India and Bangladesh are jointly patrolling their common border specially in the unfenced, sensitive and vulnerable areas, an official said here on Monday.

“Jawans of Border Security Force (BSF) and Border Guards Bangladesh (BGB) have been carrying out joint patrolling along the borders to prevent unwanted elements from crossing the borders in view of the political turmoil in Bangladesh,” a BSF official told reporters.

“Such mutual patrolling would continue until the situation becomes normal in Bangladesh. The combined guarding is being done specially along the unfenced, sensitive and vulnerable bordering areas,” the official said.

India’s five states – West Bengal, Assam, Tripura, Meghalaya and Mizoram – share a 4,096-km border with Bangladesh. A large portion of the International Border remains unfenced and porous.

There are a large number of thickly populated Bangladeshi villages and towns on the other side of the International Border, making patrolling a delicate task for the Indian border guards and other security forces.

In view of the ongoing political turmoil in that country, India had earlier tightened the vigil along its border with Bangladesh.

Tripura Director General of Police C Balasubramanian said: “The government has asked the BSF to keep maximum alert along the border. We have asked the superintendents of police of bordering districts to take necessary measures to deal with the situation.”

BSF director general Subhash Joshi last month inspected the India-Bangladesh border in Tripura and other northeastern states to review the security.

According to media reports in Bangladesh, over 200 houses and shops belonging to the minority Hindu community have been vandalised and looted by the Jamaat-e-Islami activists in different parts of Bangladesh’s Jessore and Dinajpur districts.

Fresh incidents of rapes and attacks were reported from a village close to Jessore district.

Both majority and minority communities should work together to maintain harmony, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said on Monday.

“To maintain communal harmony, both majority communities and minorities have to work together to create an atmosphere of acceptance and harmony,” the Prime Minister said while addressing the annual conference of state minority commissions here.

Without referring to any particular incident, the Prime Minister said: “In most parts of the country the relationship between majority and minority communities is harmonious, although there have been instances where this relationship has been put to severe test, especially of late.”

“These aberrations tarnish the image of our country and our society. They cause pain and suffering to the affected people. They also disrupt the ability of large sections of our society to contribute to the rapid economic progress of our country.”

Muzzafarnagar riots last year left nearly 40 people dead according to some estimates, and over 50,000 homeless.

Stating that secularism has been an “age old tradition”, Manmohan Singh said we should be “cautious of people who work against India’s secular thought by attempting to redefine secularism”.

“Our strength as a country lies in our unity. We should be vigilant against forces that seek to exploit our diversity in religion, language and culture to divide our people,” he said.

Minority Affairs Minister K Rahman Khan on Monday said the government is looking into the issue of reservation for minorities as per the recommendations of the Ranganath Misra Commission report.

“The ministry is looking into recommendations of the Justice Ranganath Misra Commission for identification of socially and economically backward sections among religious and linguistic minorities and to recommend measures for welfare,” Khan said, addressing the annual conference of the state minority commissions.

The National Commission for Religious and Linguistic Minorities, headed by former chief justice of India Ranganath Misra, had suggested that instead of the 27 percent reservation for Other Backward Classes (OBCs), 15 percent be set aside for Muslims and Christians, leaving 12 percent for the OBCs.

Khan added such reservation would be in tune with the spirit of Articles 15 and 16 of the Constitution.

Article 15 of the Indian Constitution talks about prohibition of discrimination on grounds of religion, race, caste, sex or place of birth, and Article 16 is about equality of opportunity in matters of public employment.

He also said that the Jain community may soon be added to the list of minorities.

“The government is actively considering the inclusion of Jains in the minority community so that the benefits of welfare schemes run by the government of India could be extended to the Jain community also,” Khan said.

At present, Muslims, Sikhs, Christians, Buddhists and Zoroastrians (Parsis) are notified as minority communities under the National Commission for Minorities Act, 1992.

A Pakistani newspaper on Monday compared the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) with cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf (PTI).

