HEAD LINE:

• "Common friends" trying to defuse India-Pakistan tensions, says Gilani (HINDU)
• India warns citizens against travel to Pakistan, Taliban Outfit Owns Up To Lahore Blast (TOI)
• Unsafe for Indians to travel to Pak: Delhi builds pressure (IE)
• SP, BSP no different, if one is sanpnath, other nagnath: BJP (IE)
• Inflation falls further, to 6.6% (TOI)

LEAD:

India on Friday warned its citizens against travelling to Pakistan, in a step designed to thwart dirty tricks from Pakistan which on Wednesday had tried to blame a blast in Lahore on an alleged Indian spy. The alert was sounded even as Islamabad's Lahore frame-up came unstuck with a little-known Taliban outfit based in North Waziristan, Ansar Wa Mohajir, stepping up to claim responsibility for the December 24 blast. India's foreign ministry said the warning was a fallout of reports in the Pakistani media that several Indians in Lahore and Multan had been arrested and branded terrorists by Pakistani authorities. It had been widely reported in the Pakistani media earlier that intelligence agencies had arrested four Indians for the same blast. The flaw in this set-up was that the local police seemed to be unaware of the arrests. This further strengthened the Indian suspicion that it was a deliberate ploy on the part of Pakistani authorities to obfuscate the real issue of Pakistan's refusal to act against the perpetrators of 26/11. "There have been reports in the Pakistani media that several Indian nationals have been arrested over the last two days in Lahore and Multan, and are being accused of being terrorists. (TOI)

• NEW DELHI: The chiefs of the Army, the Navy and the Air Force met PM Manmohan Singh on Friday and briefed him on the country's defence preparedness. The services chiefs also discussed the pay and service conditions in the armed forces against the backdrop of dissatisfaction over the Pay Commission's recommendations. Aware of how the meeting was being instantly perceived in the electronic media in both India and Pakistan, the PM's Office (PMO) put out a brief statement on the meeting. "The three services chiefs met PM Manmohan Singh in New Delhi this afternoon. The meeting lasted for about an hour. Service matters, including the recommendations of the Pay Commission, were discussed and the PM was briefed on the prevailing security situation," said the statement. (HINDU)
• Bhubaneswar: The BJD-BJP Govt in Orissa is closing in on Congress Rajya Sabha member and former civil servant Radhakanta Nayak for his "alleged role in the conspiracy to kill Lakshmanananda Saraswati." Sources say that Nayak, the most high-profile Christian political leader in the State, may be arrested shortly. The Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) has alleged that the plot to kill Lakshamananda Saraswati was "hatched in the presence of Nayak." The Criminal Investigation Department (CID) of Orissa police is said to be preparing a case against Nayak and his supporters. Though CID officials refused to comment whether they considered Nayak as one of the suspects, they said: "The mastermind has been identified and he is now out of Orissa." (IE)
• New Delhi: There is more evidence now of how valuable the November 19 alert of a Lashkar-e-Toiba vessel was, an alert that was passed on from agency to agency but could not avert the Mumbai attacks. Sources have confirmed to The Indian Express that the communication intercept a week before the Mumbai attacks about a "LeT vessel" headed towards Indian waters was picked up when terrorists on board made contact over satellite phone with a known Lashkar-e-Toiba militant commander in Muzaffarabad in Pakistan Occupied Kashmir. In fact, this was the contact that revealed the occupants on the boat were LeT terrorists. It's reliably learnt that Indian intelligence agencies monitoring the communication traffic among terrorists in PoK were monitoring the number of one Abu Saad, a likely code name, also referred as "Saad bhai." Saad is the one who received the call from the ship or trawler, which is how the co-ordinates of its location were determined. (IE)
• Lucknow: After Executive Engineer M K Gupta's murder in Auraiya, CM Mayawati and Director General of Police Vikram Singh said that two PWD engineers were involved and it was a fallout of "departmental rivalry." However, the investigation into the case shows engineers are not involved and a senior district-level functionary of the BSP is under the scanner. DIG of Kanpur range Kamal Saxena said: "We have traced the identity of the accused and they are not engineers. They are absconding but we will arrest them soon." While Saxena refused to reveal the identity of the men wanted for the murder, sources said one of them could be a local BSP bigwig. The police have so far arrested four persons: MLA Shekhar Tiwari, who has been booked under the NSA and Gangster Act, Manoj Awasthi, Dinesh Tiwari and Rambabu alias Poti. (IE)
• New Delhi: While the Samajwadi Party's parliamentary board granted its seal of approval to about 55 candidates for UP's 80 Lok Sabha seats on Friday and authorised party general secretary Amar Singh to complete seat-sharing negotiations with the Congress, the SP still has a hurdle to cross, with the Congress demanding about a dozen seats currently held by SP members. After the SP parliamentary board meeting in the Capital today, party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav told reporters, "We have almost finalised our candidates. For the remaining seats, we have authorised Amar Singh to inform our party's decision to the Congress leadership, Sonia Gandhi, Pranab Mukherjee, Rahul Gandhi and Ahmed Patel to wrap up the process of ticket distribution in Uttar Pradesh as soon as possible." He said the SP hoped to wrap up the entire process in a week. (IE)
• New Delhi: With one-tenth of the city's space occupied by private vehicles crammed up on roads and parking lots, and a pathetic public transport system, the third-time victorious Congress govt in Delhi is planning a series of radical measures to beef up its fleet of buses and, at the same time, punish those using private cars, especially big ones, through a dose of high taxes. It's learnt that the Delhi govt is giving the finishing touches to a cabinet note that aims to scrap all taxes on buses and steeply hike the one-time road tax for cars and also introduce a "congestion tax" as a pilot project. The money raised from the increased taxes, it is proposed, will go to fund a better public transport system.(TOI)

