Archives for January 2020

The Hyderabad MP lashed out at the BJP-led Central government for failing to address unemployment issues in the country over the last few years.

HYDERABAD: AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi hit out at RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat for suggesting that two-child norm be made mandatory in the country. He lashed out at the BJP-led Central government for failing to address unemployment issues in the country over the last few years.

Owaisi was addressing a rally in Nizamabad on Saturday night. He said, “Mohan Bhagwat saab has sought a two-child policy. Please reveal how many jobs you have been able to provide. You have not been able to give employment in the last five-and-half years.”

Owaisi said, “In 2018, 36 youngsters killed themselves due to unemployment. What do you have to say about that? In the country 60 per cent of the population is below 40 years of age. You will not talk about this.”

Owaisi pointed out that Modi had once talked about providing 2 crore jobs annually. “However, when I speak about unemployment, they say I give inflammatory speeches,” he said. 

Recalling that PM Modi had once talked about providing two crore jobs annually, the AIMIM leader said, “You are running the government, not me and hence, I will ask the question and you answer. RSS asks to control the population of Muslims. They will not talk of providing employment when I ask the question.”

Owaisi also slammed Bhagwat’s attempt to equate the Constitution to Hindutva. The RSS chief in a rally had said, “Constitution says we should try to bring emotional integration. But what is the emotion? That emotion is — this country belongs to us, we are descendants of our great ancestors and we have to live together despite our diversity. This is what we call Hindutva.”

Owaisi issued a rebuttal saying, “Constitution doesn’t say anything even close to it. Preamble assures dignity of individual along with unity and integrity. Integration for RSS is different from Constitution’s. Emotional integration for RSS means making Assam’s Bengali-Hindu citizens and not Muslims; making citizenship laws on religion, calling minorities termites, etc.”

The professor further said that an attempt to create a unifying national project of othering Muslims was on its way, and all other sections of the society are invited to participate in it.

HYDERABAD:  An attempt to corner the Muslim community was underway through a legal route, said Satish Deshpande, a sociology professor from the University of Delhi, while delivering the ninth SR Sankaran Memorial Lecture on ‘Casteism and Communalism: Friends and Enemies’ organised by the Centre for Dalit Studies (CDS), on Sunday. 

“Today’s communal agenda is to overthrow the existing reality — equality of all religions. Our Constitution doesn’t recognise the difference between religions. The communal agenda is to ‘correct’ personal law, so that due recognition will be given to the Hindus, that is the communal agenda,” he said.

The professor further said that an attempt to create a unifying national project of othering Muslims was on its way, and all other sections of the society are invited to participate in it. “If you leave aside minute differences, it is Dalitization of Muslims, where a particular group is being considered as inferior and unrescualbly other,” said Deshpande. 

Stating that a legal route is adopted to corner Muslims, he said, “There is an attempt to turn this into legal reality, by making set legally unequal laws.” He alleged that there is an attempt to “re-enact” Manusmriti, which is de facto unequal. “The Constitution of India has no room for discrimination against religious minorities or lower castes,” he added.

Recalling the work of late IAS officer SR Sankaran, Mallepalli Laxmaiah, the chairperson of CDS, said, “During his career, Sankaran had worked to eradicate bonded labour, Jogini system, and for the upliftment of the poor and downtrodden communities. He collected over 1,500 books for CDS’s library.”

Amit Shah is currently serving as Union Home Minister in Narendra Modi cabinet and had been serving party chief till now.

NEW DELHI: The Bharatiya Janata Party will on Monday announce the name of its new chief, who would take over the reins of the party from Amit Shah under whose leadership BJP has witnessed emphatic electoral victories.

Shah is currently serving as Union Home Minister in Narendra Modi cabinet and had been serving party chief till now.

The announcement of the BJP national president will be made at party’s Headquarters at Deen Dayal Upadhyay Marg.

As per the party sources, BJP working president Jagat Prakash Nadda is set to be the party chief and would be elected unopposed. Nadda will file his nomination at around 10:30 am.

A former Himachal Pradesh minister, Nadda has the organisational experience and became party’s working president in June 2019 after the ruling party swept the Lok Sabha elections. BJP state chiefs, general secretaries and senior leaders would be present at the party headquarters on Monday.

Many of such visitors either stay with their relatives or are scattered in Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan, and Gujarat among other places.

CHANDIGARH: Facing religious persecution, over 30,000 Pakistani Hindus arrived in last five years of which a large number of them are still in India either on Long Time Visa (LTV) or are overstaying illegally.  

Sources in the intelligence agencies point out that the Pakistani Hindus arrived on a 25-day visa issued for religious visit through road and rail link via the Attari-Wagah border in Punjab and Munabo border in Rajasthan’s Barmer district.

Many of such visitors either stay with their relatives or are scattered in Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan, and Gujarat among other places.

“Many of them applied for a long term visa to stay back in India on health grounds or by giving any other solid reason so that they are granted LTVs and many of them got,’’ said a senior officer.

The LTV holders are allowed free movement within the state where they live and can transfer the same documents from one state to another, said sources.  

Many Pakistani Hindus are staying illegally as they have reportedly not got visas, the official said. 

But what concerns the intelligence setup is the possibility of Pakistani agencies sending their operatives in the garb of persecuted minorities.

Sources said that last year about 100 groups of Hindu devotees came to India from Pakistan and each group had about 50 members. This year, the sources said, at least 70 to 80 such groups may arrive in India for religious visits.

Sources said that agents in Sindh and Lahore in Pakistan charge about Rs 8,000 to Rs 10,000 per devotee in Pakistani currency and get papers prepared so that such visitors get an Indian visa for their visit.

