JD(U) Rajya Sabha member and the party’s national spokesman Shivanand Tiwary has decided to boycott US President Barack Obama’s address to a joint session of both Houses of the Parliament on Monday.
The senior JD(U) MP’s step, clearly not shared by his party and ally BJP, is a personal decision in protest against a host of perceptions about the US foreign policy decisions and some recent incidents in the Indo-US relations. While Tiwary, a veteran politician with strong socialist leaning, announced his decision in Patna on Saturday, JD(U) national president and Lok Sabha member Sharad Yadav expressed ignorance about it when asked on Sunday evening.
“I respect Obama, his background, his heritage and his struggle to the top in the US and what it symbolises for people everywhere across the world, but I have fundamental disagreements with the foreign policy espoused by his administration and the sheer disrespect it has shown to Indians recently,” said Mr Tiwary to this newspaper.
“He (Mr Obama) has come to India more as a representative of the US corporations and less of that nation’s people, and his trip aims at refurbishing his own sagging image worldwide,” he added.
Mr Tiwary, a former minister in Mr Lalu Prasad Yadav’s RJD governments and considered to be part of the JD(U) think-tank, said his party “should not have a problem” with his decision to boycott the Obama address. “There is enough democracy in the JD(U) for me to stick to my decision,” he added.
But Mr Sharad Yadav, who was in New Delhi on Sunday evening, was looking forward to listening to Mr Obama’s address. “Yes, all of us would be there in the parliament tomorrow. He (Tiwary) should also be there,” said Mr Yadav.
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ATC ensures smooth landing
AGE CORRESPONDENT
new delhi
Nov. 7: President Barack Obama’s Air Force One landed at the New Delhi IGI Airport on the main runway (28-10) at about 3.20 pm on Sunday followed a few minutes later by the decoy aircraft. Senior ATC officials were personally present at the ATC tower to ensure there were no glitches of any sort. ATC sources said the standard operating procedures (SOPs) relating to VVIP flight movement were followed which meant that there was no aircraft movement to and from the runways three minutes before and three minutes after the US President’s aircraft landed. Sources said that while the standard separation of aircraft from each other in the skies is a minimum of 1,000 feet of vertical separation and at least five miles of horizontal separation, the separation of other aircraft from that of the US President’s aircraft was significantly more than this distance, as is the norm in case of VVIP flights.
The ATC and Delhi airport sources also said that there was no impact on other commercial flight timings at the Delhi airport on account of the VVIP movement since, in any case, the afternoon is considered as the “non-peak” hours for commercial aircraft movement. Sources said the norm regarding VVIP flights was that take-off of any other aircraft was not usually permitted about 20 minutes before the landing of any VVIP flight. “There was no restriction of flight movements beyond the standard SOPs for VVIP flights,” an ATC official said.
Delhi airport was enveloped in a thick blanket of security for the visit. While there was speculation earlier that US personnel may be permitted inside the ATC towers at Mumbai and Delhi to reassure the Americans about security, AAI officials have been claiming that this is not so. ATC functions are under the purview of the AAI.