“Both parties are challenging the existing political forces, and are actually a vote of no confidence in their ability to express the wishes of the masses,” said an editorial in The Nation.

It said both the AAP and PTI enjoyed the support of the youths and middle class.

“The similarities of the PTI and AAP are too many to be missed. Both are parties from outside the normal political spectrum, with the support base of urban youth and the middle class,” the editorial said.

Both parties preside over a provincial government. The AAP rules Delhi and the PTI governs the Kyber-Pakhtunkhwa province, it said.

The PTI is also the main opposition in Punjab.

The editorial said the AAP’s success has inspired many politicians everywhere. In Pakistan, perhaps its greatest admirer is PTI’s chairperson Imran Khan.

Amidst tensions on the border with Pakistan, Army Chief General Bikram Singh on Monday rejected allegations that the Indian Army was not retaliating strongly during ceasefire violations by its South Asian neighbour.

Speaking to media at the annual press conference on the enhancement of combat power and operational readiness in the Indian Army, General Singh said that the Indian Army makes attempts to control the situation at the border and not escalate it.

Any militant who crosses the Line of Control (LoC) in Jammu and Kashmir will be fired at, General Singh said.

His comments came as reports in the Pakistani media blamed India for violating the ceasefire and firing at a civilian near the LoC.

He, however, added that “attempts are on to ensure ceasefire agreements are adhered to by both sides. It is our endeavour to control it, not escalate it”.

“If rules are followed by our neighbours, we follow them too. If rules are broken, we won’t sit on it, we will break them too,” he said.

“We will pay Pakistan back in the same coin,” added the Army chief.

Uttam Khobragade, the father of Indian diplomat Devyani Khobragade who recently returned home after her indictment in the United States in a visa fraud case, is likely to enter politics ahead of the upcoming General Elections.

He is also currently in talks with various political parties and is keen to contest the General Elections this year as well, as per reports.

It is not the first time that the retired IAS officer has hinted at joining politics. The senior bureaucrat had reportedly hinted at joining politics few years back as well.

The retired bureaucrat is a Dalit and 1984 batch IAS officer and has been in news after his name got involved in multi-crore Adarsh Housing Society scam.

His daughter, Devyani Khobragade, was indicted in US for visa fraud and making false statements. The arrest triggered a controversy and strained the diplomatic ties between the two sides after news of Devyani being strip-searched in the US on December 12 last year spread.

The senior IAS officer said that he will continue to struggle till charges against his daughter Devyani are dropped.

Hit by successive complaints by two of its ex-students about sexual harassment during internship, the West Bengal National University of Juridical Sciences (WB NUJS) on Monday said they were giving final touches to a policy to handle such cases.

WB NUJS spokesperson Ruchira Goswami told a news agency the premier legal varsity’s policy against sexual harassment of interns would be ready after a month.

“Upon receiving any complaint, we will have a formal process of taking action against the reported harassment of any student, irrespective of whether the internship was provided by us or the student was working on her own. As long as they are our students, we assume their responsibility,” she said.

University officials said law students would also be sensitised on how to deal with such cases and would be encouraged to lodge complaints if they are victimised.

“Students are extremely vulnerable during their internship as they are afraid to complain against harassment by seniors in the legal fraternity. So we are drafting guidelines and frame rules on how to combat sexual harassment during internships in particular,” the officials said.

A NUJS intern, who passed out last year, had alleged that she was sexually harassed by retired SC judge AK Ganguly who was then functioning as the Chairman of the West Bengal Human Rights Commission.

Facing mounting pressure to quit as chief of the rights panel, Ganguly resigned from the post last week. Soon after the first complaint, another former student came out with similar allegations against a judge of the apex court, who has now retired.

“It seems that she was emboldened by the stand taken by the first intern. But when they were students of the university, none of them had lodged an official complaint with us for which we could not take any action,” said Goswami, who is also a teacher.

For the university’s BA LLB course, each student goes on a six-week compulsory summer internship to legal firms, NGOs, judges, media houses, etc.