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Raipur: Incumbent Chhattisgarh Chief Minister and Congress leader Bhupesh Baghel has handed over his resignation to the Governor, following his party’s defeat in the state elections
Chhattisgarh CM and Congress leader Bhupesh Baghel hands over his resignation to the Governor following the defeat of Congress in Chhattisgarh
Bengaluru: Shreyas Iyer (53) scored his eighth half-century and Mukesh Kumar took three wickets as India defeated Australia by six runs to win the fifth and final T20I by and take the series 4-1.
With Australia needing 10 runs to win off last six deliveries, Arshdeep Singh (2/38) produced a terrific final over including the key wicket of the dangerous Matthew Wade (22 off 15 balls, 4x4s) to help India end victorious.
Chasing 161 to win, Australia managed 154/8 in 20 overs with Kumar returning 4-0-32-3 and leg spinner Ravi Bishnoi producing a fine 4-0-29-2.
Left-arm spinner Axar Patel also produced an all-round show, taking 1/14 from his four overs after making a vital 31 with the bat.
For Australia, Ben McDermott hit 54 off 36 balls and Travis Head made 28 in just 15 balls.
Brief scores:
India 160/8 in 20 overs (Shreyas Iyer 53, Jitesh Sharma 24, Axar Patel 31; Jason Behrendorff 2/38, Ben Dwarshuis 2/30)
Australia 154/8 in 20 overs (Ben McDermott 54; Mukesh Kumar 3/32, Ravi Bishnoi 2/29) by 6 runs.
New Delhi: With the Assembly election results throwing up surprises, most exit polls got the outcome in Chhattisgarh and the scale of the BJP’s win in Madhya Pradesh wrong.
Only India Today-Axis My India, Today’s Chanakya and India TV-CNX had predicted a big victory for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Madhya Pradesh.
Many pollsters, however, got their prediction for the Telangana and Rajasthan polls right.
The BJP tightened its stranglehold in the Hindi heartland with big victories in the Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh polls, while the Congress is set to oust the Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) from power in Telangana.
According to the Election Commission (EC), while the BJP is projected to win 54 seats and the Congress 35 in Chhattisgarh, in Rajasthan, the saffron party is set to win 115 seats and the Congress 69.
In Madhya Pradesh, the BJP is set to win 165 seats and the Congress 64. In Telangana, the Congress is poised to win 64 seats, the BRS 39 and the BJP eight.
Elections to five states, including Mizoram, took place between November 7 and November 30 and the counting of votes for four states was taken up on Sunday.
The poll results for Mizoram will be declared on Monday.
In Madhya Pradesh, while Dainik Bhaskar had predicted 95 to 115 seats for the BJP and 105 to 120 seats for the Congress, India Today-Axis My India had said the saffron party would get 140 to 162 seats and the Congress between 68 and 90.
India TV-CNX had also predicted a landslide victory for the BJP, pegging the number of seats at 140 to 159 and 70 to 89 for the Congress. Today’s Chanakya had predicted that the BJP would get up to 163 seats while the Congress’s tally would be between 62 and 86.
While the Jan Ki Baat exit poll had predicted that the BJP would get 100 to 123 seats and the Congress 102 to 125, Republic TV-Matrize had given 118 to 130 seats to the saffron party and 97 to 107 seats to the Congress.
TV9 Bharatvarsh-Polstrat had said the BJP would get 106 to 116 seats and the Congress between 111 and 121. Times Now-ETG had given 105 to 117 seats to the BJP and 109 to 125 seats to the Congress.
Jist-TIF-NAI had said the Congress had an edge in Madhya Pradesh, just like in 2018, and predicted 107 to 124 seats for the party as against the BJP’s tally of 102 to 119 seats.
In Rajasthan, India Today-Axis My India had hinted at a tight race, predicting 86 to 106 seats for the Congress, 80 to 100 seats for the BJP and nine to 18 seats for others.
While Dainik Bhaskar had given 98 to 105 seats to the BJP and 85 to 95 seats to the Congress, Jan Ki Baat had forecast that the saffron party would get 100 to 122 seats and the Congress between 62 and 85.
TV9 Bharatvarsh-Polstrat had predicted 100 to 110 seats for the BJP and 90 to 100 seats for the Congress in Rajasthan. Times Now-ETG had predicted 108 to 128 seats for the BJP and 56 to 72 seats for the Congress in the desert state.
Today’s Chanakya got it wrong, giving a simple majority to the Congress, projecting that it would get 101 seats as against the BJP’s tally of 89.
While India TV-CNX had put the Congress’s tally at 94 to 104 in the 200-member Rajasthan Assembly and the BJP’s at 80 to 90, Republic TV-Matrize had given 115 to 130 seats to the saffron party and 65 to 75 seats to the Congress.
