Archives for 2022

MUMBAI:  The upcoming elections for six Rajya Sabha seats in Maharashtra has turned out to be a fierce battle between ruling Maha Vikas Aghadi alliance and the opposition BJP, making each vote count. Seven candidates for six seats are in fray.

Deputy CM Ajit Pawar said that NCP minister Nawab Malik and former home minister Anil Deshmukh, who are behind the bar, will approach the court to get permission to exercise their voting rights.

As per its present strength in Maharashtra Assembly, BJP can elect two candidates for Rajya Sabha but has fielded three candidates. It has created a direct fight against Shiv Sena candidate Sanjay Pawar.

NCP, Congress and Shiv Sena will elect one each while Sena has fielded second candidate for the sixth seat of the Rajya Sabha. Both the BJP and Shiv Sena face a shortage of 10 votes.

If all independent MLAs, who have supported the MVA government, support Sena’s second candidate, then Pawar will sail through. However, BJP is also trying to woo these independents to back its candidates.

Sources in BJP said the party was asking Sena to withdraw its candidate and in return, BJP will help Sena to get its 10 candidates elected unopposed in upcoming council elections. 

The notice said the movement of the public on the staircase be stopped immediately.

The notices have been sent under Section 80 of the Code of Civil Procedure, under which parties are required to respond within 60 days.

The petitioners claimed that costly idols taken from the Mathura’s Keshav Dev temple were buried under the staircase of the Agra’s Begum Sahiba Masjid mosque by Mughal emperor Aurangzeb when he allegedly destroyed the temple here in 1670.

“Relocate the deities within the stipulated time failing which they would be liable to bear the cost,” said advocate Mahendra Pratap Singh, one of the petitioners.

The notices have been sent to the Union government through the central secretariat, New Delhi; Director, Archaeological survey of India, New Delhi; Superintendent, Archaeological survey of India; Agra; and the Director, Archaeological survey of India, Mathura.

Earlier, a Mathura court had refused to entertain a plea over the issue, asking the plaintiffs to sent legal notices to the respondents.

Shekar MD, principal, Government First Grade College, Uppinangady, suspended the six students on Tuesday.

The action followed after a group of male students started attending classes by wearing saffron shawls as a mark of protest.

Meanwhile, on Thursday two TV news channel journalists who went to the college to report the hijab controversy were kept under detention by some pro-hijab students.

They also deleted the video clippings from their mobile phones.

According to a complaint lodged by Ajit Kumar and Paveen Kumar, who work for two Kannada news channels, 20 students surrounded them and pushed them around and then took them to a classroom where they were detained.  

The students let them go  only after deleting the video clippings. Later, the same group of students also objected to two more journalists entering the college after which the latter returned.

Later in the day, Uppinangady police booked a case aga­inst 25 students of the college un­der IPC sections 143 (unlawful assembly), 323 (voluntarily ca­u­sing hurt), 342 (wrongful confinement), 506 (criminal intimidation) and 149 (unlawful as­s­embly with common object).

Notice to students

Some students of University College, Hampankatta, Man­galuru, continued to miss classes over hijab.

Dr Anasuya Rai, prin­cipal, said the college has decided to serve notice to students who are skipping classes over hijab.

She said after the college refused permission to 11 students to attend classes with hijab, they sit in the library and return home.

SHANGHAI: Traffic, pedestrians and joggers reappeared on the streets of Shanghai on Wednesday as China’s largest city began returning to normalcy amid the easing of a strict two-month Covid-19 lockdown that has drawn unusual protests over its heavy-handed implementation.

Shanghai’s Communist Party committee, the city’s most powerful political body, issued a letter online proclaiming the lockdown’s success and thanking citizens for their “support and contributions”. The move came amid a steady rollback in compulsory measures that have upended daily life for millions while severely disrupting the economy and global supply chains.

While defending President and Communist Party chief Xi Jinping’s hardline “zero-Covid” policy, the country’s leadership appears to be acknowledging the public backlash against measures seen as trampling already severely limited rights to privacy and participation in the workings of government.

In one such step, the Cabinet’s Joint Prevention and Control Mechanism issued a letter Tuesday laying out rules banning “non-standard, simple and rude indoor disinfection” by mostly untrained teams in Shanghai and elsewhere that have left homes damaged and led to reports of property theft.

Full bus and subway service in Shanghai was being restored from Wednesday, with rail connections to the rest of China to follow.

Still, more than half a million people in the city of 25 million remain under lockdown or in designated control zones because virus cases are still being detected. The government says all restrictions will be gradually lifted, but local neighborhood committees still wield considerable power to implement sometimes conflicting and arbitrary policies.

Negative PCR tests for COVID-19 taken within the previous 48 hours also remain standard in Shanghai, Beijing and elsewhere for permission to enter public venues. That measure didn’t deter people in Shanghai from gathering outside to eat and drink under the watch of police deployed to discourage large crowds from forming.

