Archives for February 2023

Mumbai: The Union government has approved the renaming of Maharashtra’s Aurangabad city as ‘Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar’ and that of Osmanabad city as ‘Dharashiv’.

Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis shared the news on Twitter on Friday.

Aurangabad derives its name from Mughal emperor Aurangzeb, while Osmanabad was named for a 20th century ruler of the princely state of Hyderabad.

Chhatrapati Sambhaji, the eldest son of warrior king Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj, was the second ruler of the Maratha state founded by his father. Sambhaji Maharaj was executed on Aurangzeb’s orders in 1689.

Dharashiv, the name of a cave complex near Osmanabad, dates back to the 8th century according to some scholars. Hindu right-wing organisations had been demanding renaming of the two cities for long.

Fadnavis tweeted two letters from the Ministry of Home Affairs to the deputy secretary of the state General Administration Department dated February 24.

The letters stated that the Centre had no objection to the change in the names of these two central Maharashtra cities.

Fadnavis thanked Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah for the decision.

The state government headed by Chief Minister Eknath Shinde ‘did what was promised ‘, he said.

Notably, to rename Aurangabad as Sambhajinagar and Osmanabad as Dharashiv was the last cabinet decision of the Shiv Sena-Nationalist Congress Party (NCP)-Congress government, which collapsed last June following Shinde’s rebellion against Uddhav Thackeray.

The new government headed by Shinde scrapped the cabinet decision and took a fresh decision.

Reacting to the news, Aurangabad MP and All India Majlis-E-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) leader Imtiaz Jaleel tweeted that they will show their strength for Aurangabad.

“Aurangabad is, was and will always be our city. Now wait for our show of strength for Aurangabad. A massive morcha for our beloved city! Get ready Aurangabadis to defeat these forces (BJP) playing politics in the name of our city. We condemn & we will fight,” he tweeted.

Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Ambadas Danve said the renaming was a victory of Shiv Sena founder late Bal Thackeray’s stand.

Danve, leader of opposition in the Maharashtra Legislative Council, tweeted that Thackeray had “renamed” the city of Aurangabad as Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar way back on May 9, 1988.

“The name of the person (Aurangzeb) who broke the temple of Kashi Vishweshwar has been erased,” he wrote.

Nava Raipur: Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge and former AICC chief Sonia Gandhi will address leaders here, as well as political, economic and international affairs resolutions will be deliberated upon at the party’s 85th plenary session Saturday.

At the start of the second day of the three-day conclave, the Congress president will release a book and party general secretaries will submit their respective reports.

After this Kharge will address the gathering.

A “thanksgiving” statement for former Congress president Sonia Gandhi will also be read out at the session following which she will deliver her address.

The delegates will then deliberate upon the political, economic and international affairs resolutions, according to the programme shared by the party.

On the first day of the session, the Congress steering committee unanimously decided not to hold elections to the CWC and authorised the party chief to nominate its members.

The decision was taken at the Kharge-led steering committee meeting which members of the Gandhi family skipped.

Later in the day, the party’s subjects committee held its first meeting in which Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi were also present soon after they arrived here late Friday afternoon. The meeting saw deliberations on the six resolutions to be adopted at the session.

The session, which comes in the backdrop of the Bharat Jodo Yatra that has been touted as a success by the party, is being attended by around 15,000 delegates.

Balasor: A senior official of the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) was arrested on Friday for allegedly sharing secret information related to India’s defence sector with a Pakistani spy, the Odisha Police said.

The 57-year-old official was posted at the DRDO’s Integrated Test Range (ITR) at Chandipur in Odisha’s Balasore district, it said.

Chandipur has two DRDO test ranges — PXE (Proof and Experimental Establishment) and ITR. India evaluates the performances of its missiles, rockets and air-borne weapons systems at these two ranges.

“A senior employee of ITR-Chandipur has been arrested. He managed to transmit some sensitive information regarding missile tests to a foreign agent,” said Himansu Kumar Lal, the Inspector-General of Police (Eastern Range).

The official was arrested on the basis of a complaint filed at the Chandipur police station, he said.

The details of the information he shared could be ascertained after a thorough interrogation, said Balasore’s Superintendent of Police (SP) Sagarika Nath.

A case has been filed against him under IPC sections 120A and 120B (criminal conspiracy), besides the Official Secrets Act, police said.

He was allegedly sharing sensitive defence-related information with a Pakistani agent for “sexual as well as monetary gratification”, they said.

WhatsApp chats and sexually explicit photos and videos were found in his phone, which was seized, they added.

In September 2021, five contractual employees of ITR-Chandipur were arrested in another espionage case.

A contractual employee of ITR-Chandipur was arrested in a similar case in 2015. He was sentenced to life imprisonment in 2021 for sharing information with Pakistan’s ISI.

CHENNAI:  In yet another development in the Shraddha Walkar murder case, a Delhi Court on Friday said it will hear on Mach 7 the arguments on charges against the accused and her live-in partner Aaftab Amin Poonawala.

