Archives for 2018

Union HRD Minister Prakash Javadekar on Wednesday criticized Congress leader Navjot Singh Sidhu for showering praise on Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan during the Kartarpur Corridor ceremony in that country.

He also slammed Sidhu for discussing domestic issues with Pakistan at a time when Pakistan has been found involved in cross-border terrorism. “Sidhu committed the biggest sin by flouting norms of diplomatic relations by discussing domestic issues with Pakistan,” he added.

“It’s surprising to see Sidhu showering praise on Khan at a time when Pakistan has been found involved in terrorism in our country,” Javadekar said. “Sidhu should know that the event was not a ‘Laughters’ Challenge programme,” he said.

“Sidhu’s Congress party follows double standard and will not act against him. Earlier Congress leader Mani Shankar Aiyar had gone to Pakistan and spoken on removing Modi, and now Sidhu it seems, is following in his footsteps. Both present the mindset of the Congress,” said Javadekar.

Punjab Minister Navjot Singh Sidhu on Wednesday praised Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan for opening the Kartarpur Corridor for facilitating Sikhs’ pilgrimage, connecting the holy shrines of Dera Baba Nanak Sahib and Gurdwara Darbar Sahib (Kartarpur) in Pakistan.

Sidhu said that “whenever history is written about the Kartarpur Sahib Corridor, Khan’s name will be written on the first page.”

IANS

 Telangana Chief Minister K. Chandrashekhar Rao on Wednesday told Prime Minister Narendra Modi that India is not his grandfather or father’s ‘jagir’ (estate).

The Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) chief made a scathing attack on Modi at an election rally in Sangareddy.

“Is India your grandfather and father’s estate (jagir)? This is democracy. How many days will you be in power?” KCR asked in his inimitable style in Telugu.

The TRS leader was criticizing Modi for not allowing the state to increase reservation for tribals and Muslims.

KCR said as the population of tribals and Muslims had gone up in Telangana, resolutions were passed in the Assembly and cabinet to increase their quota.

“I not only went to Delhi to hand over these resolutions but wrote 30 letters to the Centre. The Ministers also went to Delhi to meet Modi and make a request. Now they are saying they will neither do it nor allow others to do it,” said KCR, referring to recent statement of BJP President Amit Shah.

The TRS chief said Telangana can get justice only if a non-BJP, non-Congress Federal Front comes to power at the Centre.

IANS

 Transgender candidate M. Chandramukhi, contesting the Telangana assembly elections from a constituency in the city, turned up at a police station late Wednesday night.

Chandramukhi, who is contesting the election from Goshamahal as a candidate of the Bahujan Left Front and was missing since early Tuesday, reached Banjara Hills police station along with her lawyer and some members of the transgender community.

She refused to give a statement to police about her whereabouts, saying she will reveal all the details in court on Thursday.

The Hyderabad High Court had on Wednesday directed the police to produce her in the court on Thursday.

The court passed orders on a habeas corpus petitioned filed by Chandramukhi’s mother Ananthamma.

Earlier, a missing case was registered at the Banjara Hills police station on a complaint by her mother.

Chandramukhi, the only transwoman candidate in Telangana’s assembly elections, went missing early on Tuesday from her house in Jawaharnagar here. According to her supporters, two persons had come to meet her. Later, her mobile phone was switched off. They claimed she had been abducted.

However, after examining CCTV footage, police said on Wednesday that she left the house on her own and was seen walking alone. A police official said she had masked her face to hide her identity.

Police had formed 10 teams to trace the missing candidate. A few teams were also deputed to Anantapur and other districts in neighbouring Andhra Pradesh.

Bahujan Left Front leaders and transgender activists have alleged that people who were opposed to a transgender contesting the election were behind her disappearance.

Chandramukhi is contesting from Goshamahal against Bharatiya Janata Party legislator Raja Singh and the Congress party’s Mukesh Goud.

IANS

A globally-respected water expert has questioned Prime Minister Narendar Modi’s pet project to clean up the river Ganga, saying it is fundamentally flawed because it is rooted in the past and doesn’t take into account the future. He also said his offer of help in 2014 had been summarily ignored and that it was not possible to clean up the Ganga by 2020, contrary to repeated claims by the government.