P-MARQ pollsters gave 105 to 125 seats to the BJP and 69 to 91 seats to the Congress.
Jist-TIF-NAI had predicted that the revolving-door tradition would continue in Rajasthan and said the BJP would bag 110 seats and the Congress 70.
For Chhattisgarh, while ABP News-C Voter had predicted 41 to 53 seats for the Congress and 36 to 48 seats for the BJP in the 90-member House, India Today-Axis My India had forecast 40 to 50 seats for the Congress and 36 to 46 seats for the BJP.
India TV-CNX had forecast 46 to 56 seats for the Congress and 30 to 40 seats for the BJP.
News 24-Today’s Chanakya was off the mark in Chhattisgarh, predicting that the Congress would secure a clear majority with 57 seats (plus-minus eight) while the BJP would get 33 seats (plus-minus eight).
According to Jan Ki Baat, the BJP would get 34 to 45 seats and the Congress between 42 and 53.
Dainik Bhaskar had also predicted a Congress victory, putting the party’s tally at 46 to 55 seats as against the BJP’s 35 to 45 seats.
For Telangana, while India TV-CNX had forecast 63 to 79 seats for the Congress, 31 to 47 seats for the BRS, two to four seats for the BJP and five to seven seats for the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM), Jan Ki Baat had forecast that the Congress would get 48 to 64 seats, the BRS would get 40 to 55 seats, the BJP would get seven to 13 seats and the AIMIM between four and seven seats.
Republic TV-Matrize had predicted that the Congress would get 58 to 68 seats in Telangana, the BRS would get 46 to 56 seats, the BJP four to nine seats and the AIMIM five to seven seats. TV9 Bharatvarsh-Polstrat had said the Congress would get 49 to 59 seats, the BRS 48 to 58, the BJP five to 10 and the AIMIM six to eight.
News 24-Today’s Chanakya had predicted a clear victory for the Congress, giving the party 71 seats against 33 of the BRS and seven of the BJP.
Nagpur: A 17-year-old boy allegedly committed suicide following an argument with his mother who didn’t prepare breakfast for him in Nagpur city of Maharashtra, police said on Sunday.
The deceased boy, a resident of Kanhan Pimpri area, quarrelled with his mother on Friday morning. As his mother didn’t prepare the morning meal, he walked out of the house in a huff, a police official said.
After parents of the boy approached the police, a case of kidnapping was registered against unidentified persons, he said.
“During the search, the boy was found hanging from a tree near a railway track on Sunday morning. A case of accidental death has been registered by New Kamptee police,” the official added.
Hyderabad: Three BJP Lok Sabha members from Telangana who contested the assembly elections lost the polls on Sunday.
However, three Congress Lok Sabha members and a BRS MP, who fought the state election, emerged victorious.
BJP national general secretary and Lok Sabha member Bandi Sanjay Kumar lost from Karimnagar, while the BJP’s Nizamabad MP D Arvind was defeated in Koratla.
Another BJP Lok Sabha member from Adilabad Soyam Bapu Rao lost the assembly election from the Boath constituency.
State Congress president A Revanth Reddy, who is the Lok Sabha member from Malkajgiri, won from Kodangal. He also contested from Kamareddy seat but lost.
Congress Lok Sabha members Komatireddy Venkat Reddy and N Uttam Kumar Reddy won from Nalgonda and Huzurnagar, respectively.
BRS Lok Sabha member from Medak Kotha Prabhakar Reddy won from the Dubbak assembly segment.
Padang : The bodies of 11 climbers were recovered Monday after a furious eruption of the Mount Marapi volcano as Indonesian rescuers searched for at least 22 others reportedly missing.
Mount Marapi in Agam district in West Sumatra province spewed thick columns of ash as high as 3,000 meters (9,800 feet) into the sky in a sudden eruption Sunday and hot ash clouds spread several miles (kilometers). Villages and nearby towns were blanketed by tons of volcanic debris.
About 75 climbers started their way up the nearly 2,900-meter (9,480-foot) mountain on Saturday and became stranded.
Eight of those rescued Sunday were rushed to hospitals with burn wounds and one also had a broken limb, said Hari Agustian, an official at the local Search and Rescue Agency in Padang, the provincial capital.
West Sumatra’s Search and Rescue Agency head Abdul Malik said rescuers on Monday morning found 11 bodies of climbers as they searched for those who still missing and rescued three others.
“The evacuation process of the bodies and survivors are still ongoing,” he said, adding that rescuers are still searching for 22 climbers reportedly still missing.
Phulbani: A man along with his four friends allegedly raped his sister and then killed her in Odisha’s Kandhamal district, police said on Monday.
The incident happened in Chakapad police station area on November 3, but the man and his friends were arrested on Saturday after police cracked the case, they said.
