Narendra Modi, a stern masterji on Teacher's Day

AHMEDABAD: And now presenting -Narendra Modi in the mask of a school master! The most propagated face of Gujarat will be on Doordarshan live for an hour on Friday, which marks Teacher's Day.

The state education department has issued a circular to all schools and colleges to compulsorily assemble all their students in an auditorium or playground to listen to Modi talk on TV and administer an oath which students will have to take down on a piece of paper and submit to authorities for the sake of records.Schools are already wondering how they would arrange for TV sets and make room for so many students, as many don't have playgrounds and run in two shifts because of paucity of space.

Usually, teachers of all schools take a break from teaching on this day while students play teachers and run mock classes.

Schools and colleges have to provide for televisions, notepads and combine both shifts of schools to assemble all students for the programme to begin at 11 am, after which Modi will take questions.

The circular also states that a surprise check would be conducted on schools and colleges to ensure compliance, failing which the principal of the institution would be held responsible.District Education Officer (Ahmedabad City) PB Gadhvi said, "Classrooms will have to keep televisions and schools will have to make arrangements for these." He admits that at least 40 per cent of the state's schools don't have a playground and only 365 of the 700-odd secondary schools have televisions.

State Principals Association president HK Dave said, "Village schools which don't have televisions have been asked to take students to other schools which have one. This will create a huge problem for principals since there is a lot of responsibility involved. Besides there is a problem of electricity."

Narendra Modi unlikely to camapign in Bihar: Sushma Swaraj

She said that it would be better if the "old arrangement" continued under which Modi had not campaigned during the 2005 Bihar Assembly polls and the 2009 general elections.

"Modi's magic and charisma have worked in Gujarat ... but it is not necessary that everybody's magic works at every place.

"In Bihar, the magic of Nitish Kumar and Sushil Kumar Modi is at the work ... and we are confident of our victory for carrying forward development," Swaraj told reporters here.

"Nitishji has put no condition before us whether or not Narendra Modi should campaign in Bihar. The decision who should or should not campaign in Bihar has been the sole discretion of BJP," she said.

On the recent statement of chief minister that the ideology of the JD(U) was different from that of BJP, she said, "If the ideology of both parties were similar, then both will have merged into one party.

"Kumar has been right in his stand that though the ideologies of the two parties are different, we have worked together keeping in view the Common Minimum Programme (CMP) for governance and delivered the goods," she said.

Swaraj said the NDA in Bihar represented an example of 'gathbandhan dharma' (coalition politics).

She said that the Congress' charge that Gujarat was 'a laboratory of RSS' was one out of frustration.

"The Congress has faced a complete rout in elections to urban and rural bodies in Bihar and, therefore, is making baseless allegations," Swaraj said.

Narendra Modi, Mahatma Gandhi are comparable for Nitin Gadkari

RAJKOT: It could be an attempt by the new leader of a crisis-ridden party to add shine to some of the leaders or just pro-forma homage to Gandhi on the day he was assassinated by a Hindu fanatic. But either way, Gandhians are not likely to be amused by the comparison between Narendra Modi and Bapu.

On his first visit to Gujarat, BJP's national president Nitin Gadkari compared chief minister Narendra Modi to Mahatma Gandhi on Saturday soon after paying homage at Kirti Mandir, Gandhi's birth place in Porbander, on his 62nd death anniversary. "Both worked on the same ideology that the poorest of poor and the man at the grassroot must get benefits," Gadkari said at the Garib Kalyan Mela, an outreach programme for the poor launched by Modi.

Lauding the initiative, Gadkari said, "Modi had digested well the ideology of Gandhiji and Pandit Deendayal Upadhyaya, one of the founders of the BJP. Development of villages was Gandhiji's aim and is Modi's aim too."

