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Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Wednesday refused to accept senior leader Ashutosh’s resignation from the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP).
Retweeting Ashutosh’s tweet announcing he was quitting the AAP for personal reasons, Kejriwal said he cannot accept the resignation at least in this lifetime.
“How can we ever accept ur resignation? No, not in this lifetime,” Kejriwal said.
Karnataka would study the final award of the Mahadayi Water Disputes Tribunal, which on Tuesday recommended 13.42 TMC (thousand million cubic feet) of the river water to the state before deciding on its next move, said an official statement here.
“We will respond to the final award of the Tribunal after a detailed study of its recommendations to the Union government. An appropriate decision will be taken after studying the award in 12 volumes and consulting with the concerned,” Chief Minister H. D. Kumaraswamy said in a statement here.
The three-member Tribunal awarded 13.42 TMC of the river water to Karnataka as against its demand for 36.66 TMC, said an earlier statement.
“I have discussed the ruling with the state water resources department and legal experts,” added the Chief Minister.
One of the counsels who represented Karnataka before the Tribunal, Mohan Kataraki, said the immediate water needs of the state’s drought-prone districts Bagalkote, Belagavi, Dharwad and Gadag, have been addressed by the award.
“While the immediate water requirement has been met by the Tribunal’s award, we will take steps for any additional water requirement after going through the verdict,” Kataraki told reporters in New Delhi.
Congress state unit President Dinesh Gundu Rao said the party is partially satisfied with the award.
“We are partially satisfied with the Tribunal’s verdict as the award for Karnataka is less than the water we had demanded,” Rao told reporters here.
Karnataka Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) President B.S. Yeddyurappa, however, hailed the award as “historic”.
“We are happy with what has been awarded to the state and welcome the Tribunal’s decision,” Yeddyurappa said.
Heavy rains again hit Kerala on Wednesday killing four more people and taking the death toll to 43 since August 8.
It has been raining heavily in several parts of the state since Tuesday evening. The authorities were forced to open 33 dams across Kerala.
Those reported dead on Wednesday were a couple in Malappuram who was crushed after their house crumbled. Their six-year-old child is missing.
A person died in a Munnar lodge as it crashed. A 70-year-old woman in Ranni near Pathanamthitta was electrocuted as her house was submerged.
The Idukki dam floodgates were reopened late on Tuesday as the water level in the Periyar river and its tributaries flowing through Ernakulam and Thrissur districts rose menacingly.
Following flooding in and around the Cochin International Airport, all flights were canceled till 2 p.m. on Wednesday.
The Met has forecast more rains till Saturday.
Authorities are maintaining a close vigil especially in Idukki district as the shutters of the Mullaperiyar dam were also opened at 2.35 a.m. after its water-level crossed 140 feet.
People living in and around the dam were evacuated late on Tuesday.
Leaves of all revenue department officials have been canceled, authorities said.
Rains which started on August 8 are said to have caused the worst damage to Kerala since 1924. Over 50,000 people are in relief camps and the damages to crops and properties is estimated to be over Rs 8,000 crore.
Two recent statements made by JDS national president HD Deve Gowda and Chief Minister HD Kumaraswamy have raised questions whether all is not well in the first family of the state’s ruling party.
According to the sources, HDD is keen to field Prajwal Revanna from Hassan constituency in the upcoming Loksabha election. He has made his intention clear in this regard. With this, Gowda is likely to contest from the Mandya, which is another strong belt of the JDS.
But HDK is not keen on fielding Prajwal, it is said. When he was questioned about the same in Haradanahalli in Hassan he informed that Prajwal will be fielded only if such a scenario emerges. Adding to this HDD in Hassan announced that HDK will move to national politics if any crisis emerges. But HDK refuted the statement and made it clear that he will never move to the national politics.
According to the sources in the party, HDD is under pressure from daughter-in-law Bhavani Revanna on lack of political representation to her husband and son. “She is pressurizing the senior Gowda to field Prajwal from Hassan. But HDK is against it,” said sources.
The Goa government will soon announce an employment policy aimed at ensuring job for every youth in the coastal state, Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar said on Wednesday.
Parrikar, who is currently in the US undergoing treatment for advanced pancreatic cancer, in his Independence Day speech via a video message, thanked Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the National Democratic Alliance government for its assistance in creating large-scale infrastructure projects in Goa.
“This year we have planned a new action plan for employment for our youth involving affirmative action, which includes providing employment subsidy for industries which employ Goan youth,” Parrikar said in his message.
“I hope that in the coming one or two years, there will be no unemployed youth in Goa. We will announce a policy for employment and we hope that there will be a new sense of enthusiasm created,” he said.
Regarding infrastructure, Parrikar said that Goa had scaled great heights, thanks to the Centre’s support.
“Today, Goa has reached a different level altogether at every parameter vis-a-vis infrastructure, thanks to Rs 10,000-20,000 crore assistance from the Centre. Today, with the Mandovi bridge, Zuari bridge, National Highway 17, National Highway 4A, in all these places people can see a lot of development and the projects will be completed at the pre-decided time, without delay in a year or two,” the Chief Minister.