“The entire Ganga pollution control plan is fundamentally flawed. If by a miracle the current plan could be implemented, it will still not be effective even over the medium term, let alone the long term, because it is mostly past-oriented and doesn’t take into account future conditions,” Asit K. Biswas, Distinguished Visiting Professor at the Lee Kuan Yew School for Public Policy in Singapore,” told IANS in a telephonic interview.

“By 2050, India will have 1.76 billion people and much larger industrial activities, none of which are seriously considered (factored in) in the current plan. Consequently, with a 95 per cent probability, I can safely predict that by 2030, the Ganga as a river will be more polluted than it is now, even after expenditure of over $41 billion up to 2020,” he said.

Biswas, who is of Indian origin, said that if the present plan continues, he sees only more and more problems with the Ganga’s clean-up in the coming years.

“It is time to bring the best and independent water experts, both from India and rest of the world, to see objectively what can be done to clean the Ganga over the next two to three decades. When Uma Bharti became the Union Minister in charge of the Ganga clean-up drive (in 2014), I offered to meet her and advise her, at no cost, on what needs to be done over a realistic 20-30 year period.

“The letter was hand-delivered to her office by the CEO of a Fortune 100 company whom I advise. However, she did not even bother to acknowledge it,” Biswas, co-founder of the Third World Centre for Water Management in Mexico, said.

Biswas, who has authored and edited over 80 books, mainly on water resources and management, said it is unfortunate that in India there is just talk of “mother” Ganga and worshipping it without bothering to keep it clean.

“Political rhetoric will never clean up the Ganga. It needs a new and good plan and then determined execution of that plan. Sadly, a good and implementable plan still does not exist; nor is there any plan to develop one.

“It is theoretically impossible to clean up the entire Ganga by 2020. Indian politicians have not even defined what they mean by Ganga clean-up. Normally, this means cleaning the entire river. The best that can be done perhaps is to clean up a small stretch of river if action is carefully planned and executed. There are no signs that this is likely to happen on a long-term basis, even for a limited stretch of Ganga, by 2020,” said Biswas, who is occupied round the year in his advisory role to 19 governments, including China, and to three CEOs of Fortune 100 companies.

Biswas said it is a fact that the Ganga is one of the world’s most polluted rivers. At present, some 50 cities along Ganga discharge six billion litres of untreated sewage into the river. This is the largest source of pollution. Furthermore, untreated industrial wastewater, containing many known but mostly unknown hazardous chemicals and heavy metals, some of them carcinogenic, further compound the problem.

Add to this is the agricultural run-off containing pesticides and fertilisers, as well as disposal of human and animal corpses. No serious long-term monitoring of water quality and sediments has ever been done. Thus, the river now carries a deadly cocktail of known and unknown pollutants.

This has made ritual dips in the holy river increasingly dangerous for human health over time. Last month G.D. Agrawal, a former professor at IIT-Kanpur, died after a 111-day fast to focus attention on cleaning up the Ganga. Sadly, his death has not made any perceptible difference to the acceleration of the clean-up efforts. Now, Sant Gopaldas is fasting unto death to stop mining activities along the river. Unfortunately, all this doesn’t have much impact on devising clean-up efforts which will work.

Biswas pointed that some $14 billion has been spent thus far to construct sewage treatment plants and another $27 billion has been allocated till 2019. The overwhelming majority of these plants, which have been operational for more than three years, are either not functioning properly or at a low efficiency, various stakeholders say.

Even worse, construction of sewer lines to bring sewage to the treatment plants are all running well behind schedule. Thus, numerous plants do not get enough sewage to treat.

There is not a single vocational school in India which can properly train people to operate these plants. In addition, corruption in construction of the sewage treatment plants means they do not function properly. Also, there is extensive corruption in all the state pollution control boards, the stakeholders say, adding there are no visible attempts to rectify the situation.

“Existing barrages and dams now divert at least 60 per cent of the natural flow of the Ganga and its tributaries. In addition, 6.5-7 million tubewells in the Ganga basin are steadily withdrawing groundwater. This means the Ganga’s flow is progressively declining. Less flow with increasing discharge of wastewater means the water quality will decline even further,” Biswas said.