MANMOHAN SINGH & GOVT

The three service chiefs Friday gave PM Manmohan Singh an hour-long presentation on the situation on the western border with Pakistan, with Dr Singh briefed in detail on India's defence preparedness in the wake of reports on the Pakistani troop buildup on its side of the border. South Block sources said the Indian Army had so far not mobilised any additional troops on the border. Also, neither the Army nor the Indian Air Force had so far cancelled the leave of its personnel. But if Pakistan continued with its provocative actions, an adequate Indian response would be necessary, the sources said.(AA)

BJP

The BJP on Friday said it was concerned about the situation in Uttar Pradesh. The party in a delayed reaction issued two separate statements on the murder of UP PWD engineer M K Gupta's murder one by party spokesperson Prakash Javdekar and the other by party vice-president Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi. "The murder of an Uttar Pradesh officer for not paying hefty donation for the birthday of Uttar Pradesh CM has shocked the country. Manoj Gupta's murder has once again proved that Mayawati's regime is no better than the Mulayam Singh dispensation. If one is to use Mayawati's parlance, one is sanpnath and the other is nagnath," said Javdekar. Naqvi's statement, on the other hand, said the "Samajwadi Party's 'goonda raj' had been replaced by the 'mahagoonda raj' and 'chanda raj' of the BSP". (IE)

• With the Lok Sabha polls in mind, the BJP would like to make a new beginning as far as the country's Muslims are concerned. One in which it would like to build bridges with a community it has alienated to a large extent and even win its trust. Giving the saffron outfit the much-needed inputs on how the Muslim voters can be wooed, is its lone Muslim MP in the Lok Sabha and head of the party's minority morcha, Shahnawaz Hussain. Recently chosen to be a spokesperson of the party's parliamentary party, Mr Hussain's appointment is clearly an indication of the BJP's bid to present a "softer" face to the Muslim community. As head of his party's minority morcha, Mr Hussain said: "Let's make a new beginning. Instead of mistrust, let us build trust. Let's build a bridge between the BJP and the Muslim community and have faith in Mr L.K. Advani." It has begun this work by building Muslim morchas right down to its mandal level, said Mr Hussain. Also, in its Lok Sabha poll manifesto, the party which has always declared that it believes in "justice for all and appeasement of none", Mr Hussain said it plans to tell the Muslim community that they will be treated as respected citizens, at par with the Hindus. Further, in February 2009, the party's minority morcha plans to hold its national executive as also a rally in Ghaziabad. Also on the anvil are minority conferences in all parliamentary constituencies.(AA)

CONGRESS

The Congress does not want to play politics on the death of UP PWD engineer Manoj Kumar Gupta at a time when the Samajwadi Party is going whole hog against Uttar Pradesh CM Mayawati. "The family (of the engineer) should not feel that parties are taking political advantage of the death... It should not be politicised," AICC spokesman Shakeel Ahmed told reporters here. Asked whether the Congress was distancing itself from the Samajwadi Party, he made it clear that the Congress does not want to "politicise" the issue. Mr Ahmed also quoted AICC general secretary Rahul Gandhi that the issue should not be politicised and given a political colour. Mr Gandhi on Thursday talked to Pratish, the son of Gupta, and assured him of all possible help in getting justice. Union minister of state for steel Jitin Prasada also attended the funeral of the slain engineer. Mr Prasada was deputed by Mr Gandhi to enquire about the incident and circumstances leading to Gupta's death. The Congress' approach on this issue appears to be sober but the SP, which is the main Opposition in the state, is going ahead aggressively as it does not want to give any chance to the BSP to defend itself. The main issue is extortion of money from govt employees. The SP on Friday demanded a judicial probe into the "business of fund collection" by the BSP chief.(AA)

