HEAD LINE:

• If need arises, will repeat Kandahar swap, says Jaswant (TOI)
• India 'obliged to consider all options', says Pranab (IE)
• Antulay's remark on Karkare has hit war on terror: BJP (IE)

LEAD:

A day after Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari told the BBC there was no "real evidence" that the Mumbai attackers came from is country, former premier Nawaz Sharif said he had "personally checked" that surviving terrorist Ajmal Ameer Kasab belonged to Faridkot village in Pakistani Punjab. "It has been said this individual named Ajmal Kasab hails from Faridkot village. I have seen and I personally got this checked. The village and its surrounding areas have been cordoned off by security agencies. His parents are not being allowed to meet anyone," Sharif told Geo News. "What was the need to do this? If (Kasab) is not involved (in the Mumbai attacks), then he is not involved. People and the media should be allowed to meet everyone in that area," Sharif said. He added: "All this points to the fact that we too need to set our house in order." After reporters from Pakistan's Dawn and the UK's The Observer tracked down Kasab's family in Faridkot, local officials and security agencies stopped the entry of outsiders into the area. Protesters scuffled with the media for "defaming" the village. (IE)

• New Delhi: Congress on Friday appeared to be in a deep bind as a defiant minority affairs minister A R Antulay, disregarding all suggestions to resile from his statement alleging a conspiracy behind the killing of Mumbai ATS chief Karkare, shrewdly sought to raise the political cost of his sack ahead of looming elections. Picking up from his stance on Thursday, when he refused to retract his controversial comments while virtually daring PM Manmohan Singh to dismiss him, Antulay stuck to his guns amid indications of growing support for him among Muslims. The PM and Congress chief Sonia Gandhi are to review the situation along with senior colleagues at the meeting of the party's core committee. But as the political drama moved into the sensitive zone of religious politics with a pro-Antulay mobilisation across party lines, Congress sources conceded that sacking the minister was not an easy option. Antulay played his hand on Friday with a strong show of strength. Ignoring the wishes of Congress leadership, th Union minister told reporters "both party and govt should be proud of it (comments)". (TOI)
• Congress MP Rahul Gandhi on Friday declined to comment on the controversy over remarks made by Union minister A.R. Antulay on the killing of Maharashtra ATS chief Hemant Karkare. He said the issue would be resolved by senior Congress leaders. Replying to a question about a Congress-SP alliance, he said talks on seat-sharing between the two parties were in progress. "The talks are on and let us see what happens next," he said. He also refused to comment on Ms Mayawa-ti's denial about any deterioration in law and order. (AA)
• New Delhi: There seems no end to the self-goals BJP is prepared to concede. Just as Congress was hit by minority affairs minister A R Antulay's remarks connecting shooting of Mumbai ATS chief Hemant Karkare with the Malegaon case, BJP leader Jaswant Singh offered it a lifeline, claiming he would do the Kandahar hostage-for-terrorists swap all over again. In a TV interview, Singh not only justified the Kandahar deal, he said if the situation so warranted, he was ready to repeat the swap that led to the release of Jaish-e-Mohammed founder Maulana Masood Azhar, Daniel Pearl's killer Omar Shaikh and another dangerous jihadi Mushtaq Zargar. The Kandahar swap is the most obvious weak point for BJP and Singh, who as foreign minister had escorted the three terrorists to Kandahar, got provoked by Congress's repeated attempts to embarrass BJP over the issue. The leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha said, "If such a situation (IC-814 hijack) arises again, I will do the same again," providing fodder to a gleeful Congres
• BJP tried to wriggle out of the situation with spokesperson Ravi Shankar Prasad saying he was not aware of the context in which Singh had made the statement. He said the release of terrorists was a "painful decision in painful circumstances". He might as well have added that the pain had still not gone away. (TOI)
• Gangtok: India on Friday said it was obliged to "consider the entire range of options that exist" with the failure of Pakistan to deliver on its promise of not supporting Terror activities. "Terrorism remains a scourge for our region. If a country cannot keep the assurances that it has given, then it obliges us to consider the entire range of options that exist to protect our interests and people from this menace," External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee said, without naming Islamabad. "We have made repeated appeals to our neighbours over the years to ensure that they do not provide support to terrorist activities and to dismantle the terrorist infrastructure...but our pleas have been ignored in spite of assurances given by them," Mukherjee said. (IE)
• New Delhi: The UPA Govt on Friday told the Supreme Court that it would be perfectly legal and lawful if Congress president Sonia Gandhi takes on a constitutional post. "The very fact that Constitutions of various countries of the world make distinctions between naturally born and other types of citizens, whereas the Constitution of India does not make any such distinction, shows a conscious effort on the part of the framers of the Constitution not to make a similar distinction within 'single class of citizens'," the Centre submitted before the apex court. Countering opposition that a foreign-born citizen cannot be allowed to hold any Constitutional office like that of a Member of Parliament, the Law Ministry said, "As the Constitution recognises only one class of citizens, no distinction can be drawn upon such citizens either under the Constitution or the Citizenship Act, 1955." (IE)