“With the lockdown lifting, I feel very happy. I feel today how I feel during Chinese New Year – that kind of mood and joy,” said Wang Xiaowei, 34, who moved to Shanghai from the inland province of Guizhou just a week before the lockdown began.

Liu Ruilin, 18, said she wasn’t sure her building’s security guard would let her and others out on Tuesday night. The restriction ended exactly at midnight, she said. “Then we said, Let’s go to the Bund to have fun,'” she said in the city’s historic riverside district.

“We thought there wouldn’t be too many people here, but we were surprised after coming over that a lot of people are here. I feel pretty good – quite excited.” Schools will partially reopen on a voluntary basis, and shopping malls, supermarkets, convenience stores and drug stores will gradually reopen at no more than 75% of their total capacity. Cinemas and gyms will remain closed.

Health authorities on Wednesday reported just 15 new Covid-19 cases in Shanghai, down from a record high of around 20,000 daily cases in April. A few malls and markets have reopened, and some residents have been given passes allowing them out for a few hours at a time.

The lockdown has prompted an exodus of Chinese and foreign residents, with crowds forming outside the city’s Hongqiao Railway Station, where only some train services have resumed.

Even while the rest of the world has opened up, China has stuck to a “zero-Covid” strategy that requires lockdowns, mass testing and isolation at centralized facilities for anyone who is infected or has been in contact with someone who has tested positive.

The country’s borders also remain largely closed and the government has upped requirements for the issuance of passports and permission to travel abroad.

At least half of foreign companies in Shanghai are waiting until next week to reopen while they put in place hygiene measures, said Bettina Schoen-Behanzin, a vice president of the European Union Chamber of Commerce in China.

As a precaution, many companies plan to have only half their workforce on site at a time. “There is still quite some uncertainty and a scare that if there is a positive case in the office building or in your compound, you might be locked down again,” said Schoen-Behanzin, who works in Shanghai.

The strict restrictions in Shanghai, the country’s commercial capital and home of the world’s busiest port, dragged down Chinese economic activity and disrupted global manufacturing and trade.

Retail sales fell by a worse-than-forecast 11% in April from a year earlier, government data show. Auto sales fell by almost half from a year earlier, according to the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers.

Private sector forecasters have cut their estimates for this year’s economic growth to as low as 2%, well below the ruling Communist Party’s target of 5.5%. Some expect output to shrink in the three months ending in June. “The economy is really in a crisis,” said Schoen-Behanzin.

The Port of Shanghai, the world’s busiest, appears to be back to 80% to 85% of its normal operating capacity, according to Schoen-Behanzin. She cited data that said the port had a backlog of 260,000 cargo containers in April.

“The rest of the world will feel these delays probably (through) June or July,” she said. The city will likely see a “mass exodus” of foreign residents this summer, “especially families with small kids”, Schoen-Behanzin said.

She said about half of Shanghai’s foreign residents had already left over the past two years. “People are really fed up with these lockdowns,” she said. “It’s not safe, especially if you have small children.”

Madikeri: A burqa dance by students at a cultural event in a village in Kodagu has gone viral on social media. The event has received sharp criticism even as the organizers have apologized for the same. 

A diamond jubilee celebration was hosted by the West Kolakeri Village Development Committee on May 28 and May 29.

As part of the cultural event, a few children dressed in burqa danced for the Kodava Valaga music and the same has now gone viral on social media.

The event has drawn sharp criticism from the Muslim community for hurting religious sentiment.

Following the criticism, the event organizers apologized for the incident in a press conference hosted on Monday.

“A few kids danced wearing burqa as part of the entertainment programme. However, this was not hosted to hurt any religious sentiments,” said K Muddaiah, president of the committee.

He also clarified that MLC Veena Achaiah was present for the inaugural ceremony but was not present during the burqa dance.

“There is communal harmony in the village and the programme was not intended at hurting the religious sentiments of the Muslims,” he concluded. 

NEW DELHI: After being excluded from the list of nominees for the upcoming biennial election to Rajya Sabha, Union Minority Affairs Minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi may soon find himself donning the robe of BJP candidate in a Lok Sabha by-election. A reliable source in the saffron party hinted that Naqvi, who is completing his third term in Rajya Sabha, may be fielded in the minority-dominated Rampur LS seat in UP in the upcoming bypoll.  The Rampur LS seat has been vacated by Azam Khan and the bypoll on this seat is scheduled on June 23.

As per constitutional provisions, even without being an MP, he can remain minister for the next six months. “Naqvi will be rewarded for his loyalty and nationalism. Wait for few days,” remarked a senior leader. Earlier, Naqvi had fought LS elections from Rampur seat and won once and lost two times. At present, he is Rajya Sabha MP from Jharkhand.

Observers said exclusion of Naqvi from the Rajya Sabha list has given a bad impression among the Muslim community ahead of six states going to polls by the end of this year or in the next year.