With reports suggesting that three Hindu girls were abducted in Pakistan in last few days, the Delhi Sikh Gurdwara Management Committee (DSGMC) will take up this issue with the Ministry of External Affairs, DSGMC president Manjinder Singh Sirsa said that three Hindu girls, including two from Sindh and one from Jacobabad, had been abducted in the last 48 hours. 

Sirsa claimed that the Pakistan Police was not helping the parents of these abducted girls despite their repeated appeals requesting the Central government to take up this matter with Pakistan, he also urged the UN Human Rights Council to look into the matter and restore the dignity of the minorities in Pakistan.  

Sirsa said that he had already brought the matter to the notice of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.  

NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday displayed his grasp on social media and said he wants his ‘Pariksha Pe Charcha’ interaction with students to be without any filter – a terminology often used on platforms to denote unedited posts and candid conversations.

“We start our conversation. Today’s trend is #withoutfilter. We will have talk like you (students) talk to your friends. We will talk in a light environment,” the Prime Minister said during the event here.

“We may even make mistakes. And, in my case, if I make a mistake the friends in the media will love it too,” joked Modi.

He said that the ‘Pariksha Pe Charcha’ event is the closest to his heart, more than any other programmes he has attended.

“As Prime Minister, one gets to attend numerous types of programme. Each of them provides a new set of experiences. But, if someone asks me what is that one programme that touches your heart the most, I would say it is this one,” Modi said.

“Pariksha Pe Charcha is the event closest to my heart. Thousands of schools from the entire country participate in this and I feel how the youth of the country think and what they want to do,” he added.

The Prime Minister said he also loves attending Hackathons where they showcase the power and talent of India’s youth.

He also emphasised on the importance of this decade and said: “This new year and decade are equally important for you and the entire country. Whatever happens in this new decade will be directly related to the students that are currently studying in Class X and XII.”

The third edition of Prime Minister’s interaction programme with school students ‘Pariksha Pe Charcha 2020’ is being held at Talkatora Stadium in New Delhi.

During the programme, Prime Minister Modi will answer the questions and interact with selected students about how they can beat examination stress.

Around 2,000 students are participating from all over India in the programme.

“The HRD Ministry in partnership with MyGov launched a ‘short essay’ competition on five different themes for students of classes IX to XII for the programme, a government press release said.

The first edition of Prime Minister’s Interaction Programme with school and college students ‘Pariksha Pe Charcha 1.0’ was held at Talkatora Stadium on February 16, 2018.

Actors, directors and musicians have come together in a video against the CAA and the NRC, asserting that they would not show any document.

KHODAMBARI: BJP’s West Bengal president Dilip Ghosh said on Saturday that civil society members who are saying that they won’t show papers if the government asks for proof of citizenships will soon shy away from showing their faces.

A day after terming eminent personalities opposing the CAA and the proposed nationwide NRC “parasites”, Ghosh fired the fresh salvo while addressing party men at Khodambari after police stopped him from visiting Nandigram in Purba Medinipur district.

“These days there are so many intellectuals in West Bengal giving ‘gyan’ to people throughout the day and creating a cacophony. CPI(M) created these intellectuals by bringing them on to the streets and now, ‘didimoni’ (CM Mamata Banerjee) has created a factory to produce them. These days whoever is taking to the streets are been considered intellectuals,” Ghosh said.

“They (intellectuals) are saying that they will not show the papers. But I am saying that days are not far away when they will not be in a position even to show their faces.

Actors, directors and musicians have come together in a video against the CAA and the NRC, asserting that they would not show any document if there is a bid by the Centre to submit fresh proof of citizenships.

“Kagoj amra dekhabona (we won’t show papers),” actors Dhritiman Chatterjee, Sabyasachi Chakraborty, Konkona Sen Sharma, Nandana Sen and Swastika Mukherjee, director Suman Mukhopadhyay and singer Rupam Islam are among the 12 personalities who are heard saying the line in the clip.

Ghosh on Friday had described them as “creatures”, “devils” and “parasites”.

“Some creatures called intellectuals have come out on the streets of Kolkata. These parasitic intellectuals, who live and enjoy out of other’s pockets, where were they when our predecessors were tortured in Bangladesh? These devils live on our food, and oppose us,” the state BJP president had said during a rally in Howrah.

Sarangi said people should be thankful to PM Modi to bring the CAA, the act which grants citizenship to non-Muslim minorities facing religious persecution in neighbouring countries.

SURAT: Accusing Congress of spreading misinformation about the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), Union Minister Pratap Chandra Sarangi on Saturday said that those who do not accept India’s freedom, unity, and Vande Mataram, have no right to stay in the country.

“Those who set the country on fire are not patriots. Those who do not accept India’s freedom, unity, Vande Mataram, have no right to stay in the country,” said Sarangi here in a press conference.

Sarangi said people should be thankful to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to bring the CAA, the act which grants citizenship to Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, Parsis, Buddhists and Christians facing religious persecution from Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Bangladesh and who came to India on or before December 31, 2014.

Continuing his tirade against the Congress, the Union Minister further said that the CAA was a way to “atone for the sin of Partition” committed by the Congress.

“The CAA should have implemented 70 years ago. The act is a way to atone for a sin committed by our forefathers. Congress committed the sin, and we are atoning,” he said.Last year in September, Sarangi gave a similar remark in wake of the protests erupted against the scrapping of Article 370 in Jammu and Kashmir by the central government.

“When the staunch opposition parties of BJP have supported Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s decision of scrapping Article 370, the Congress objected it. Amit Shah has made it clear to Congress leaders that Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (PoK) and Siachen are also part of India. Those who do not accept Vande Mataram have no right to live in India,” he had said at the Jan Jagran Sabha in Odisha.