MANMOHAN SINGH & GOVT

PM Manmohan Singh on Friday advised developing countries to devise their own ways of tackling crises such as the global financial meltdown, climate change or even terrorism. For, "the response of the developed countries to the challenges of our times, be it financial crisis or climate change or terrorism, shows that they have no monopoly on good ideas. We in the developing world wish to work with the developed, but we have to find our own ways to deal with these challenges." Dr. Singh was speaking at a function here to felicitate Nobel laureate Amartya Sen on his 75th birthday. Reasoning the need for such an attitudinal change, he said: "The imperatives of development, of the well-being of our people, and the logic of democratic politics dictate this. We are after all answerable to our people." It was time for the global polity to catch up with the times and address the challenges posed by the global economy, Dr. Singh said. (HINDU)

BJP

After demanding that Union Minority Affairs Minister A R Antulay be sacked for his comments on the killing of former Maharashtra ATS chief Hemant Karkare, the BJP on Friday said that the UPA Govt, by not outrightly rejecting his comments, had broken the post-Mumbai attack consensus in the country. "The country was speaking in one voice after the Mumbai attack, but it was a Congress minister who brought a Muslim dimension to this," said BJP spokesperson Ravi Shankar Prasad on Friday. Prasad cautioned that if the minister's assertions went uncontested by the Govt, there could be a repeat of the recent episode wherein Pakistan had claimed that "it had no role in the Samjhauta blasts, and that the Indian side was concocting a story", citing the Colonel Purohit controversy. (IE)

CONGRESS

Congress on Friday appeared to be in a deep bind as a defiant minority affairs minister A R Antulay, disregarding all suggestions to resile from his statement alleging a conspiracy behind the killing of Mumbai ATS chief Karkare, shrewdly sought to raise the political cost of his sack ahead of looming elections. Picking up from his stance on Thursday, when he refused to retract his controversial comments while virtually daring PM Manmohan Singh to dismiss him, Antulay stuck to his guns amid indications of growing support for him among Muslims. The PM and Congress chief Sonia Gandhi are to review the situation along with senior colleagues at the meeting of the party's core committee. But as the political drama moved into the sensitive zone of religious politics with a pro-Antulay mobilisation across party lines, Congress sources conceded that sacking the minister was not an easy option. Antulay played his hand on Friday with a strong show of strength. (TOI)

STATES

ANDHRA PRADESH

With the Assembly election in Andhra Pradesh barely four months away, the Congress is learnt to be doing a re-think on setting up the Second State Reorganisation Commission (SSRC) to address the issue of creation of new states. Even after the Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) walked out of the UPA Govt in August 2006 accusing it of reneging on the promise of creating a new state of Telangana, the Congress had refused to make any commitment on the SSRC, considering the demands for separate states across the country, vis-a-vis Vidarbha, Bundelkhand, Harit Pradesh, Gorkhaland etc. "The SSRC will open a Pandora's Box. But we have to take a stand on this issue now. We have to say something to the people of Telangana. The party has to take a decision either way," a top Congress leader told The Indian Express. The Govt had earlier set up a Cabinet sub-committee headed by External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee to look into this issue but there has been no headway since. (IE)

DELHI

Social workers Shabnam Hashmi and Dr. Inderjit Kaur were presented the National Minority Rights Award, instituted by the National Commission for Minorities, here on Thursday by Justice Rajinder Sachar. Both the recipients were chosen for their outstanding contribution in safeguarding and promoting the constitutional and legal rights of the minorities in the country. Dr. Kaur was chosen for her commitment in promoting the rights of minorities, communal harmony and human rights. Born in 1942, Dr. Kaur earned her MBBS degree from Govt Medical College, Patiala. Recipient of Padma Bhushan and Excellence Among Sikhs Trophy instituted by the Sikh Council on Religion and Education, USA, Dr. Kaur has to her credit several awards. Born in 1957, she has been working as a social worker for more than 25 years and started her work with an adult literacy campaign in 1981. (HINDU)

J&K

Campaigning for the seventh and last phase of the ongoing J&K Assembly polls will reach a crescendo, with top leaders schedule to campaign in the border state from on Saturday. BJP's prime ministerial candidate L.K. Advani, who will be visiting the state for the first time during the ongoing elections, will address rallies in Jammu and Samba districts on Friday, BJP leaders said. UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi will address a rally in support of the party candidates in R.S. Pura belt of Jammu district on December 21. (AA)

KARNATAKA

Several Congress leaders on Friday alleged that Chief Minister B.S. Yeddyurappa and his cabinet colleagues, such as Anand Asnotikar, Shivanagouda Nayak, Umesh Katti and Balachandra Jarakiholi, had been misusing the services of officials to further the chances of the BJP candidates in the Legislative Assembly byelections. The former ministers H. Vishwanath and H.M. Revanna and the former Legislative Council Chairman V.R. Sudarshan alleged that the officers were working in tandem with the ministers, without any decency or democratic values. They urged the Chief Election Commissioner to intervene and set right the lapses as the Chief Electoral Officer was unable to reign in. Mr. Vishwanath, a prominent Kuruba leader, took exception to the manner in which the two other caste leaders, MLA Varthur Prakash and R.Mukudappa, a former Member of the Karnataka Public Service Commission, for asking the Kuruba voters in these eight constituencies to vote for a single party, especially the BJP. (HINDU)

