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Akhilesh Yadav sacks eight ministers, strips nine of portfolios

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Akhilesh-Yadav

Lucknow: Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav on Thursday sacked eight cabinet ministers and withdrew portfolios of nine ministers in a major shake-up of his ministry.

The move is being seen as a precursor to the cabinet reshuffle scheduled for October 31 when some new faces are likely to be included in the 43-month-old Samajwadi Party government.

 

The ministers who have been removed from the state cabinet are Shiv Kumar Beria, Bhagwat Sharan Gangwar, Ambika Chowdhary, Aridaman Singh, Alok Kumar Shakya, Yogesh Pratap Singh, Shivakant Ojha and Narad Rai.

Sources say the ministers have been removed on action initiated by the SP high command for their non-performance and, in some cases, on specific complaints.

The nine ministers who have been stripped of their portfolios include Raguhraj Pratap Singh alias Raja Bhaiyya, Avdhesh Prasad, and Ahmad Hasan, who held the health and family welfare portfolio.

Other ministers to be divested of their ministries are Paras Nath Yadav, Ram Govind Chowdhary, Durga Prasad Yadav, Brahma Shankar Tripathi, Iqbal Masood and Mehboob Ali. Their departments, for now, will be with the chief minister.

Close aides of the chief minister told IANS that the cabinet expansion scheduled for Saturday will see a “stamp of Akhilesh Yadav and will be a mix of young energy and experience”.

Earlier, Akhilesh Yadav called on Governor Ram Naik late on Wednesday to discuss expansion of his cabinet and to take Naik’s consent.

The oath-taking ceremony of the new ministers in slated for October 31 at 10.30 a.m. at Raj Bhawan in Lucknow.

(IANS)

BJP trying to dethrone me: CM Siddaramaiah

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siddaramaiah

Bengaluru: Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, who is facing rebellion in the party, accused the rival BJP of trying to dethrone him.

“My detractors are unable to digest the fact that I have emerged as the leader of the oppressed sections of society. Now, they are floating the idea of a Dalit CM in Karnataka. Why didn’t the BJP appoint a Dalit CM if they were so concerned about the oppressed sections? It is clear that the BJP wants me out of the CM’s chair,” he said.

Siddaramaiah received a nod to reshuffle his Cabinet by bringing in four new ministers in order to end the rebellion in the party. However, it is to be seen whether this reshuffle will make the rebels in Congress happy.

(Agencies)

Bihar’s third phase ends, 53 percent vote

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bihar-polls

Patna: The third phase of Bihar’s staggered assembly polls ended on Wednesday evening, with 53.20 percent of the 14.5 million electorate voting in 50 constituencies across six districts.

Additional Chief Electoral Officer R. Lakshmanan said the exercise passed off peacefully, including in areas where Maoists are active. There were only minor clashes between rival political activists.

According to officials, more than 7.5 million people voted during the day in a battle that has pitted the BJP led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi against the Grand Alliance of Chief Minister Nitish Kumar.

The voters on Wednesday included Nitish Kumar, his ally and RJD leader Lalu Prasad, BJP leader and former deputy chief minister Sushil Modi and BJP’s dissident MP Shatrughan Sinha.

After voting in Patna with his family, Lalu Prasad, a former chief minister, hit out at Modi.

“Modi is playing the communal card on reservation. People in the country never expected such words from the prime minister,” he said.

He was referring to Modi’s statement that the Grand Alliance was trying to put in quotas in jobs and educational institutions for Muslims.

Sushil Modi also voted in Patna. And so did Nitish Kumar and Shatrughan Sinha, a Bollywood veteran who has embarrassed the Bharatiya Janata Party by publicly praising Nitish Kumar.

When journalists asked him who he thought will win the Bihar battle, Sinha retorted: “Khamosh” (silence). The MP has been sidelined by the BJP in the election campaign.

Polling began at 7 a.m. in the districts of Patna, Saran, Vaishali, Nalanda, Bhojpur and Buxar. It got over at 4 p.m. in 10 constituencies located in Maoist strongholds. Elsewhere it ended at 5 p.m.

Nalanda is Nitish Kumar’s home turf, and is widely known as ‘Kurmistan’ due to the dominance of his Kurmi caste.

As in the first and second rounds of polling on October 12 and 16, serpentine queues formed at polling stations since early in the morning.

