Archives for December 2018

 Preparing the pitch for a ‘Mahagatbandhan’ (Grand Alliance) ahead of the Lok Sabha polls, opposition parties will meet here on December 10, a day before Parliament opens its winter session and the results of Assembly elections in five states are known.

The driving force behind the gathering is Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu, who has been making efforts to put together an anti-BJP front after walking out of the Modi government.

Congress President Rahul Gandhi, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, former Union Minister Sharad Yadav, National Conference leader Farooq Abdullah, Samajwadi Party leader Ram Gopal Yadav and leaders of other opposition parties are likely to attend the meeting to be held at Constitution Club in the heart of Delhi.

The meeting will focus on the form and structure of the proposed opposition alliance and a course of action to take forward the initiative.

A plan of action is likely to be drafted to fight the Modi government over its alleged anti-people policies like misuse of institutions like RBI, CBI, CVC and the Income Tax department to settle scores with political rivals, an opposition leader told IANS.

He said the meeting would also discuss on the sidelines how to corner the government in Parliament on issues related to farmers, demonetisation and the controversial Rafale deal.

TDP chief Naidu has met Rahul Gandhi, Nationalist Congress Party’s Sharad Pawar, DMK’s M.K. Stalin, Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee, Farooq Abdullah, former Prime Minister and Janata Dal-Secular chief H.D. Deve Gowda and Bahujan Samaj Party leader Mayawati.

The meeting comes a day ahead of the vote count of Assembly elections in Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Telangana, Rajasthan and Mizoram.

The elections are being dubbed the semifinal of next year’s general elections.

Last week, opposition leaders gathered here at a farmers rally. The Congress President and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal shared the stage together and accused the Modi government of plunging the country into an acute agrarian crisis.

IANS

 Slain journalist Jamal Khashoggi, in over 400 WhatsApp messages that he sent to a fellow Saudi exile before he was murdered in October, described Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman as a “beast” and a “pac-man” who would devour all in his path, even his supporters, a media report said.

Khashoggi had sent the texts to Montreal-based activist Omar Abdulaziz, the CNN report said on Monday.

The messages shared by Abdulaziz, which include voice recordings, photos and videos, paint a picture of a man deeply troubled by what he regarded as the petulance of the Crown Prince.

“The more victims he eats, the more he wants,” says Khashoggi in one message sent in May, just after a group of Saudi activists had been rounded up.

“I will not be surprised if the oppression will reach even those who are cheering him on.”

In almost daily exchanges between October 2017 and August 2018, Khashoggi and Abdulaziz conceived plans to form an electronic army to engage young Saudis back home and debunk state propaganda on social media, leveraging Khashoggi’s establishment profile and the 27-year-old Abdulaziz’s 340,000-strong Twitter following.

“(Jamal]) believed that MBS (the Crown Prince) is the issue, is the problem and he said this kid should be stopped,” Abdulaziz said in an interview with CNN on Sunday.

But in August, when he believed their conversations may have been intercepted by Saudi authorities, a sense of foreboding descends over Khashoggi.

“God help us,” he wrote.

Two months later, he was dead.

Abdulaziz on Sunday launched a lawsuit against an Israeli company that invented the software he believes was used to hack his phone.

“The hacking of my phone played a major role in what happened to Jamal, I am really sorry to say,” Abdelaziz told CNN. “The guilt is killing me.”

Abdulaziz began speaking out against the Saudi regime as a college student in Canada. His pointed criticisms of government policies drew the attention of the Saudi state, which cancelled his university scholarship.

Canada granted him asylum in 2014 and made him a permanent resident three years later.

Abdulaziz first spoke publicly about his contact with Khashoggi last month after researchers at the University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab reported his phone had been hacked by military-grade spyware.

IANS

 Taking a dig at Narendra Modi over the fall in crop prices, Congress President Rahul Gandhi on Monday said the Prime Minister was creating two Indias — one for corporates and the other for farmers.

“Modiji is creating two Indias. One India is of Anil Ambani, in which Modi gives Rs 30,000 crore Rafale contract though they have no experience of building aircraft. The other is of farmers in which just Rs 1,040 is given for 750 kg of onion that is cultivated after four months of hard work,” Gandhi tweeted.

A farmer from Maharashtra who received Rs 1,064 for selling 750 kg of onions sent the amount to Modi a few days ago as a mark of protest.

On Friday, Gandhi participated in a protest march organised by farmer organisations in Delhi for loan waiver and remunerative crop prices.

IANS

 With the Train 18 speeding up to 180 kmph between Kota junction and Kurlasi station during a trial on Sunday, efforts are on to launch the first indigenously-built Trainset on December 25 between New Delhi and Varanasi.

“Christmas Day also happens to be the birthday of late Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and it would be a tribute to the great statesman if we manage to launch the next-generation train on that day,” a senior railway official told IANS.

Since the input cost of the Rs 100-crore train is high, the fare structure will be also be higher than the normal fare.

However, the official added that the decision on its launch date and fare were yet to be taken as the trial was not yet complete.

According to the tentative plan, the train will start from New Delhi station at 6 a.m. and is expected to reach Varanasi, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s parliamentary constituency, at 2 p.m.

For the return journey, the train will start at 2.30 p.m., from Varanasi and reach the national capital at 10.30 p.m.

It was a thrilling experience onboard Train 18 during the various trials on Sunday — including a speed run on a straight track, speed test on one degree curve at 150 kmph, and two degree curve at 140 and 150 kmph — on the 113 km stretch from Kota to Kurlasi under the watchful eyes senior railway officials as well as those from the national transporter’s Research Design and Standards Organisation.

Ladoos were distributed in the train when it clocked 180 kmph. The first sweets were offered to loco pilot Padam Singh Gurjar and his assistant Onkar Yadav.

“We are quite excited to be part of this great occasion,” Padam Singh told IANS after having the sweet.

“I feel proud to be part of this historic trial,” added Yadav.

It was a smooth ride for those inside — occupying rotating seats to match the direction of the train – as the Train 18 became the first train to touch such high speed on the Indian rail network.

The train started its trial run at 9.30 a.m., from Kota, and returned to the junction at 6 p.m., after negotiating several rivers, bridges and curves.

The Trainset does not require a locomotive as it is a self-propelled on electric traction, like metro trains.

Now the Trainset has to undergo what is called a long confirmatory run and also test its emergency braking distance before it gets a clearance from the Commissioner, Railway Safety (CRS), for commercial operations to commence.

“We are expecting the trials to be over in a week and after that we will seek CRS clearance,” said the official.

Although the speed touched 180 kmph during Sunday’s trial run, the Train-18 will only be allowed to run at a maximum speed of 160 kmph in its commercial operations.

After the successful completion of 115 kmph test run on the Bareli-Moradabad section last week, the next-generation train — indigenously developed at Chennai’s Integral Coach Factory — is required to undergo the 180 kmph trial run here till December 4.

Equipped with world class facilities, the Rs 100 crore Trainset aims to take passenger-comfort to a new level with onboard WiFi, a GPS-based information system, touch-free bio-vacuum toilets, LED lighting, mobile charging points, and a climate control system that adjusts the temperature according to occupancy and weather.

The 16-coach train will have two executive compartments with 52 seats each, and trailer coaches will have 78 seats each.

IANS