MAHARASHTRA

It's been more than 10 months since Fahim Arshad Ansari, the alleged Indian operative of Lashkar-e-Toiba suspected of providing local help for the Mumbai Terror attacks, was arrested but an e-mail account apparently belonging to him continues to remain active, giving investigators a glimpse of his correspondence and interests. The Indian Express got access to the account created under a Hindu username, and found less than a dozen mails in all folders, such as Inbox, Sent messages, Drafts, put together. Ansari has had no access to this account since his arrest on February 10 but the most recent email in his Inbox is dated December 3 this year, containing the article "Pakistani Reaction to Mumbai Attacks," and shows the sender's name as "Sonia Mandeville," believed to be an alias or a false ID. The article itself is from Islamic-World.Net, the official website of the Khalifah Institute, an Islamic charitable trust in Malaysia. It refers to the end of the siege at the Taj Mahal hotel, India holding Pakistan resp onsible for the attacks and Islamabad changing its mind about sending the ISI chief to New Delhi. (IE)

RAJASTHAN

Rajasthan CM Ashok Gehlot on Friday inducted 11 Cabinet and two ministers of state into his Govt. While four MLAs have held ministerial positions in the previous Congress govt, four Independents were also sworn in as ministers, among them former BJP minister MLA Dr Kirori Lal Meena's wife Golma Devi and two of his supporters. Three other Independents who have pledged support to the Congress Govt were made parliamentary secretaries. Governor S K Singh administered the oath of secrecy and office at the Raj Bhavan in Jaipur, while a Cabinet meeting was held till late at night to decide individual portfolios. Sources in the Congress stated that the berths were spread across most communities and castes and keeping in mind the upcoming Lok Sabha elections. Following the oath ceremony, Gehlot said, "we have one month to prove our majority after which we may expand the ministry. We will begin work as promised in our manifesto and work towards the upliftment of women, Dalits and BPL families." (IE)

UTTRAKHAND

The Uttarakhand Vidhan Sabha witnessed uproarious scenes and three adjournments with irate Congress and Bahujan Samaj Party members seeking a discussion on the fate of the Shiksha Mitras (part time teachers) and the brutal lathi-charge and attempted suicide by two of them near the Vidhan Sabha. The Shiksha Mitras have been on a dharna near the Vidhan Sabha seeking regularisation for over a year now. Most of them have been teaching children in schools of remote villages. The commotion subsided after Speaker Harbans Kapoor allowed a discussion on the issue. The Leader of the Opposition, Harak Singh Rawat, and others stressed for an early regularisation of the Shiksha Mitras. (HINDU)

UTTAR PRADESH

Union minister for minority welfare A R Antulay, who has kicked up a furore with his remarks on the circumstances leading to Mumbai ATS chief Hemant Karkare's death along with three of his top aides, on Friday found strong support from the top Shia and Sunni clerics in Uttar Pradesh. Antulay, who has called for a probe into Karkare's death, was backed by leading Shia cleric, Maulana Kalbe Jawwad, who said, "We don't doubt the sacrifice of Karkare. But the entire sequence of events which ended up in his untimely death raises doubts." Jawwad told TOI that Karkare could have been misdirected to Cama Hospital instead of other sites of strike. He also demanded a probe into the lapses which allowed the terrorists to travel all the way to Mumbai from Gujarat. Maulana Khalid Rasheed, who heads Firangi Mahal, Lucknow's oldest Islamic seminary, too called for a probe. "An impartial probe into the incident must be ordered as it will allay doubts in the minds of Muslims," he said. (TOI)

EDITORIAL

Words, mischief: When Union Minority Affairs Minister A.R. Antulay suggested that Hemant Karkare's death may be connected to the Malegaon investigation, he set off a political storm. The two Houses of Parliament crackled with calls for his resignation by the opposition parties, led predictably by the BJP. Online polls are throwing up a diversity of verdicts on the sagacity of Antulay's remarks. But through the initial hours and days, the Congress broadcast its dilemma through silence, and bfuscation. External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee sought to fend off pressure to respond by saying the Govt would do so in Parliament. Party spokespersons distanced the party from its minister by saying he had uttered the remarks in his personal capacity, and that they had been blown out of proportion. No matter what Antulay's eventual fate as a member of Manmohan Singh's cabinet, one assertion cannot be allowed to go uncontested. When remarks like his are introduced into the public domain, when they are uttered by a minister in whatever capacity, they cannot be waved away as "personal views". As an analysis in this newspaper on Friday highlighted, what Antulay was doing was feed into fears among many Muslims about the credibility of police investigations. Questioning the facts of an encounter is a valid exercise in a democracy.(IE)