Parrikar also said that efforts were on to improve the quality of education in the state.
“Along with value education, civic sense, personal hygiene, traffic sense, garbage management are also being taught in schools, so that the values inculcated at a young age can help create a new Goa,” the Chief Minister added.
Breaking his silence over the brutal cases of rapes in various parts of the country, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday said the narrow mentality towards women has to end and justice must prevail.
“We have to free our society and country from this disgusting mentality of rape,” Modi said in his Independence Day address from the the Red Fort.
“In Madhya Pradesh a rapist was hanged by a fast track court. People should know this. Rule of law is supreme and no one can take the law in their hands,” he said.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi addresses to the nation on the country’s Independence Day from the ramparts of the historical Red Fort in New Delhi, India, Wednesday, Aug. 15, 2018. India will send a manned flight into space by 2022, Modi announced Wednesday as part of India’s independence day celebrations. India won independence from British colonialists in 1947. (AP Photo/Manish Swarup)
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday said the country was on a new trajectory of growth due to initiatives in the last four years of his government and asserted that he was impatient to take the country ahead of many others in the world.
Addressing the nation from the ramparts of the Red Fort on the 72nd Independence Day, he took a dig at the previous UPA rule, saying if his government had continued with the same pace of development, the country would have taken decades to reach where it was today.
“Yes, I am impatient because many of the countries have moved forward. We have to move forward too. Malnutrition is a big problem in the country’s development. I am anxious to eradicate it.
“I am impatient to provide health coverage to every poor person so that they can fight diseases. I am anxious to provide quality life to all citizens. I am eager because we have to lead knowledge-based fourth industrial revolution. I am eager because I want that the country uses its resources and potential,” he said.
Promising sanitation, housing, electricity, water, LPG, skills, health insurance and connectivity for all, Modi said towards the end of the speech that he wanted to create a new India for a better future.
“We have to make a new sunrise and take the country ahead of the skies and create a new India. We want to move ahead with the dream of reaching the crescendo of development. We want to progress more. There is no question of stopping or getting tired on the way,” he said.
The Prime Minister said India was earlier seen among the fragile five nations but now it had turned itself into a “land of reform, perform and transform”.
“We are all set for record economic growth. India’s voice is being heard effectively at the world stage. We are integral part of forums whose doors were earlier closed for us,” he said.
“The demand for higher MSP (minimum support price for farmers) was pending for years. From farmers to political parties to agriculture experts, everybody was asking about it but nothing happened. The decision was taken by our government to provide the MSP of 1.5 times of production cost.”
He said the armed forces veterans were demanding one rank, one pension but no one listened to them before the Bharatiya Janata Party came to power.
He talked about the Goods and Services Tax (GST), saying it had given new confidence to small and big traders who “wholeheartedly embraced” the new tax regime despite “initial problems”.
“Who did not want the passage of the GST? Yet, it was pending for years. Last year it became a reality. The OROP demand was pending for decades. The people of India, our brave Army personnel had faith in us and we were able to take a decision on OROP.”
Drawing a parallel between the pace of works during UPA and the NDA governments, he said: “If we had continued at the same pace at which toilets were being built in 2013, the pace at which electrification was happening, LPG gas cylinders were being distributed and optical fibres were being laid in 2013, then it would have taken us decades to complete them.
“The country is now feeling the change. As a result, we are making highways with a double speed, houses are being made in villages with four times more pace, there is record production, we are manufacturing record mobiles. Today we are buying more aeroplanes.
“It is the same land, same sky, sea, government offices and the country. But in the last four years, India has moved with a new zeal and therefore today India is constructing twice the highways and producing record crops.”
Tamil Nadu Chief Minister K. Palaniswami on Wednesday said the state leads in attracting industrial investments.
Unfurling the national flag at Fort St. George, the state Secretariat here, to mark the 72nd Independence Day, Palaniswami said the state would host the second Global Investors Meet next year.
Listing the achievements of the government in the fields of industry, agriculture, and education, he added that it was due to the sacrifices of many freedom fighters that India secured its independence.
He said the contributions of Tamil Nadu in the fight for freedom – armed or non-violent – were immense.
Palanswami recalled the Sepoy mutiny against the East India Company at Vellore on July 10, 1806, owing to similar causes that triggered the 1857 revolt at Meerut.
State-run Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) will fly an Indian astronaut into space for the first time by 2022, an official said on Wednesday.
“All the critical technologies for the human space mission are being developed. We will pursue it to put an Indian astronaut in space by 2022,” a senior ISRO official told IANS, citing the space agency Chairman K.Sivan’s statement.
Addressing the nation on the occasion of Independence Day earlier in New Delhi, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced that an Indian would be sent to space by 2022.
So far, only the US, Russia and China have launched human spaceflights.
ISRO Chairman Sivan earlier said a mission document for India’s human space programme was in the making.
“Critical technologies are being developed for our human space programme, as it is India’s dream to put a man in space. A mission document is in the making,” Sivan had said on July 7 at an event here.
