Imprudent Collector repaired to size after Prafulla Samantara commenced Satyagrah for Tribals

Around 5000 tribals representing vast tribal communities of Sundargarh had to press collective clutch on the district collectorate on October 21 as the imprudent Collector had pooh-poohed their request to receive a memorandum they had addressed to the President of India against illegal allocation of their land to Dalmia group for stone mining.

The cement company wants more than 2000 acres of land for stone mining and the administration has allegedly helped the company grab 750 of land that belong to the Tribals. Naturally, therefore, as people of the locality fear, the Collector didnot heed to their request to receive and forward the grievance-Memo to the President of India. He did not even depute any officer to recieve the Memo.

President of Lokashakti Abhijan, Prafulla Samantara, in protest against the Collector’s brash manners prfered a persoinal Satyagrah with a faxed message to the Chief Minister and the Governor. This brought the district’s top bureaucrat to size. The Memo was received and the issue was discussed with a team of the demonstrators’ representatives. Samantara, in view of this, called off his Satyagrah.

We feel, there should be an enquiry into the anti-people aptitude of the Collector and to find out whether or not the district administration has danced to the tune of the Dalmia group in the instant case.

If BJD wins Dhamnagar, Mrs. Pandian shall be the next CM

Subhas Chandra Pattanayak

If BJD wins the Dhamnagar bye election, there is every possibility of Mrs. Pandian becoming the next CM of Orissa. The super Chief Minister may surpass the real Chief Minister in the game of treachery he has been playing so far.

Come the general election-2024, a keen observer of political scenario in the State feels, BJD would plant atleast 75 women candidates for the Assembly from the Women’s Self-Help Groups (WSHGs) to whom Mrs Pandian is their emancipator by virtue of being the chief of Mission Shakti.

Clandestinely and cunningly these possible candidates are being cultivated and brainwashed.

Ms. Abanti Das, the BJD candidate for Dhamnagar comes from the WSHGs sector. Her victory would build up confidence in ambitious members of WSHGs to contest and win the Assembly elections. Pandian, who de facto rules over the ruling party, would ensure tickets to them and if BJD wins, majority of its elected members shall be from the WSHGs sector, whom Mrs Pandian has been nurturing.

They shall then openly declare their allegiance to Mrs. Pandian.

BJD shall jetition Naveen Patnaik in the special circumstances and welcome Mrs Pandian to the chair of its supremo.

Curtain would be drawn on the continuing anarchy.

Chief Minister rewards sycophants with top-notch positions: Administration in the doldrums

Subhas Chandra Pattanayak

Official Departments in Orissa have been thwarted into the grip of political factotums of Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik in an order his office has promulgated.

Who of them has been rewarded with which post is not material. Material is: unnecessary creation of a browbeating layer of political knots over the Executive Government of Orissa.

We have two types of Governments, which twined together serve the people with the essence of democracy. They are Political Government and Executive Government. The Political Government is headed by the Chief Minister with Ministers in control of all the Departments assigned to each of them and the Executive Government is headed by the Chief Secretary with Secretaries in charge of administration in departments assigned to each of them. So every department is controlled by a Minister with a Secretary at the helm of its affairs.

The Chief Minister, in order to please his sycophants have created uncalled for positions between the Ministers and the Secretaries in almost all departments and therefore, the Executive Government is to act subservient to the sycophants of the Chief Minister. For example, Rama Chandra Panda has been appointed advisor to Agriculture & Farmers Empowerment Department. Obviously, the Secretary of the Department is to work under his advice. Degrading the Chief Executive of a Department to such a situation is, if anything, counterproductive to the scheme of administration of the said department. De facto it throws administration in the Department into the doldrums.

The Chief Minister has sinisterly kept the people in dark so far about how such arrangement he had made in the past has helped in bettering administration.

Creating a privileged pedigree of politicians who would, without being the Ministers, enjoy the powers to interfere in the works of the departmental secretaries sans any answerability and accountability is a serious administrative disorder that the Chief Minister has been promoting, only in order to stay safe in his politics of power by appeasing a section of his sycophants, who, he fears, may cause problems unless rewarded with top-notch positions.

Anarchy is not far away, it seems.

Orissa Chief Minister vandalises the Law, appoints de facto Cabinet Ministers behind back of the Governor

Subhas Chandra Pattanayak

Orissa Chief Minister has appointed three of his followers as members of the State Planning Board, by name Prasanna Patsani, Ramesh Chandra Chyau Patnaik and Sadhu Nepak. Whereas Patsani and Patnaik are given Cabinet rank, Nepak is placed in the rank of a Minister of State. All these three fellows are activists of BJD that the CM heads.

Notwithstanding their grade, the rank of minister bestows upon these ruling party politicians the privileges that the members of the Council of Ministers are empowered with. These fellows would enjoy all powers that are vested in the legally appointed ministers, but shall not be answerable to the people.

In a State, Cabinet and other ministers are appointed by the Governor under the provisions of the Constitution of India and function as per the Rules of Business, which the Governor frames and promulgates under Art.166 of the Constitution. Neither the Constitution nor the Rules of Business has any provision for such de facto members of the cabinet.