Gadkari, along with state ministers Purushottam Rupala, Jay Narayan Vyas, Vaju Vala, Vijay Rupani and Babu Bokhiriya, earlier attended a prayer session at Kirti Mandir. Later, he unveiled a bronze statue of Deendayal Upadhyaya. Speaking at the same mela, Modi said, "This is the 34th GKM and I am determined to provide food and facilities to the poor."

To a question on regionalism in Maharashtra, Gadkari said, "Division in the name of language is unfortunate. Gandhiji never showed us a path out of this."

BJP keeps Narendra Modi out of Bihar campaign

NEW DELHI: Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi will not campaign in Bihar during the upcoming Assembly elections as the BJP has kept him out of the list of its campaigners against the backdrop of reservations expressed by ally JD(U).

The list of 40 star campaigners of BJP was submitted by the party to the Election Commission yesterday as per the requirement, sources said here on Friday.

The list includes senior national leaders L K Advani, Nitin Gadkari, M M Joshi, Sushma Swaraj, Arun Jaitley, Rajnath Singh, Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi and the sources said.

Senior party leaders from Bihar including Deputy Chief Minister , Ravi Shanker Prasad, Rajiv Pratap Rudy, Shahnawaz Hussain and C P Thakur also figure in the list of BJP campaigners for the six-phase polls beginning on October 21.

However, Narendra Modi has been left out, apparently in view of reservations expressed by ally JD(U) against his campaigning in the state.

JD(U), which runs the government with BJP support, has been conveying to the ally that Narendra Modi should not campaign in Bihar as it would hurt the electoral prospects of the coalition because of the taint of Gujarat riots on him.

The decision to keep Narendra Modi away from Bihar campaigning comes despite demands from within BJP that he should visit the state to garner votes for the party.

The BJP is expected to launch its campaign from October 9 or 10.

SIT cuts short key testimony against Narendra Modi

NEW DELHI: The first ever legal testimony recorded against for his alleged complicity in the Gujarat riots was cut short on Tuesday when the witness, DIG Sanjiv Bhatt, was in the middle of his narrative on events preceding the murder of former Congress MP Ahsan Jafri at Gulberg Society.

The three officers of the Special Investigation Team (SIT) recording Bhatt's statement in Gandhinagar under Section 161 of the Criminal Procedure Code went for lunch, according to sources, just when the witness finished talking about the second meeting held by the chief minister with the police on February 28, 2002, the day after the Godhra incident.

But after conferring with the SIT's legal adviser K G Menon for about an hour, the team did not pick up the threads of the narrative from where it had stopped before the break. Instead, the SIT functionaries, Y C Modi, A K Malhotra and Himanshu Shukla, wound up the examination for the day after grilling Bhatt on why he had never before made any of those allegations against Modi.

The whistle-blower said, thanks to the SIT's summons in connection with the Gulberg case, he was for the first time in nine years under a legal obligation to disclose the inside information he had been privy to as an intelligence officer and as a participant in the meetings with Modi before and during the riots.

Before his testimony was came to a halt, Bhatt told SIT he had warned Modi twice on February 28 about the danger to Jafri. The first time was through a phone call at 11.30 am and the second was at a meeting called by Modi at 2 pm, where Modi agreed to call in the Army. Bhatt said that after the meeting Modi asked him to check if Jafri had a record of firing at Hindus.

Modi-fied questions

AHMEDABAD: The exam paper of Gujarati subject of SSC students seemed to push forward the agenda of chief minister . Of part-B of the question paper which has a weightage of 50 marks, 20% of the questions were devoted to schemes aggressively promoted by the CM and are close to his heart.

Section C of the Gujarati (higher level) had these two questions:

"Write a letter to your friend describing activities held in your school as part of 'Vaanche Gujarat' campaign". Vaanche Gujarat is known to be a pet project of the CM involving students of all schools, colleges and educational institutes. Modi even participated in the campaign by reading books in a public library in Gandhinagar

"Describe in 100 words, the cleanliness drive undertaken in your school under the 'Nirmal Gujarat' campaign."

