Jayalalithaa, Mamata to skip meet on internal security

J Jayalalithaa and Mamata Banerjee will not attend tomorrow's Chief Ministers' conference on internal security where a new strategy is likely to be chalked out to check the growing violence by Naxals.
The meeting, convened by the Home Ministry and to be inaugurated by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, will deliberate extensively on the activities of Pakistan-based terrorist groups, infiltration from across the border, communal disturbance and how to improve intelligence gathering mechanism.
Chief ministers of nine Naxal-affected states will have a separate session where the Home Ministry is expected to get approval to a new comprehensive strategy to deal with the Maoists problem which has been termed as country's biggest internal security challenge.

This comes in the wake of May 25 attack on a Congress rally in Chhattisgarh which claimed 27 lives including PCC chief Nand Kumar Patel and former minister Mahendra Karma.
Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa will not attend the meeting saying such conferences held by the Centre have become an "annual ritualistic exercise and very little opportunity was given to chief ministers to express their views".
Her West Bengal counterpart Banerjee, who will also skip the meeting, however, did not give any reason why she was not going to attend the conference.
Police reforms, filling up of vacancies in police forces, modernisation of police forces, enhanced security to women, situation in Jammu and Kashmir and northeastern region will also be discussed threadbare during the day-long conference.