Officials said voters in over a dozen villages boycotted the polls to protest what they said was lack of development in their areas.

Lalu Prasad’s prestige was at stake on Wednesday as his sons Tej Pratap Yadav and Tejaswi Yadav were in the fray. They contested from Mahua and Raghopur respectively in Vaishali district.

The BJP is banking heavily on Dalits and other backward castes, including Yadav voters, besides most upper castes to get the winning votes. Its allies include the Lok Janshakti Party, Hindustani Awam Morcha and Rashtriya Lok Samata Party.

The JD-U has tied up with the RJD and Congress.

According to the Association for Democratic Reforms and the National Election Watch, 215 of the candidates in the third round faced serious criminal charges, including those of murder.

The staggered elections to pick a 243-member Bihar assembly will end on November 5. The results will be known on November 8. The fourth round of polling will take place on November 1.

(IANS)

Nepal gets first woman president

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Bidhya Devi Bhandari

Kathmandu: Bidhya Devi Bhandari, vice chairman of the ruling CPN-UML, was on Wednesday elected president of Nepal, making her the first woman to occupy the vaunted post.

Bhandari defeated Nepali Congress nominee Kul Bahadur Gurung in the presidential poll to elect the second president of the Himalayan nation, The election result was announced in parliament by Speaker Onsari Gharti Magar.

A former defence minister, Bhandari is a cancer survivor and widow of late communist leader Madan Bhandari, who died in 1991 in a yet unexplained road accident.

The incumbent, Ram Baran Yadav, who belonged to Nepali Congress, was elected president in 2008 after the first elections to the Constituent Assembly.

Under the country’s new republican federal Constitution, promulgated on September 20, it was mandatory to elect new president and vice-president, prime minister, and parliament speaker and deputy speaker.

(IANS)

MSF hospital in Yemen Bombed by US-backed coalition

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Active medical facility was struck while patients and staff were inside

Images from Doctors Without Borders hospital in Saada following Monday night's bombing. (Photo: MSF Yemen/Twitter)

Images from Doctors Without Borders hospital in Saada following Monday night’s bombing. (Photo: MSF Yemen/Twitter)

by Sarah Lazare, Common Dreams

Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières confirmed Tuesday afternoon that one of its small hospitals, located in the Haydan district in Saada Province, “was hit by several airstrikes beginning at 10:30 p.m. last night.”

“Hospital staff and two patients managed to escape before subsequent airstrikes occurred over a two-hour period,” the organization said in a statement. “One staff member was slightly injured while escaping. With the hospital destroyed, at least 200,000 people now have no access to lifesaving medical care.”

Hassan Boucenine, MSF head of mission in Yemen, denounced the attack as “another illustration of a complete disregard for civilians in Yemen, where bombings have become a daily routine.”

A Doctors Without Borders/Médecins sans Frontières (MSF) hospital in northern Yemenwas bombed Monday night by the Saudi Arabia-led military coalition.

Tim Shenk, press officer for MSF, confirmed to Common Dreams that the active medical facility, based in the Saada governorate, has been hit. The strike was initially reported by the aid agency’s Yemen bureau, which noted that there were several patients and staff members in the facility at the time of the attack.

“Our hospital in the Heedan district of Saada governorate was hit several times. Fortunately, the first hit damaged the operations theater while it was empty and the staff were busy with people in the emergency room. They just had time to run off as another missile hit the maternity ward,” MSF country director Hassan Boucenine told Reuters.

“It could be a mistake, but the fact of the matter is it’s a war crime. There’s no reason to target a hospital,” Boucenine continued. “We provided (the coalition) with all of our GPS coordinates about two weeks ago.”

The bureau also released images of the facility following the bombing:

This is not the first such attack. Since the Saudi-led and U.S.-backed military campaign began over six months ago, the coalition has bombed medical facilities, markets, schools, power plants, refugee camps, factories, and warehouses storing humanitarian supplies. In addition, the Saudi-led naval blockade has left 80 percent of Yemen’s population in dire need of food, water, and medical assistance, according to aid agencies.

The World Health Organization estimates that the conflict has so far killed roughly 5,600 people, the majority of them civilian. According to a recent report by Action On Armed Violence and the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, in 2015, 93 percent of people killed or wounded in populated areas as a result of “air-launched explosive weapons” were civilians.