Vibrant Gujarat Global Investor Summit 2009

Vibrant Gujarat Global Investor Summit 2009 The Government of Gujarat inaugurated their 4th Global Investor Summit Vibrant Gujarat in Ahmedabad on 12 & 13th January 2009. The CBC led a delegation of Members to the summit, at which Dr Kaul Chaired a special session on 'Infrastructure with a focus on Special Investment Regions (SIR). The Summit was well attended with over 20,000 delegates comprising Heads of Government, Government Ministers and international business leaders. Over the 2 day summit, $250Billion worth of investment in over 800 MoUs was signed. CBC Technologies, signed a MoU with the Government of Gujarat to build a Clean Technology Solar Power Plant for the production of 5 -10 MW. For more information please contact Vijay Amliwala. (L-R) Mr Narendra Modi, Chief Minister of Gujarat, Vijay Kumar, Managing Director, Commonwealth Financial Solutions, Mahesh Ramachandran, Director, Commonwealth Financial Solutions and Dr Mohan Kaul, CBC, launching the Micro Finance initiative in Gujarat, India CBC Breakfast meeting, Lagos The CBC had the pleasure of organising and hosting a breakfast meeting at the Eko Hotel Lagos, Nigeria on 22 January 2009 for our members & partners based in Nigeria, including; Kemson Concept Ltd, Oceanic Bank plc, UBA, Horwath Dafinone, Amazon Energy Ltd, Bank PHB, Access Bank plc, First City Monument Bank plc, Intercontinental Bank plc, Union Bank plc. With the number of CBC members in Nigeria increasing, the focus of the breakfast was to outline the CBCs forward programme for Nigeria, and to seek members views on how the CBCs service could be expanded and in which areas future work should concentrate.

Gujarat CM Modi expands cabinet, inducts six new ministers

Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday expanded his cabinet with the induction of six ministers, thereby taking the total tally of his council of ministers to 27.

February 2, 2011 - Ahmedabad

Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday expanded his cabinet with the induction of six ministers, thereby taking the total tally of his council of ministers to 27.

The ministers, who were sworn in by Governor Dr Kamala at a simple ceremony on the lawns of the Raj Bhavan today are Liladhar Vaghela (Deodhar), Ishvarbhai Patel (Ankleshvar), Ranjit Gilatwala (Surat), Jitu Sukhadia (Vadodara), Jaydratsinh Parmar (Halol) and Mohan Kunderia (Tankara). Ishvarbhai Patel and Jaydratsinh Parmar were already Parliamentary Secretaries.

This is the second expansion of the cabinet in the past five months. Before the crucial local self-governing bodies elections, Modi had expanded his cabinet on August 21last year and inducted four ministers, taking the strength of his ministry to 21.

Gujarat CM Modi expands cabinet, inducts six new ministers

Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday expanded his cabinet with the induction of six ministers, thereby taking the total tally of his council of ministers to 27.

February 2, 2011 - Ahmedabad

Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday expanded his cabinet with the induction of six ministers, thereby taking the total tally of his council of ministers to 27.

The ministers, who were sworn in by Governor Dr Kamala at a simple ceremony on the lawns of the Raj Bhavan today are Liladhar Vaghela (Deodhar), Ishvarbhai Patel (Ankleshvar), Ranjit Gilatwala (Surat), Jitu Sukhadia (Vadodara), Jaydratsinh Parmar (Halol) and Mohan Kunderia (Tankara). Ishvarbhai Patel and Jaydratsinh Parmar were already Parliamentary Secretaries.

This is the second expansion of the cabinet in the past five months. Before the crucial local self-governing bodies elections, Modi had expanded his cabinet on August 21last year and inducted four ministers, taking the strength of his ministry to 21.

Read more: http://www.andhranews.net/India/2011/Gujarat-CM-Modi-expands-cabinet-inducts-1070.htm#ixzz1EJ2tj4Us