Archives for 2022

Lucknow: The battle for Uttar Pradesh began on Thursday with polling at 58 assembly seats spread across 11 districts in the western part of the state.

Polling started at 7.00 AM and will continue till 6.00 PM, officials of the state election commission said here.

Campaigning in the constituencies going to vote in the first round of the seven-phase election in the politically crucial state ended on Tuesday evening.

Ministers whose fate would be decided in the first phase include Shrikant Sharma, Suresh Rana, Sandeep Singh, Kapil Dev Agarwal, Atul Garg and Chowdhury Lakshmi Narain.

As many as 623 candidates, including 73 women are in the fray in the first phase and around 2.28 core voters, including 1.24 crore men and 1.04 crore women are eligible to caste their francise, election officials said.

The canvassing for the first phase remained confined to the virtual medium due to a ban on road shows and physical rallies in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.

Leading the campaign for the BJP, Prime Minister Narendra Modi pitched for a “double-engine” government for fast-paced development while attacking the Samajwadi Party-Rashtriya Lok Dal (SP-RLD) combine.

While Union Home Minister Amit Shah and UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath tried to put the spotlight back on alleged “exodus” of Hindus from Kairana before 2017, SP president Akhilesh Yadav claimed that people have made up their mind to vote out the BJP from power.

The SP-RLD alliance has centred their electioneering on farmers’ issues and has attacked Adityanath over poll promises.

BSP chief Mayawati, who started campaigning late, reminded people of her government’s track record on law and order in the past.

The Congress under the leadership of its general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra has generated interest as seen in door-to-door campaigns.

The districts where the elections will be held are Shamli, Hapur, Gautam Buddh Nagar, Muzaffarnagar, Meerut, Baghpat, Ghaziabad, Bulandshahr, Aligarh, Mathura and Agra.

The first phase will cover the Jat-dominated belt of western UP from where farmers had participated actively in the stir against the Centre’s three farm laws in the national capital.

In 2017, the BJP bagged 53 of the 58 seats, while the SP and the BSP had got two seats each. One seat had gone to the RLD.

New Delhi: Around 200 women students of the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) have extended their “unflinching and unconditional support” to Muslim students in Karnataka, saying prohibiting women from wearing hijab reflects the “patriarchal and Islamophobic tendencies” of the state and its institutions.

In a statement, the students said forcing Muslim women to give up their hijab is a clear violation of Article 25 of the Indian constitution which guarantees religious freedom, and forbidding them from entering the classroom infringes upon Article 21 (A) and Article 15, which guarantee the right to education and prohibit discrimination based on religion, race, caste, sex or place of birth respectively.

Last week, the Karnataka government issued an order making uniforms prescribed by it or management of private institutions mandatory for its students at schools and pre-university colleges across the state.

Protests erupted in the state over students being denied entry to educational institutions due to the hijab.

“We, the women students of JNU, uphold the right of these women to practice their religion and their choice to wear or not wear a hijab, along with their right to education. Disciplining these women, on their choice of clothing and prohibiting them from wearing a hijab reflects the patriarchal and Islamophobic tendencies of the state and its institutions.

“If the choice to not wear a hijab is endorsed in the light of empowerment, one cannot exhibit condescending attitude against one’s choice of wearing a hijab,” the statement read.

The JNU students pointed out that the attempt of these Muslim students to register their protest is “being criminalized as part of a theory of larger conspiracy”.

“In the face of this toxic display of masculinity, the bigotry and Islamophobia and against the sustained attacks on the rights and safety of Muslim women, we the women students of JNU, extend our unflinching and unconditional solidarity and support to these brave Muslim women students in Karnataka and the choice of Muslim women to wear a hijab,” the statement read.

As protests for and against wearing of the headscarf by Muslim women students in class-rooms intensified in different parts of Karnataka and turned violent in some places, the Karnataka government on Tuesday declared a holiday to all high schools and colleges in the state for three days.

Geneva: Describing the new COVID-19 variants as the “wild card”, a top World Health Organisation official has warned that the Omicron will not be the last one and the possibility of other new variants is really high.

During a question and answer session live streamed on WHO’s social media platforms on Tuesday, the WHO COVID-19 Technical Lead Maria Van Kerkhove said that the global health agency is tracking four different versions of Omicron.

“We know a lot about this virus, but we don’t know everything. And quite frankly, the variants are the wild card. So we are tracking this virus in real time as it mutates as it changes But this virus has a lot of room to move,” she said.

“Omicron is the latest variant of concern. It will not be the last variant of concern that WHO will speak about. The next one, you know, that will come hopefully, it will take some time to get there. But with the level of intensity of spread, the possibility that we will have other variants is really high, she said.

“So we need to ensure that we again, not only increase vaccination coverage, but we also take measures to reduce the spread, she added.

Since the designation of B.1.1.529 as a variant of concern on November 26, 2021, several lineages have been identified. These include Pango lineages BA.1, BA.1.1, BA.2 and BA.3, which are all being monitored by WHO under the umbrella of Omicron’.

“BA.2 is more transmissible than BA.1 so we expect to see BA.2 increasing in detection around the world, Van Kerkhove said.

According to the UN health agency’s weekly epidemiological report, released on Tuesday, the Omicron variant is increasingly dominant – making up nearly 97 per cent of all cases.

“The prevalence of the Omicron variant has increased globally and is now detected in almost all countries. However, many of the countries which reported an early rise in the number of cases due to the Omicron variant have now reported a decline in the total number of new cases since the beginning of January 2022, it said.

Globally, during the week of January 31 to February 6, the number of new COVID-19 cases decreased by 17 per cent as compared to the number reported during the previous week, while the number of new deaths increased by 7 per cent.

As of February 6, over 392 million confirmed cases and over 5.7 million deaths have been reported globally.

New Delhi: JNU’s transition from one of the best universities in India to becoming “Jai Nathuram University” seems to be getting consolidated and deepened, Congress leader Jairam Ramesh said Wednesday amid criticism from some quarters over Santishree Dhulipudi Pandit’s appointment as its VC.

His remarks came a day after BJP MP Varun Gandhi slammed the choice of Pandit as the vice-chancellor of Jawaharlal Nehru University, saying such “mediocre appointments serve to damage our human capital and our youth’s future”.

Taking to Twitter, Ramesh said, “3 Ministers in the Modi Cabinet are from the old JNU. Sadly, its transition from one of the best universities in India to becoming Jai Nathuram University seems to be getting consolidated and deepened.”

Pandit, 59, is the first woman VC of JNU. She is also an alumna of JNU where she pursued her MPhil as well as PhD in international relations.

There has been criticism of her appointment from some quarters.

3 Ministers in the Modi Cabinet are from the old JNU. Sadly, its transition from one of the best universities in India to becoming Jai Nathuram University seems to be getting consolidated and deepened.

New Delhi: As many as 4,844 foreigners were granted the Indian citizenship in the last five years under the Citizenship Act 1955, Union Minister Nityanand Rai said in Lok Sabha on Tuesday.

Rai, the Union Minister of State for Home, said 1,773 foreigners were granted the Indian citizenship in 2021, 639 in 2020, 987 in 2019, 628 in 2018 and 817 in 2017.

The Indian citizenship is governed under the provisions of the Citizenship Act 1955, he said in a written reply to a question.