The space agency on July 5 carried out a successful maiden pad abort tests at its spaceport Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh for the safe escape of the crew in an emergency.
“The technology is very essential for our manned missions in the future,” Sivan had said.
The crew escape system is an emergency escape measure designed to quickly pull the crew module along with the astronauts to a safe distance from the launch vehicle in the event of a launch abort.
The ISRO Chairman, however, admitted that the space agency was “not close” to a human spaceflight yet.
“We are not close to that. We need to work a lot towards achieving the dream of putting a man in space,” Sivan added.
In a virtual election speech, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday projected himself as an impatient agent of change against the backdrop of “docile and inefficient” governance during the Congress-led UPA rule and promised housing, power, water, sanitation, and healthcare for all in his mission to take the country to new heights.
He also announced that the ambitious Prime Minister’s Jan Aarogya Abhiyan (PMJAA), dubbed “Modicare”, for health insurance coverage of Rs 5 lakh each to 10 crore families will be launched on September 25 on the 102nd birth anniversary of Deen Dayal Upadhyaya, the founder of Bharatiya Jana Sangh, the BJP’s predecessor.
Making his last Independence Day address to the nation ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, Modi said there was “senseless” criticism against him but asserted he was impatient and restless to take the country ahead of many others which had overtaken India.
And breaking his silence in the context of recent cases of rape and sexual exploitation in welfare homes in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, Modi said there was a need to attack such a mindset by putting the fear of the law that had been made stringent. He said law was supreme and no one could take it into their hands.
Referring to Jammu and Kashmir, Modi repeated the lines from his last year’s August 15 speech that the Kashmir problem can be resolved only by embracing its people, not with bullets or abuses. He recalled former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s line `Kashmiriyat, Jamhooriyat, Insaniyat’ (eclectic Kahmiri culture, democracy and humaneness) and said this was the only way forward.
Reaffirming his mantra of “sabka saath, sabka vikas” (take everyone along, development for all), the Prime Minister said there would be no discrimination against any section and there would be no nepotism and favouritism.
“I want to reiterate my pledges – housing for all, power for all, cooking (gas) for all, water for all, sanitation for all, skills for all, insurance for all, connectivity for all. We want to go ahead with these programmes.
“People make senseless criticism against me. But whatever may be said, I want to publicly acknowledge that I am restless because several countries have marched ahead and I want to take the country ahead of them. I am impatient because children are still suffering from malnutrition. I am eager to provide quality of life and ease of living to country men. I am impatient to provide health cover to each of the poor so that they can fight against diseases. I am eager because we have to lead knowledge-based fourth industrial revolution,” he said.
Modi turned poetic before winding up his nearly 80-minute speech, saying that the country’s fortunes were being transformed.
“We have to make a new dawn and create a new India. We want to move ahead with the dream of reaching the crescendo of development.”
Attacking the Congress but not by name, he said if comparison was made of the speed of governance in the last four years, people would be surprised.
“If toilets were built at the speed of 2013, several decades would have gone to reach the present stage. Rural electrification would have taken two decades. Taking LPG connection to poor women would have taken 100 years. Generations would have gone to take optical fibre to its present levels. There are a lot of expectations, a lot of needs. The country is feeling a change in the last four years. There is new awareness, new enthusiasm.”
He said four times more rural houses had been built, there was a record number of mobile manufacturers, record number of aeroplanes had been procured and record number of tractors sold.
“The demand for higher MSP (minimum support price) for farmers was pending for years. From farmers to political parties to agriculture experts, everybody was asking about it but nothing happened. The decision was taken by our government to provide the MSP of 1.5 times of production cost.”
Modi said the Army, which reaches out to people in case of natural calamities, also conducts surgical strikes to give a befitting replies to its enemies, an apparent reference to the surgical strike conducted on terror launch pads across Line of Control in 2016.
In a strong election pitch, Modi reached out to Dalits, poor, youth, farmers, women, fishermen, security forces, middle class and upper middle class by referring to the work done by his government and his endeavour to improve their lives.
Modi also attacked the opposition over the non-passage of triple talaq bill in the just-concluded monsoon session of Parliament and promised to do justice to Muslim women by getting it passed early.
Alleging that the previous governments had allowed a climate of corruption to thrive, the Prime Minister said his government had eliminated power brokers from Delhi and plugged loopholes in various schemes like Public Distribution System that had led to savings of Rs 90,000 crore. “The corrupt will not be forgiven.”
The measures initiated by the government had also led to near doubling of direct tax assesses from nearly four crore to 6.75 crore and indirect tax assesses from 75 lakh to 1.16 crore on account of introduction of GST apart from barring over three lakh suspicious companies in the anti-black money drive.
He announced that India would launch a manned mission in space by 2022 — it could be a man or woman — and a satellite dedicated to help fishermen.
The Prime Minister said India was earlier seen among the fragile five nations because of policy paralysis but now it had turned itself into a “land of reform, perform and transform”.
“We are all set for record economic growth. India’s voice is being heard effectively at the world stage. We are integral parts of forums whose doors were earlier closed for us.”