Venkaiah condemns 'coup' allegations, says don't drag Army

Taking exception to the Trinamool Congress' "coup" allegation after the Army's presence at toll plazas in West Bengal, Union Minister M Venkaiah Naidu today said it is not in national interest to drag the armed force into controversies.
"What is coup ? And then, dragging the Army into controversy; it is not in the national interest. It is totally condemnable who ever has done it. Not only Trinamool, unfortunately Congress and others also, without knowing the full truth, they try to make it a big issue and what happened at the end? It has boomeranged on them.
"So, let's not drag Indian Army, which is the pride of our nation, into these controversies," he told reporters on the sidelines of an event here.

The presence of the Army in West Bengal to which the Trinamool has taken exception was a routine drill and there was nothing new in it, he said.
"It is a routine drill which is to happen every year. This year also it happened in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, Arunachal Pradesh, Meghalaya, Manipur and Assam. It happened in Bengal last year. It happened this year also. There is nothing new. There is nothing like deploying Army, coup, nothing like that. They are doing a false campaign," he said.
Presence of army personnel at toll plazas in West Bengal had kicked up a storm with Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee remaining at the State Secretariat overnight in protest, asking was it an "army coup".

A false campaign was on over different issues as well, including that there was shortage of salt, that gold would be seized and that emergency would be imposed with Army being brought in, Naidu alleged.

Acknowledging that people faced inconvenience following
demonetisation, the Union Information and Broadcasting Minister said initial difficulties would be there when there is a transition.
"In any transition, in every transformation, there will be some initial difficulties. That is why we said temporary pain for long-term gain. That is why the Prime Minister said, 'give me 50 days'," he said.
The idea of Prime Minister Narendra Modi is to transform the entire economic system and check problems like terrorism, hawala transactions and other such offences, he said.

"He (Modi) wants to transform the entire economic, financial system in the country. He wants to weed out black money, he wants to tackle terrorists, separatists and also people who are funding, aiding terrorism and also take care of the hawala operators and people who are hoarding money. That is the idea of the Prime Minister," he said.
(Reopens BOM 4)
Naidu expressed regret over Parliament not functioning properly during the ongoing winter session.
"Parliament should work. People want Parliament to work. I (government) propose, you (opposition) oppose, let the House dispose. That should be the spirit," he said.
The Union Information and Broadcasting Minister, who spoke at a workshop on capacity building for working Urdu journalists of Telangana at the Maulana Azad National Urdu University (MANUU) earlier, deprecated the practice of sensationalising news.

"There is no sense in sensationalism. Journalists should be sensitive to social issues and problems," he said.
Hailing Urdu journalism, he said, "Complete and authentic history of the Indian freedom struggle cannot be written without taking into account the contribution of Urdu journalism and its role in the freedom movement."
Urdu journalism should take advantage of new technological advances that are radically changing the way information reached masses, he said.
Noting that All India Radio is a pioneer in reaching out to masses in regional languages, he said Urdu has been part and parcel of radio broadcasting from pre-Independence era.

He said DD Urdu is doing a wonderful job in spreading Urdu language and DD Kashmir is playing a vital role in bridging the gap between J&K and the rest of the country.
Emphasising on the importance of mother tongue, he said, "Language and culture has a definite relationship. We must teach our children to speak in their mother tongue rather than English. Nothing wrong in learning English, we should not become Englishmen."
Hailing India's culture and heritage, Naidu said efforts should be made to preserve them. "We should feel proud of our culture, heritage and country.