BENGALURU: Congress on Wednesday suffered another setback in Karnataka with senior party leader and former legal advisor to the State Government Brijesh Kalappa resigning from the primary membership of the party. This comes days after senior leaders Kapil Sibal and Mukhyamantri Chandru quitting the party. 

In a letter dated May 30 to AICC president Sonia Gandhi, Brijesh said, “I have been representing the party on Hindi, English, and Kannada channels since the UPA years in 2013 — for almost a decade and have clocked 6,497 debates. Besides, the party has been regularly assigning political work to me which I have performed to the best of my satisfaction. Regarding TV debates, I have done my very best at all times and have never ever appeared without adequate preparation for any debate.

Even at the worst of times for the party in the aftermath of 2014 and 2019 debacles, I have never felt enervated and lacking in energy and enthusiasm. But, in the recent past, I have been finding myself lacking in passion, while my own performance has been listless and perfunctory.”

It is said that Brijesh is reportedly upset with the party’s leadership as it had not rewarded him befitting his contribution. The Congress’ known face on news channel debates, Brijesh is likely to join the Aam Aadmi Party, said sources. A round of talks was held between Brijesh and the AAP’s top leadership which has promised him a responsible position, sources added. Before the May 30 letter, Brijesh had written 5-6 letters to Sonia Gandhi.

He, however, thanked Sonia for giving him several opportunities as he was appointed the legal advisor to then chief minister Siddaramaiah with the rank of a minister. According to sources, Brijesh was an aspirant for the MLC and Rajya Sabha polls. He was also denied Congress ticket to contest from the Madikeri seat in 2018 and the Mysore-Kodagu Lok Sabha constituency in 2019.

Brijesh also represented the state in the Supreme Court in the inter-state Cauvery water disputes case. He has worked alongside senior counsel Fali S Nariman, Sharad Jawali and Mohan Kataraki in the Supreme Court for over 18 years.

NEW DELHI: Former India skipper Sourav Ganguly on Wednesday issued a cryptic tweet about his “new journey” that raised speculations about his continuation as BCCI President, prompting the cricket board secretary Jay Shah to clarify that he has not resigned from his post.

Ganguly in his tweet said he is embarking on a new journey, which was all about launching an educational app.

“2022 marks the 30th year since the start of my journey with cricket in 1992. Since then, cricket has given me a lot. Most importantly, it has given me the support of all of you. I want to thank every single person, who has been part of the journey, supported me, and helped me reach where I am today,” he wrote in a brief statement.

“Today, I am planning to start something that I feel will probably help a lot of people. I hope you continue your support as I enter this chapter of life.”

Ganguly was elected BCCI President in October 2019 and still has four months left in his three-year tenure.

Ganguly’s tweet took the social media by storm as many, including media outlets, started speculations about his future.

“The rumours doing rounds about Mr Sourav Ganguly stepping down from the post of BCCI President are factually incorrect,” BCCI secretary Jay Shah said in a statement issued

“We have some exciting times in the form of media rights coming up and my colleagues and I are completely focused on the upcoming opportunity and safeguarding the interest of Indian cricket,” Shah further stated.

It has been learnt that Ganguly’s tweet was related to his upcoming project.

Ganguly later clarified that his tweet has been misinterpreted and it was related to his new business venture.

“I have launched a new education app worldwide. It’s an educational app launched worldwide.

“I was surprised (with the speculations). It was a simple tweet, there is no mention of resignation, nothing,” he said.

CHANDIGARH:  Punjab Police is likely to join its Delhi counterpart to question jailed gangster Lawrence Bishnoi in the Sidhu Moosewala murder case. The state government on Wednesday recast the Special Investigation Team and brought it under the supervision of Anti Gangster Task Force (AGTF) of the state police.

The AGTF, headed by IGP Jaskaran Singh, will function under the supervision of the Additional DGP.
Sources said Bishnoi is in the custody of the Special Cell of Delhi Police in a case under the Arms Act. A state police team is likely to question him in the presence of Delhi Police. He could be brought to Punjab for questioning.

Senior Superintendent of Police of Mansa, Gaurav Toora, said the police had inputs about the route that the assailants took while fleeing. The police are examining how the singer’s movements were followed for over a month. “It is the work of organised criminals. We have some leads in the case,’’ he said.

Bishnoi has expressed his fear of an  ‘encounter’ by Punjab Police. On Wednesday, he moved the Punjab and Haryana High Court after withdrawing his petition filed before the Delhi High Court. Moosewala’s mother Charan Kaur on Wednesday wept bitterly while collecting the ashes of her 28-year-old son who was cremated farmland on Tuesday. “My son’s enemies have reduced my tall and robust boy to ashes,’’ she wailed. The family left for Kiratpur Sahib to immerse his ashes. Moosewala’s pet dogs have refused food, and have been sitting near his tractor.