UNPRECEDENTED ACRIMONY IN ORISSA ASSEMBLY: THANKS GIVING STALLED

Subhas Chandra Pattanayak

Unprecedented acrimony between both the sides rocked Orissa Assembly to the extent of postponement of customary vote of thanks on the Governor’s address.

Pending reply of the Chief Minister to the debate on Kalinga Nagar massacre, the Housed resumed today, 13 Feb. 06, with the agenda to propose thanks to the Governor. But before proceeding with the agenda, bulging bags of unknown contents carried into the hall by Congress members Anup Sai and three others made the treasury bench squawk. The House Marshall was pressed into action. He tried to take away the bag under possession of Sri Sai, but in vain. Sai dragged the bag into the well of the House and tried to put it on the Reporters’ table. BJD heavyweight Pradipta Maharathi tried to obstruct and in the irascibility it provoked, member Ravi Mallick fell down on the floor and the bag unknotted, coughing out coins of marginal denominations. Vinod Patra, Nimai Sircar and Debasish Patnaik heaped coins on the tale. There was heaps of coin, on the Reporters’ table and on the floor of the well. This is the money the Congress members, subjected to cash penalty by the speaker, were depositing in presence of all the members when the House was in session, they declared. Speaker Maheswar Mohanty adjourned the House under the embarrassing situation.

Criticizing the Congress for causing such chaos in the House, Maharathi later underlined that there should be stringent laws to prohibit such foul play.

Is it a foul play? Asks Deputy Leader of Opposition, Narasingh Misra. The Speaker had passed an unprecedented order of cash penalty on the MLAs on the floor of the House. He had refused to relent also on the floor of the House. Hence the penalty money was to be deposited on the floor of the House. There was no reason to refuse the deposit. The Speaker could have accepted the money through his officials after that was placed on the floor. The money was in coin form because Congress supporters from all over the State had contributed the fine money as a mark of solidarity with their leaders. The Speaker, as he had issued orders for cash collection from the members against their role in the floor of the House, should have asked his officers to take the money from there under receipt. The Government was well aware of the contribution of the entire fine money by members of the public and that the same was going to be deposited was also known to Government through intelligence. The government, scared as it is to face the Opposition in course of thanks giving to the Governor, was eager to buy a day for which members of the treasury bench were prompted to obstruct the deposit and to whip up acrimony, Mishra alleged.

THE ONLY PARTNER ALSO FINDS FAULT WITH NAVEEN

(Roving Reporter)

The only partner of Chief Mnister Naveen Patnaik, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), also finds fault with him in the matter of the massacre that blood-bathed the Kalinga Nagar Industrial Complex on January 02, 2006.

In its executive committee held at Jaypore, stratagem was brooded over how to show the people that BJP was not in agreement with the CM mingling with mine-grabbers.

Its provincial president Juel Oram told the Press that his party begs pardon of the people for the State perpetrated blood-flow in Kalinga Nagar. But, they were not responsible for the onslaught on the tribals. It is Naveen Patnaik and his followers in BJD who should be held responsible, he said.

Pointing at Naveen Patnaik he said, it is irksome on part of the CM not to have visited the victims despite the Assembly in session having witnessed unprecedented agony over the massacre. That neither Naveen nor any of his ministers belonging to BJD has visited the spot indicates that they are conscious of their guilt and lack courage to face the people, Oram revealed.

Even though funny by itself, inasmuch as neither the Revenue Minister nor the Industries Minister who belong to BJP and who are the only ministers directly linked to the industrial rehabilitation, have never gone to Kalinga Nagar after the incident, the BJP’s attempts to point the accusing finger at Naveen Patnaik do strongly suggest that the cloud that is to shroud over Orissa’s political sky in precipitated course, is bound to be dark and dense.

BJD is yet to react.

NAVEEN PATNAIK IS RUINING ORISSA: MEDHA PATEKAR

(Roving Reporter)

Naveen Patnaik who is averse to mother tongue of the State is ruining Orissa by companyalising its Government, alleged eminent environmentalist Medha Patekar after a visit to the villages earmarked to be pushed into the POSCO domain.