The Orissa Ministers’ Salaries and Allowances Act, 1952 has no provision for de facto ministers. Hence the Director of Treasuries is not empowered to pay the salaries and allowances of these fellows appointed in the rank of ministers. But he is bound to pooh-pooh the Act in the instant case.

Sad, the Governor of Orissa is a silent spectator to this vandalisation of Law!

HSRP:A method to test how far people bear with arbitrary administrative action

Subhas Chandra Pattanayak

Affixation of High Security Registration Plate (HSRP) on vehicles, with threat of heavy penalty to defaulters, is perhaps a method to test how far people bear with arbitrary administrative action.

The term ‘high security’ is not defined in Law and nobody knows how his/her vehicle would be secured by this high security registration plate. Vehicle owners have affixed registration plates in earmarked spaces of their respective vehicles. They have spent money for that. Why are they being forced to spend more money in these HSRPs?

Governments, both at the Center and in the States have not declared their own responsibility in respect to vehicles that comply with the HSRP order.

Affixation of registered number plate on a vehicle is controlled under Section 39 of the Motor Vehicle Act, 1988 that reads as follows:

“No person shall drive any motor vehicle and no owner of a motor vehicle shall cause or permit the vehicle to be driven in any public place or in any other place unless the vehicle is registered in accordance with this Chapter and the certificate of registration of the vehicle has not been suspended or cancelled and the vehicle carries a registration mark displayed in the prescribed manner.”

Thus, preparation and affixation of necessary plates to display registration number of the vehicles was the responsibility of owners thereof. This had allowed every vehicle owner to prepare his /her own number plate and affix the same in the vehicle. So, subjecting those vehicle owners to rush to a particular person / farm through electronic means to get a high security plate without knowing the scope and limit of high security and further subjecting them to a panic period generated by the threat of a menacing cash penalty is blatantly arbitrary.

Data in the high security plate would help in identifying a stolen vehicle, the government say. But they do not say what punishment shall be given to the officer who fails to retrieve the vehicle even after identification.

Government in a democracy mustn’t be a vehicle for intimidating the people with threat of cash punishment as is happening in HSRP matter that has retrospective effect.

Editor's Picks

Oriya Language created Orissa and therefore Orissa must be ruled by Oriya Language

Subhas Chandra Pattanayak

Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik seems to have developed a wrong notion that governance of Orissa in Oriya depends upon his mercy. His press-note of December 17 and full page display advertisement in major broadsheets of today force us to arrive at this apprehension.

In his December 17 press note it was declared that he had held a meeting with the five members of the ministerial committee on that day for the purpose of “strictly implementing the Orissa Official Language Act, 1954 in official and non-official level” to facilitate which a website has been floated by the government. In the full page multi-color advertisement in broadsheet dailies today, this is intriguingly missing.

The advertisement is designed to tell the people that Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik has taken historical steps to save and develop Oriya language, and has enumerated the steps he has taken. This is blatant lie. Neither he nor his government has executed any single item claimed to be “historical” in the official advertisement. The entire advertisement is nothing but false propaganda. What a shame it is, that, the people of Orissa are taken for granted by their Chief Minister! Read more →

Navakalevara: Legends and reality

Subhas Chandra Pattanayak

Legends are the most misguiding mischief aimed at superimposing lies on reality so that indigenous people of an occupied land are kept too dazzled to see the dark face of the rulers and the class of exploiters can keep its victims subjugated to its authority, while forcing them to forget the heroic history of evolution of their own philosophy of life, their own splendid spiritual realizations, their own socio-economic uniqueness, their own ancient culture, their own valorous past, their own way of social integration and their own civilization.

We see this mischief galore in the context of Navakalevara of SriJagannatha.

So, here, we are to rip apart the legends and bring the reality of the Navakalevara to light, as thereby alone we can reach the lost uniqueness of the people of Orissa.

We will use Puri Sankaracharya’s self-proclaimed authority over Navakalevara to proceed with our purpose.

  Read more →

Samaja in Maze of Forgery: Two former Ministers of Orissa – Lingaraj Mishra & Radhanath Rath forged the WILL of Gopabandhu; Both benefitted till their death; SoPS continues to Loot

Subhas Chandra Pattanayak

The Oriya daily SAMAJA founded by late Utkalmani Pandit Gopabandhu Das, to which, out of their love and reverence for the great humanitarian leader, the people of Orissa had and have been giving their financial and moral support, is in a menacing maze of forgery and loot.

Sadly, two of Gopabandhu’s trusted men – Lingaraj Mishra and Radhanath Rath – who, because of being known so, had the opportunity of becoming cabinet ministers in Orissa, were the masterminds and/or makers of the forgery from which the paper is yet to be salvaged.

Both of them – Lingaraj and Radhanath – had partnered with each other in forging the last WILL of Gopabandhu to grab the Samaja, which being Gopabandhu’s paper was of superb credibility and the greatest political instrument of the day. They had performed this crime behind the screen of and in nexus with Servants of the People Society (SoPS), of which, while breathing his last, Gopabandhu was the Vice-President. Read more →