Poonawala was accused of killing Walkar on May 18 last year. He then chopped her body into several pieces and kept it in a fridge for almost three weeks at his South Delhi residence before disposing of them in various locations in the city, as per the cops. The next hearing was fixed by the court after the accused was produced before Additional Sessions Judge Manisha Khurana Kakkar at Saket court in the city.

The Poonawala (28) was charged with various sections including 302 (murder) and 201 (causing disappearance of evidence of an offence or giving false information to screen offender) and  365 (kidnapping) under IPC. On February 7, the court had taken cognisance of the 6,629-page voluminous charge sheet filed by the police on January 24.

The chargesheet was filed 73 days after Aaftab was arrested on November 12, 2022, six months after he had allegedly committed the heinous crime. His arrest was followed by Shraddha’s father’s complaint about her missing after learning from her friends that they were unable to contact her for over two-and-a-half months.

Poonawala was arrested by the Delhi Police on November 12. The charge sheet, accessed by TNIE, revealed the extent of the barbarity of the crime. “To get rid of Shraddha, once in all, I sat on her chest and choked her till the time she was dead…,” the confession of accused Aaftab in the chargesheet read.

MUMBAI:  Wrestling with legal issues involving Shiv Sena’s name and symbol following EC’s ruling, former CM Uddhav Thackeray has predicted mid-term polls in Maharashtra which could be announced “anytime.”

In rallies held for the Assembly by-elections in Kasaba Peth and Chinchwad in Pune, Uddhav said in case the SC disqualified 16 MLAs, including CM Eknath Shinde, there were chances of mid-term polls.

A Supreme Court bench is hearing a plea on the disqualification of the MLAs due to their anti-party activities. These MLAs belong to the Shinde-led Shiv Sena. NCP chief Sharad Pawar, however, said he did not know in what context Uddhav had made the statement. He said he could hardly see midterm polls coming.

Meanwhile, Uddhav announced the ‘Shiv Garjana’ mass contact programme across Maharashtra. It will start from February 25 to all of March. Party in-charges in various districts will take the party ideology to the people and inform people how they were cheated by the BJP and the Shinde faction.

Sources said that Thackeray has asked his party leaders to try to groom and identify the second-rung leadership wherever their sitting MLAs and Lok Sabha MPs left them to join the Shinde factions.

“Due to the sitting MLAs and LS MPs, the second-rung leadership was not allowed to grow. They have a big opportunity now to emerge as leaders. Uddhav has decided to infuse fresh blood in the organization,” said a senior leader close to Uddhav.

PANAJI: A shop owner at Calangute in Goa was forced to publicly apologise and raise ‘Bharat Mata ki jai’ slogan after a video, in which he expressed support for the Pakistan cricket team, went viral on social media.

A group of men forced him to apologise and raise the slogan on Thursday.

This took place in the wake of an undated video released by a travel vlogger, in which the shop owner at Calangute in North Goa could be seen saying that he was supporting the Pakistan cricket team because it was a Muslim area.

The neighbouring country was apparently playing against New Zealand when the video was shot.

The video shows the vlogger having a brief conversation with the man. The vlogger asks the shop owner, “Who is playing? Are you cheering for New Zealand?” The man replies, “For Pakistan.”

The vlogger then asks him why, to which the man responds saying, “This is Muslim area.”

After this video went viral, a group of people approached the shop owner on Thursday and questioned him for supporting Pakistan. A video of the group forcing the shop owner to apologise also went viral on social media.

The video shows a member of the group telling the man, “This entire village is Calangute. There is no Muslim lane or any other lane. Don’t divide the country based on religion.”

He is then asked to kneel down and apologise to the countrymen. After initial reluctance, the shop owner is seen in the video tendering an apology by kneeling down and holding his ears.

The video also shows the group making him raise the ‘Bharat Mata ki jai’ slogan.

When contacted, a local police official said no complaint has been filed in connection with the incident.

Biswabhushan Harichandan has taken oath as the ninth Governor of Chhattisgarh. Chief Justice Arup Kumar Goswami administered oath of office and secrecy to him at a ceremony in the Raj Bhavan on Thursday. Harichandan was the Governor of Andhra Pradesh from July 24, 2019 to February 22, 2023, before succeeding Anusuya Uikey, who is now the Governor of Manipur. Born in Odisha on August 3, 1934, Harichandan, a known litterateur and a recipient of the Kalinga Ratna award, was a five-time legislator in Odisha, representing Bhubaneswar and Chilka assembly seat. 

Now, scientists and researchers in Chhattisgarh will have access to the experimentation and analysis facilities at International Rice Research Institute in Manila, Philippines. The state had discussions with the scientists at the institute about the new varieties of rice being developed and gained information about the modern technologies. The state shared about the government’s farmer-friendly policies and programmes which got appreciation. An expert team led by agriculture production commissioner Kamal Preet Singh observed that over 1,30,000 varieties of rice were stored at the institute’s rice germplasm collection.