According to Biswas, the Kathmandu-based ICIMOD’s climate change models clearly indicate that the Himalayan glaciers are melting and most will be gone by 2050. This means the Ganga is now getting more water from these glacial-melts than ever before in history. Thus, both the flow and quality of water is likely to worsen by 2050, when most of the glaciers will be gone.

“No one is even thinking of this possibility. These events will aggravate the situation even further,” Biswas lamented.

IANS

A suspected human trafficking attempt was thwarted by alert immigration officials at the Kempegowda International Airport here on Monday night with the rescue of thirty-two women nursing graduates from Kerala, suspected to be victims of the racket.

Officials detained Tony Tom, a Kerala native who was taking the students to Armenia for pursuing a short-term course to learn German at the University of Traditional Medicine of Armenia (UTMA). Later he along with the students were handed over to BIAL police for investigation.

Reportedly Tony, who runs an education consultancy in Kankanady area of Mangaluru had recently put up an advertisement, which promised placements to nursing students in reputed hospitals abroad if they knew to converse in German. The women, most of who have studied in Mangaluru had enrolled at the institute to pursue the two-month German course at UTMA after seeing the advertisement. Each of the students had made payment of Rs 30,000 towards airfare and USD 1,200 for the course fee to Tom.

Tony was arrested on the charge of attempted human trafficking, said a police official adding that they are unsure of what he would have done with the girls in Armenia if no such course existed at UTMA.

Meanwhile, the police are verifying Tony Tom’s antecedents and have also recorded the statements of all 32 women.

Lashing out at the BJP for criticising his government’s performance, Chief Minister HD Kumaraswamy Tuesday said the ruling coalition will hold its performance to the party chief Yeddyurappa’s “face”, during the winter session of the assembly from December 10.

The chief minister also asserted his government’s commitment in implementing farm loan waiver and effectively mitigating drought situation in the state.

“I will discuss on what Yeddyurappa has said during the assembly session, no problem.He has said no work has taken place during this government,” Kumaraswamy told reporters.

Kumaraswamy said during 2013-14 when the Siddaramaiah-led government came to power, expenditure was 44 per cent of the budget estimate; “now in2018-19, the expenditure is 43 per cent.”

“Let, Yeddurappa not fear whether we will utilize themoney or not. What has been allocated for each department during the budget we will utilize it effectively, we will not lag behind in it,” he added.

Highlighting various initiatives taken up by his government, including the clearance for peripheral ring road for Bengaluru city, the chief minister said, “let there be no worry that money allocated for various departments is being utilized towards farm loan waiver.

“What more I can show to him (Yeddyurappa) to prove our intent?” he questioned, as he said directions hadbeen given to officials to work effectively without wastingtime, so that coalition government’s programmes reach people.

“Let’s hold the government’s performance to Yeddyurappa’s face during the assembly session from December 10, with figures.

Let’s talk before him about who has spoken truth and who has spoken falsehood,” Kumaraswamy said, as he flayed the former chief minister for his comments on the coalition government’s performance.

Quoting figures, Yeddyurappa had recently termed the Congress-JD(S) government’s performance in the first six months since coming to power as “poor”, and had said the BJP would demand answers from Kumaraswamy duringthe winter session in Belagavi from December 10-21.

Asked how much marks he would give to the coalition government on completing six months in office, Kumaraswamy said “I’m doing my work. People will decide how much to score for my progress.”

The chief minister Tuesday chaired a meeting of regionalcommissioners, deputy commissioners of various districts andCEOs of Zilla Panchayats along with his cabinet colleagues.
He said unnecessarily wrong information was being spread about the farm loan waiver.

Kumaraswamy said he has directed officials to collect all data from cooperative and commercial banks by December 1 and initiate waiver process from December 5.

He said the data of 20.8 lakh farmers from 33 banks has been collected and the process is on.

The chief minister, who took stock of the various developmental works along drought relief related measures taken up by the government, said officials have been directed to address the issues faced by people and take immediate action.

“We have even decided to relax certain guidelines to take decisions aimed at benefiting people, in drought mitigation,” he added.

PTI