APDLF pleads Sonia for associate membership to Congress

ITANAGAR, June 23 (UNI) A delegation of Arunachal Pradesh Democratic Legislators Forum (APDLF) headed by MLA R K Khrimey has pleaded with Congress President Sonia Gandhi for granting associate membership of the party to all the 13 independent MLAs of the state.

Talking to UNI over phone, Khrimey informed that the Congress president's response was positive to the plea the delegation met the Congress Chief yesterday.

Khrimey also appraised her of state's latest political situation and the relation of independent MLAs with the ruling Congress.

The independent legislators have been extending unconditional support to the Congress government since Gegong Apang was sworn in as the Chief Minister on October ten last year.

The Chief Minister has also supported the move of the independents MLAs.

membership of Congress.

In the last assembly elections the Congress had bagged 34 seats, BJP nine, independents 13, Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and regional Arunachal Congress (AC) two each in the 60-member house.

Tribals uprising against naxalites in Chhattsigarh CHHATTISGARH, June 23 (UNI) Driven to desperation over continuing violence , local tribal population are up in ar against naxalite outfit CPI (Maoist) in the remote villages of Bastar region of the state.

During the last one week, local villagers have organised meetings at various places and resolved to fight the naxalites demanding that the state government provide weapons to them so that they could drive out the extremists from the region.

People of about 50 villages assembled at Bhairamgarh yesterday and resolved to bar the entry of Maoists into their villages but the tribals also urged the state government to provide adequate protection to their family members.

Local villagers, who attended the meeting, said the locals felt the need of setting up village level groups and equip them with weapons so that they could counter the left wing extremists who, they felt, were destroying the tribal culture and exploiting the poor tribals.

Tribal uprising against the naxalites began nearly a week ago after a clash between the naxalites and local villagers, that left about eight people dead and injured more than a 100 people in the villages around Matwada.

The trouble broke out after the naxalites attacked the villagers, who were returning after attending an anti-naxalite meeting, with sharp-edged weapons and raised arrows, injuring scores of villagers.

Agitated over the incident, the villagers set on fire the houses of members of 'Sangam'-a frontal outfit of naxalites at various places, resulting in counter attack from the naxalite cadres.

"We are gearing up our machinery to step up our campaign against the naxalites, state home minister Ramvichar Netam said.

Netam, who hails from the naxalite infested Sarguja region bordering Jharkhand, also expressed hope that the ongoing anti-naxalite campaign would also spread to all other places where naxalite outfifts were active.

Meanwhile, official sources said it would be 'premature' to say anything at this moment about the villagers' demand for providing weapons to them as the concept itself has to be examined and approved at various levels.

On the other hand, local tribals in South Bastar have also started mounting pressure on elected representatives , including legislators and members of panchayati raj institutions, to join their struggle against the naxalites.

During the recent anti-naxalite meetings, the villagers had expressed their resentment against the elected representatives saying that most of them have not even visited all the places in their constituency despite being elected from the area on several occasions.

Inorder to step up their campaign, the villagers have also constituted a committee and they also want to include the elected representatives in it.

But none of the elected representatives turned up for the meeting so far.

In one of the meeting, the villagers have also decided to mount pressure on the legislators and other elected representatives to resign from their posts if they failed to turn up at the ant-naxalite meeting scheduled to be held during the next few days.

Meanwhile, Inspector General of Police (Bastar range) W A Ansari told UNI that the police was keeping a close watch on the situation and security has been tightened around the villages where the locals had revolted against the naxalites.

When Chhattisgarh was carved out of Madhya Pradesh in November 2000, naxalites outfits Peoples' war (PW) and Maoist Communist Centre (MCC) were active in tribal Bastar region, neighbouring Andhra Pradesh, and in Sarguja region neighbouring Jharkhand.

Later, naxalite groups merged to become CPI (Maoist), which is now active in ten out of the total 16 districts of the state.

Govt to bring law regulating pharmacy in Indian medicine, homoeopath NEW DELHI, Jun 23 (UNI) The union cabinet today approved a proposal to introduce a bill in Parliament having provisions for theregulation of education and practice of pharmacy in Indian medicine and homeopathy.

Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee told reporters here that the Indian Medicine and Homeopathy Pharmacy Bill 2005 seeks to set up the Central Pharmacy Council to regulate the education and practice of the pharmacists in Ayurveda, Siddha, Unani and Homeopathy.

It would also help in maintaining a register of pharmacists.

The legislation would bring uniformity in the standards of pharmacy education in these disciplines.

These persons would be able to bring quality in the identification, collection, preservation and manufacturing of medicines.

These syste would be able to deliver quality medicines to the public.

The manufacturing units and retail outlets shall ensure that institutionally qualified personnel and scientific knowledge shall manage the medicines in these disciplines, he said.