The Saudi-led coalition is responsible for the vast majority of these killings. The office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights reported last month that “almost two-thirds of reported civilian deaths had allegedly been caused by coalition airstrikes, which were also responsible for almost two-thirds of damaged or destroyed civilian public buildings.”

Monday’s bombing comes just over three weeks after the U.S. military bombed a functioning MSF hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan, killing at least 30 people.

Scrap quota in higher education institutions: SC

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Supreme Court

New Delhi: The Supreme Court Thursday ruled that national interest requires doing away with all forms of reservation in institutions of higher education and urged the Centre to take effective steps “objectively”.

Despite several reminders to the central and state governments to make merit the primary criteria for admissions into super-specialty courses, the ground reality remains that reservation often holds sway over merit, observed a bench of Justices Dipak Misra and P C Pant.

“The fond hope has remained in the sphere of hope… The said privilege remains unchanged, as if (it is) to compete with eternity,” the bench remarked.

(Agencies)

139-day FTII strike ends, protests to continue

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FTII

Pune: FTII students who went on strike on June 12 against the appointment of Gajendra Chauhan as its chairman returned to their classes on Wednesday but said protests against the BJP member will go on.

The Film and Television Institute of India students said they will continue to protest in a “peaceful and democratic manner” against Chauhan, who they say is not fit to head the country’s premier film institute.

Ranjit Nair, spokesperson for the Students Association, told IANS that the strike was over.

“We have come to realize, after our long-stretched negotiations with the government, that the government is a bully,” a miffed Nair said.

He said the students will now invite people from all over the country who face similar problems.

“The strike will escalate now… It’s time to register our protest all over again and take it to different heights,” Nair said.

He said filmmakers and academics should come forward and take the protests forward in Mumbai.

The students held multiple meetings with officials of the information and broadcasting ministry but there was no end to the stalemate.

The government refused to buckle over Chauhan, forcing the student community to blink.

Chauhan congratulated the students for ending the strike, and told IANS over telephone that it was time for them to return to their classes.

The decision to end the strike followed the government’s “incongruous approach” towards the students’ cause, said another student leader, Reema Kaur.

“The 139 days of strike have not only made us stronger but more aware of the state that we today live in,” said Kaur, a final year student of editing and a part of the core committee of the Students Association that spearheaded the strike.

“We voiced ourselves loud and clear but it is the government’s adamant stand and incongruous approach towards our valid demands that has made us completely lose faith,” Kaur told IANS.

“Looking at the ministry’s unrelenting approach and the amount of our valuable time spent, we have decided to end the strike and resume classes.

“However, our voices will not shut, but grow louder. The protests shall continue democratically and in the peaceful manner as they have,” Kaur added.

(IANS)

I am not scared of threat from rival gang: Chhota Rajan

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Chhota-Rajan

Bali: Underworld don Chhota Rajan today said he was not scared of threats to his life from rival gangs, including from Dawood Ibrahim, even as the Indonesia Police has provided him with special commando protection.

“I am not scared,” he said when reporters asked him if he was scared of threats to his life from rival gangs, including one headed by Dawood.

Arrested on arrival from Australia on Sunday, Rajan made the comments while being whisked away by police.

Bali Police spokesman Hery Wiyanto said they were aware of the threats faced by Rajan and he has been placed with special commandos for protection.

“We have all the measures in place to ensure that the prisoner’s security is not compromised. Since he is a foreigner, we have heightened security for him,” he told reporters.

Wiyanto said 55-year-old Rajan, whose original name is Rajendra Sadashiv Nikhalje, seems to be doing fine and there is no particular behavioural problem with him. “If he is under pressure, he is not showing,” he said.

Bali Police Commissioner Reinhard Nainggolan said Rajan, once close confidant-turned-rival of underworld ganglord Dawood, repeatedly pleaded before the interrogators to free him as he wanted to go to Zimbabwe.

Nainggolan said the mafia don was medically fit, thus contradicting reports of him suffering from multiple ailments.

Asked when he would be deported to India, where he is one of the most wanted criminals, Wiyanto said the Bali Police was waiting for a team of officials from India to interrogate Rajan first.

“We are waiting (for the Indian team). We will coordinate with the Indian authorities to formulate on how to deport Chhota Rajan back to India,” he said.

