Archives for July 2018

New Delhi: The Delhi High Court today said it will hear on July 16 a plea seeking removal of certain scenes from the Netflix series ‘Sacred Games’, claiming that some of its content was derogatory to former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi.

The matter came up before a bench of justices Sanjiv Khanna and Chander Shekhar which said it will go through the petition and CD and listed it for Monday.

The plea, which alleged that certain scenes and dialogues in the show defamed the late Congress leader, yesterday came up before a bench of Acting Chief Justice Gita Mittal and Justice C Hari Shankar, which said it be listed before another bench. The acting chief justice had recused from hearing it without assigning any reason.

Petitioner advocate Nikhil Bhalla, in the petition filed through advocate Shashank Garg, contended that the show, starring Saif Ali Khan and Nawazuddin Siddiqui, “incorrectly depicts historical events of the country like Bofors case, Shah Bano case, Babri Masjid case and communal riots”.

The plea has sought directions to Netflix Entertainment, the show’s producer — Phantom Films Production Ltd — and the Centre to ensure “in toto” removal of the allegedly offensive scenes and derogatory remarks made directly or indirectly against the former prime minister or his family.

The first season of the show, comprising eight episodes, was released on July 6 and is available in 190 countries in four languages, the petition has said.

(PTI)

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Wednesday slammed the Central and Delhi governments and the capital’s civic agencies for blaming each other but doing nothing to reduce water consumption and preservation of groundwater, and sought action plan to check its depletion.

A bench of Justice Madan B. Lokur and Justice Deepak Gupta said that groundwater depletion is a serious problem here and asked the Centre for immediate, intermediate and long-term measures to check its depletion.

The bench took into note a NITI Aayog report which said that various authorities were passing the buck and shying away from their responsibility.

The report said there was over-exploitation of groundwater in several cities, especially Delhi, said the court, adding there would be no groundwater in Delhi by 2021 which means that “people cannot survive” here.

“The person who is responsible, says I am not responsible for this. Everybody has to be blamed in this country, except the person in-charge,” said the bench which was upset with authorities for passing the buck to each other and not doing anything on groundwater depletion.

It observed: “Have you seen the NITI Aayog report? It says that there will be no ground water in Delhi. There is pollution. Perhaps you will shift the capital. From where will groundwater come. Muhammad bin Tughluq was smart and 400 years ago, he had shifted the capital from Delhi.”

The bench said the suggestion given by the Ministry of Water Resources are nothing but an essay which anybody, even a schoolchild, can give.

“Anybody walking on the street can tell all this. We do not want an expert to say these things. You ask a schoolchild to write an essay on water problem in Delhi and the child will give all these suggestions. These are the kind of experts we have… that is why we are facing so many problems.”

Upset that authorities were not realising the seriousness of the situation, the bench had earlier said the critical decline in groundwater level in Delhi could lead to a “water war” for every drop.

The Central Ground Water Board had told the court that groundwater here was “over-exploited” and the level had declined to “very critical” stage.

Due to excess extraction of groundwater, almost 90 per cent of Delhi is in a “critical” situation, its report had said.

(IANS)

New Delhi: India on Wednesday refused entry to British MP Lord Carlile, a member of former Bangladesh Prime Minister Khaleda Zia’s legal team, on charges of having an invalid visa.

“Lord Alexander Carlile, a British national, arrived in New Delhi on July 11, 2018 without having obtained the appropriate Indian visa,” External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Raveesh Kumar said ina response to queries.

“His intended activity in India was incompatible with the purpose of his visit as mentioned in his visa application,” Kumar said.

“It was therefore decided to deny him entry into India upon arrival.”

Lord Carlile was scheduled to address the media in New Delhi on Thursday.

According to the Dhaka Tribune, he wanted to “explain the complexities of Khaleda Zia’s case to the international media community”.

(IANS)

New York: Indian-origin technology executives Jayshree Ullal and Neerja Sethi have made it to the Forbes’ list of America’s 60 richest self-made women, with 21-year-old reality-TV star and entrepreneur Kylie Jenner the youngest to be featured in the power list.

Ullal is ranked 18th in the list of 60 self-made women, having a net worth of 1.3 billion dollars while Sethi is ranked 21st with a net worth of a billion dollars.

“America’s top female entrepreneurs have shattered ceilings and scaled new heights, creating companies and building fortunes in everything from genetic testing to aerospace. Increasingly these self-made starters are tapping social media to cement their brands and build businesses ever more quickly. That in turn has helped the nation’s most successful women become richer than ever before,” Forbes said.

Born in London and raised in India, Ullal, 57 has been president and CEO of Arista Networks, a computer networking firm, since 2008.

The publicly-traded company recorded revenues of USD 1.6 billion in 2017. Forbes said Ullal owns about five per cent of Arista’s stock, some of which is earmarked for her two children, niece and nephew.

Sethi, 63, is the vice president of IT consulting and outsourcing company Syntel, a company she cofounded with her husband Bharat Desai in 1980 in their apartment in Troy, Michigan.

Starting out with an initial investment of just USD 2,000, they pulled in a mere USD 30,000 in first-year sales. Syntel racked up USD 924 million in 2017 revenues and has 23,000 employees, 80 per cent of whom are in India, Forbes said.

The combined net worth of the 60 women on the list is a record USD 71 billion, 15 per cent more than in 2017. The minimum net worth to make Forbes’ fourth annual ranking of these top women jumped 23 per cent to a record USD 320 million.

Twenty-four of these women are billionaires, another record, up from 18 last year. Seven newcomers joined the ranks, including four Instagram-savvy makeup moguls. The richest of these new faces is billionaire Anastasia Soare, whose cosmetics company Anastasia Beverly Hills, best known for beautifying eyebrows, now has more than 17 million followers on Instagram.

The youngest is Jenner, who turns 21 in August. Half-sister of Kim Kardashian West, who is also on the list for the first time, Jenner has leveraged her massive social media following (110 million followers on Instagram) to build a USD 900 million cosmetics fortune in less than three years.

“That makes her worth more than twice as much as her more famous sister,” Forbes said.

Taking the number one spot is Diane Hendricks, a Wisconsin billionaire who owns ABC Supply, one of the largest wholesale distributors of roofing, siding and windows in America.

The vast majority of list members hail from California – 27 altogether. Although 17 list members made their fortunes in fashion and retail, 13 including Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg built fortunes in technology, while 10 including Oprah Winfrey and Taylor Swift made it in media and entertainment, Forbes said.

The list also includes immigrants who have achieved success and created wealth not only for themselves but for their employees too.

Fourteen of the top 60 women entrepreneurs were born outside of the US, including Eren Ozmen, the majority owner of aerospace and defence business Sierra Nevada Corp who is now gambling hundreds of millions to take on Elon Musk and others in space.

Ozmen arrived from Turkey in her 20s and held down several part-time jobs while attending business school, selling homemade baklava at a bakery and even working as a night janitor at Sierra Nevada, years before she and her husband bought it.

(PTI)