The state seems like running under foreign hands having no inclination to safeguard the bare minimum interest of the people.

It is sad that the self-employed cultivators of Kujang Tahsil are going to be pauperized by their own government because their ancestral source of livelihood as well as their environment of living is going to be handed over to the foreign company POSCO, she rued.

The inhabitants of Kujang Tahsil have been devastated so many times by natural calamities. But because their ancestral lands were with them, they have always overcome the debacle and built up their homes afresh. Naveen Patnaik is displacing these brave people from their places as a result of which they shall be reduced to paupers and proletariats. They shall be debarred from their status as independent farmers and be compelled to serve as worker under a foreign company, if that company graciously agrees to grant them the status of its servants. How shall it benefit the State? She asked.

It is alarming, she said, that the people of the area where POSCO shall rule have not been made aware of the impact of the Industry on their lives, properties and environment. The State Government has been executing its conspiracy clandestinely.

If Naveen Patnaik is interested in Orissa’s financial wellbeing, she asked, how is it that the POSCO is being helped to get the ores at only 20 percent of the cost presently prevalent in the market?

A responsible and pro-people government would never have wanted to squander away the mineral stock of the State. In stead of handing over the natural wealth to foreign and inland monopolies, it should have engineered utilization thereof by encouraging local inhabitants to develop small scale industries for fetching profit for the State, she emphasized.

Instead of nationalizing the private companies that exploit people, people like Naveen Patnaik have been handing over the people to private companies. Can any patriot remain a silent spectator to this? She asked.

THE WORST INSTANCE OF BRUTALITY: MEDHA ON KALINGA NAGAR

Subhas Chandra Pattanayak

Iron lady of humanitarian activism Medha Patekar has come down heavily on Orissa Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik after a visit to Kalinga nagar massacre site on Feb 11.

He has certainly erred, she felt. If not he, who shall be held responsible for the cold blooded murder of 12 illiterate tribal citizens who did not do any crime other than calling upon the State to protect their fundamental right over howsoever tiny might be their plots of land, she asked.

The tribal gathering on Tata’s boundary building site was not a confrontation with the State. They had been praying the State to save their property from the industrial avarice and on the 2nd January 06 their gathering was a simple manifestation of their collectively seeking State-aid. But, the State acted against its own people and perpetrated the unexpected and unprovoked mayhem.

When the tribals were expressing their resentment continuously for so many months, was it not the duty of Naveen Patnaik to direct his government to take up conciliation over the matter and to ensure that the poor and proletariat get justice in respect to their sources of livelihood? She asked.

To tell the least this is worst instance of brutality that a government in free India has ever perpetrated on its innocent, illiterate and jungle-dependant people. She shall attract attention of the world community to this brutality, declared Medha.

KALINGA NAGAR MASSACRE: GOVT. AFRAID OF FORMING HOUSE COMMITTEE

Subhas Chandra Pattanayak

The Opposition in its entirety has refused the so-called All-Party-Legislators-Meeting conveyed by Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik in the matter of rehabilitation of people affected by project-linked displacement and demanded that the State Assembly being in the midst of an ongoing motion on the subject, such a meeting could induce confusion besides being barren.

A House Committee may be the appropriate forum to look in-depth into the issue and to suggest remedial measures, if any, the Opposition opined. But the CM has refused to agree. It seems the government is afraid of forming the House Committee as such a Committee would legally be entitled to find out the root that masterminded the massacre or behind the screen villain that precipitated the mayhem.

The Opposition argument is politically motivated, allege the ruling allies. Biswabhusan Harichandan, who was blamed by the Opposition during debates in the House as a man that despite being the Industry Minister had not the slightest humanitarian responsibility of getting himself personally apprised of the misfortune the Kalinga Nagar industrial shenanigans have subjected our poor tribals to, boasted after the CM’s meeting that the best rehabilitation policy would be soon framed up by Orissa.

The House as well as the people of the State shall, however, wait till 15th to see what the CM says.

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.

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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 →