Bali Police commissioner Nainggolan said arrest of Rajan was a serious law enforcement operation under the supervision of the Interpol.

Giving details about the circumstances leading to Rajan’s arrest, he said they had information from the Indonesia Interpol that someone with the name Mohan Kumar has to be arrested based on the passport number.

“(When we got him) We told him not to worry if he cooperates with us. We told him about the Red Corner Notice. We told him that your photo provided is the same. He wanted my help to set him free,” he said.

Asked whether Rajan was accompanied by someone else also, Nainggolan said Rajan came to Bali alone and the arrest was made in Bali as the Interpol was informed by Australia that they cannot arrest someone only on the basis of Red Corner Notice.

Asked whether it was suspicious for the Indonesian authorities to find Rajan alone as police, rival gangs and mafias were looking for him, he said “of course it is very suspicious”.

“When we caught him, he looked scared…He is smoking constantly,” Nainggolan said.
Wiyanto said Rajan’s interrogation in Bali would be confined only to questioning on fake identity charges.

“Enquiry will be confined to ascertain whether the identity is true or not and to ensure that we did not arrest the wrong person,” he said.

Chhota Rajan, one of India’s most wanted gangster, was arrested in Bali, Indonesia, on a Red Corner Notice issued by Interpol after eluding law enforcement agencies for over two decades.

The arrest was made on a tip off from Australian police that Rajan, the powerful aide-turned-rival of terrorist Dawood Ibrahim, has flown from Sydney to Bali.

(PTI)

Beef row: Hindu Sena chief Vishnu Gupta detained

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Vishnu Gupta

New Delhi: Hindu Sena chief Vishnu Gupta was today detained by Delhi Police for allegedly making a false complaint that beef was being served at the Kerala house canteen here.

 

DCP (New Delhi) Jatin Narwal said that Vishnu Gupta is being questioned but did not disclose any further details.

The development comes a day after a major row erupted when Delhi police entered the Kerala House acting on the complaint, with a miffed Kerala Chief Minister Oommen Chandy condemning the “raid” as “highly objectionable”. The Delhi Police and the Centre also came under attack from chief ministers Arvind Kejriwal and Mamata Banerjee.

Delhi Police Commissioner B S Bassi had yesterday said that police were contemplating action against the caller, Vishnu Gupta, under IPC Section 182 (false information, with intent to cause public servant to use his lawful power to the injury of another person).

He added that the PCR call regarding the beef complaint was given priority because it had the potential to disrupt harmony between communities and could have had “disastrous consequences”, especially because of the “past record” of the caller, identified as Vishnu Gupta, national president of Hindu Sena.

“The caller was already in police’s notice because of his past record,” said Bassi, adding that the officials deployed outside Kerala House to keep a watch were instructed to take preventive action in case Vishnu Gupta and his associates were caught doing any “mischief”.

(Agencies)

Pakistan’s Edhi Foundation refuses to accept Rs 1 crore offer by Modi

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Edhi Foundation

New Delhi: Noted humanitarian Abdul Sattar Edhi on Tuesday refused to accept Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s donation of Rs 1 crore to his charity.

“Abdul Sattar Edhi has thanked Modi and politely declined to accept his announced financial help,” Edhi Foundation Spokesman Anwar Kazmi was quoted as saying by Dawn news.

Kazmi said Edhi’s son, Faisal Edhi, will be addressing a press conference in this regard at 4:30 pm at Karachi Press Club.

Modi had on Monday announced the contribution to the charity after the return of hearing and speech impaired girl Geeta to India.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday offered Rs.1 crore to Pakistan’s Edhi Foundation for taking care of Geeta, a deaf and mute young Indian woman who was stranded there for over a decade.

“I don’t think any amount of words are enough to thank the Edhi family for taking care of Geeta. They are apostles of kindness and compassion,” Modi tweeted on Monday.

“What the Edhi family has done is too priceless to be measured but I am happy to announce a contribution of Rs 10 million for their foundation,” said another tweet from PM Modi.

PM Modi also expressed his gratitude to Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif for his efforts that ensured Geeta’s return to India.

The Edhi Foundation is a non-profit social welfare programme in Pakistan, founded by Abdul Sattar Edhi in 1951. He is popularly known as Pakistan’s “Father Teresa”.

(Agencies)

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