LEFT PARTIES

Their increasing closeness with the BSP notwithstanding, the Left parties on Friday demanded stern action against the BSP MLA who is accused of lynching a PWD engineer but shied away from holding CM Mayawati responsible for the killing. "We strongly condemn the incident. It is a barbaric crime and the fact that an MLA is involved makes it even worse. Although he is arrested, stringent measures must be taken so that he does not use his position to subvert the process of law," CPI(M) Politburo member Brinda Karat said. She, however, refused to comment on the general law and order situation in the BSP-ruled state. The CPI also reacted on similar lines, but floated a theory that internal rivalry in the department was also one of the reasons for the murder. "There was internal rivalry in the department and that is also one of the reasons. But no doubt the BSP MLA is involved in the whole incident. Evidence should be collected against him and he should be punished," CPI national secretary Atul Kumar Anjaan said. (IE)

STATES

J&K

Two days after the conclusion of the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly elections, the state administration has decided to release four top separatist leaders who had been arrested to stop the poll boycott campaign. The move, it hopes, will make it clear that the arrests were made only for the smooth conduct of elections and had no political motive. Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front chief Yasin Malik, Dukhtaran-e-Millat's Asiya Andrabi, Hurriyat hawk Mohammad Ashraf Sehrai and Ghulam Nabi Sumji are among the more than dozen separatist leaders who will be released. However, no decision has been taken yet on senior leaders like Shabir Shah, Nayeem Khan and Masrat-ul-Islam as well as dozens of others picked up during the massive separatist protests after the Amarnath land row. (IE)

MADHYA PRADESH

The Election Commission of India (ECI) has asked officials in other States to study the communication plan and vulnerability mapping exercise drawn up by the Madhya Pradesh electoral authorities for the Assembly poll and replicate it in their States during the upcoming general elections, official sources said. "The ECI has also asked all the other CEOs to implement the communication plan used on polling day in the Madhya Pradesh Assembly elections in the Lok Sabha polls next year," said an official on deputation in the CEO's office here. The decision was taken after a presentation of the communication plan was made by the Madhya Pradesh CEO J.S. Mathur at the two-day conference of CEOs of all States in Delhi last week. Under the communication plan, polling booths were equipped with cell phones, landline phones and wireless sets to enable them to get in touch with senior officials command in case the scheduled polling process was hampered. 'The ECI personally verified the utility of the plan on polling day by randomly calling presiding officers at 15 polling booths, the official added."(HINDU)

WEST BENGAL

Nandigram, the scene of a bloody resistance to land acquisition a year ago, has witnessed a reversal of roles with the CPI(M) that had once called the shots, demanding a free and fair Assembly by-poll on January 5. The party has alleged that it was unable to campaign in Nandigram as the Trinamool Congress, which had spearheaded the resistance movement, was flaunting its might after coming to power in the panchayat and zilla parishad in East Midnapur district. "Our party activists are not being allowed to enter 53 booths under the Nandigram Assembly constituency," claimed CPI(M) district secretariat member Ashok Guria. Now, in a refrain that was previously heard from Opposition parties, Left Front leaders have demanded that the Election Commission ensure a "free and fair" election and have requested that CRPF contingents be deployed. Guria said the policy of "restraint" adopted by the police in order to circumvent allegations of brutality, prevented it from taking tough steps. (IE)

EDITORIAL

Weighing options: A month after the Mumbai attack, India continues efforts to deepen international opinion to pressure Pakistan to act against terrorists operating from its territory. In the last month, diplomatic mobilisation has yielded diverse results. The UN Security Council, for instance, imposed sanctions on the Jamaat-ud-Dawa, a front organisation of the Lashkar-e-Toiba, the group believed to be behind the Mumbai attacks; this compelled Pakistan to ban the JuD the LeT was already banned and at least show some moves against its leaders. Also, in the flurry of top-level visits to the subcontinent, leaders like British PM Gordon Brown underlined that it is not India alone that demands that Pakistan act against "non-state actors" plotting terrorist activities from its soil. Brown made the point that 75 per cent of Terror plots have been traced back to Pakistan.(IE)