are interrogating him.”

Sources said that Venkateswara Reddy belongs to a very rare breed of the Maoists who are both ideologues and men of action. He is also the leader of the Jharkhand-Bengal-Bihar-Orissa regional committee. “He specialises in handling improvised explosive devices,” said an intelligence source.

He is wanted in several cases in Bengal, Chhattisgarh, Andhra Pradesh, Jharkhand, Bihar and Orissa and was picked up from a bus stand at Sarsuna in Behala area on a tip off.

Venkateswara Reddy, hailing from Prakasam district, had gone underground 20 years ago. He studied in a polytechnic in Guntur and was an activist in the Radical Student Union and worked as city organiser.

“He is wanted here too,” said a senior AP cop. “His arrest is a big blow for the movement. He is known for military tactics. We will arrest him on prisoner transit warrant and bring him here.”

Venkateswara Reddy is accused in major offences in West Bengal including the attack on the Chief Minister, Mr Buddadheb Bhattacharjee. Meanwhile, Maoists killed two villagers at Goghaldiha village in Bihar’s Munger district accusing them of being police informers.

Eastern Railway Budget

Politics seemed to prevail over sound economics as the railway minister, Ms Mamata Banerjee, took to the stage once again on Wednesday to present her second Railway Budget in the last seven months.

The goodies doled out to the Trinamul Congress leader’s home state came as no surprise given Ms Banerjee’s determination to dislodge the Marxists from power in next year’s Assembly election in West Bengal.

With no increase in passenger fares for the seventh year running and no revision in freight rates either this year, the railways will need to raise resources from other avenues. Apart from looking for private sector investment, the railways will also look for additional market borrowings of Rs 350 crore, it was indicated in the Railway Budget.

Railway finances should be a cause for concern given that its profits have fallen by 93 per cent in 2009-10 as compared to 2007-08. It is noteworthy, though, that the Railways hope that earnings from passenger traffic will increase by 10 per cent in the next fiscal year.

On Monday, there was a sense of deja vu given that the July 2009 budget too was West Bengal-centric. With Assembly polls a little more than a year away in that state, any hike in passenger fares or freight rates would be a politically unwise move for Ms Banerjee. The minister told the LS that she did not “propose any increase in the passenger fares of any class”.

Rail Budget 2010

* No increase in passenger fares and freight rate
* E-ticket service charge lowered to Rs 10 for sleeper class, Rs 20 for AC class
* Freight rate for foodgrains, kerosene down Rs 100/wagon
* 54 new trains, 10 Duronto trains
* Tourist train Bharat Tirth on 16 routes
* 101 new suburban services for Mumbai
* SMS updates for reservation status, train timing, wagon movement
* Free travel for cancer patients in 3rd AC and Sleepers

What AP got

* A wagon manufacturing factory to be established at Secunderabad.

* An assurance on Railway Sports Academy to be set up at Secunderabad.

* Rs 700 crore for pending projects, the highest in last one decade. Earlier, the South Central Railway get only Rs 200 crore every year for on-going projects.

* 21 new trains though some of them do not originate but pass through AP.

* Matribhoomi Ladies Special to be operated between Falaknuma and Lingampalli.

* Survey for 12 new railway lines ordered. Proposals submitted for Planning Commission’s
approval.

* Feasibility study for new railway lines between Falaknuma-Umdanagar and Secunderabad-Medchal.

* Preliminary engineering-cum-traffic survey to be taken up for dedicated freight corridor. This will help industrial and business houses of the state as AP is included in three corridors including North-South, East-South and South-South.

* Six stations - Guduru, Narsaraopet, Lingampalli, Shankarpalli, Tandur and Vikarabad - to be developed as Adarsh Stations.

* Multi-functional complexes to be set up at Dhar-
mavaram, Karimnagar, Kurnool, Nellore, Nizam-
abad, Vijayawada and Zaheerabad.

* Special tourist trains called Bharat Tirth to benefit pilgrims of the state.

Mourners pay homage as Jyoti Basu’s body lies in state

An endless stream of mourners filed past the body of former Chief Minister and CPI(M) legend Jyoti Basu draped in the national tri-colour as it lay in state at the West Bengal Assembly this morning.

Congress president Sonia Gandhi, who flew in here, paid floral tributes to Basu at the Assembly premises. She was accompanied by Union Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee.

Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee and CPI(M) Polit Bureau member Sitaram Yechury were also present on the occasion. Mr. Basu will be given a state funeral with military honours before the mortal remains are donated to the state-owned SSKM Hospital for medical research.

Mourners stood in queues stretching half-a-kilometre with garlands and wreaths to wait their turn for paying homage.

The body of Basu was brought to the Assembly at 10:10 am after briefly halting at CPI(M)’s state party headquarters at Alimuddin Street and at state secretariat, Writers’ Buildings, which was his office for 23 years from 1977. The Chief Minister and Chief Secretary Asok Mohan Chakraborty placed wreaths there.

The national tri-colour was draped on the body over the party’s red flag with personnel drawn from the Army, Navy and Air Force standing at attention. A large portrait of Basu with folded hands formed the background.

Basu last attended the assembly on February 1, 2001 where he was given a reception by Speaker H A Halim for his over 50 year of dedicated service to the people.