The 25-year-old woman came to know that his brother was having an illicit relationship with his sister-in-law. She asked him to end it and threatened that otherwise she would inform others about it.
To stop her, he hatched a plan, police said.
On the day of the incident, the woman went to a nearby forest to collect Siali leaves. Her elder brother was also there with his cows.
He called his four friends to the forest, got them drunk and under the influence of alcohol, they took turns in raping her, police said.
As the woman fought back, they strangulated her, and then attacked her with an axe, killing her on the spot, said Lalit Mohan Sagar, the inspector-in-charge of Chakapad police station.
The brother also lodged a missing person’s complaint with the police on November 6, he said.
The woman’s decomposed body was found in the forest on November 7, and in the post-mortem examination, it was found that she was raped by multiple people and then killed, he added.
DUBAI: On the eve of COP28 Health Day, a new study on Saturday from London said one in 12 hospitals worldwide will be at high risk of total or partial shutdown from extreme weather events by the end of the century, which is a total of 16,245 hospitals. Among all the countries, India tops with over 5,000 hospitals at risk.
Ironically, as this paper reported earlier, India is not engaging in health talks at COP28 and didn’t sign the Declaration on Climate and Health released on Saturday. A total of 124 countries signed the declaration, according to an official document.
“Also, encourage global finance providers, including development banks, to strengthen the synergies between their climate and health portfolios, and enhance their support for country-led projects and programs in the health-climate nexus. Not participating in these engagements, India is telling the world that the health of its citizens is not a priority,” a COP28 observer told this paper.
In the press conference on Saturday, COP28 Director-General Majid Al Suwaidi said for the first time a health day was being observed at the UNFCCC climate summit and “we will see new announcements on health climate finance programmes from countries. United action to scale and get ahead of disasters will be the focus.” Unfortunately, India will not be part of this engagement.
Meanwhile, the hospital study was done by a climate risk analysis organisation XDI that evaluated how continued emissions would affect flooding, sea-level rise, fire risk and storms at the locations of 200,000 hospitals.
In India, the proportion of hospitals at high risk of being shut down by extreme weather events would be 5.7% by 2050 and would affect almost 1 in 10 (9.6%) hospitals by the end of the century if emissions are high. India would be the country with, by far, the most hospitals at risk of damage from extreme weather events by 2100, with 5,120 hospitals at high risk. The number of hospitals analysed in India was 53,473, the highest among the 50 countries included in the study. Russia, with 13,596 hospitals, was the second, according to the report.
“Our analysis shows that without a rapid phase-out of fossil fuels, the risks to global health will be exacerbated further, as thousands of hospitals become unable to deliver services during crises,” said Dr Karl Mallon, Director of Science and Technology, XDI (Cross Dependency Initiative).
Of the 16,245 hospitals identified as high-risk, 71% (11,512) of them are in low and middle-income countries. Limiting global warming to 1.8 degrees Celsius with a rapid phase-out of fossil fuels would halve the damage risk to hospital infrastructure compared to a high emissions scenario. If emissions are high, the risk of damage to hospitals around the world from extreme weather will increase more than four-fold (311%) by the end of the century. In a low emissions scenario, this increase in risk is reduced to just 106%, the report said.
South East Asia has the highest percentage of hospitals at high risk of damage from extreme weather events in the world. With high emissions, almost 1 in 5 hospitals (18.4%) in South East Asia will be at high risk of total or partial shutdown by end of the century. Hospitals located on coastlines and near rivers are most at risk. Today, riverine and surface water flooding dominates the risk of damage to hospitals.
The 10-day winter session of the Karnataka legislature will start on Monday in Suvarna Soudha in Belagavi.
The entire state machinery will descend on the border city known for its mouth-watering sweet delicacy ‘Kunda’, and pleasant weather, raising expectations from people in North Karnataka.
Several important issues, including drought relief measures, warrant urgent and productive discussions. It is the collective responsibility of the ruling and the opposition parties to ensure that they keep people’s issues and interests as the focus of discussions, although it is impossible to keep aside politics completely.
For the opposition, the session provides a forum to put the government on the mat over what it perceives as the administration’s shortcomings, while the government presents its standpoint even as it attempts to take members into confidence in the process of formulating laws.
This time around, the BJP and Janata Dal (Secular) will be working together to take on the Siddaramaiah government on a plethora of issues. Newly appointed Leader of the Opposition in the Assembly R Ashoka and BJP state president BY Vijayendra, also a member of the assembly, will be keen to prove their legislative prowess and ability to coordinate with the regional party leaders to take on the government.
The state cabinet’s decision to withdraw the consent given to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to probe a disproportionate assets case against Deputy Chief Minister DK Shivakumar, and Minister for Minority Welfare and Wakf BZ Zameer Ahmed Khan’s remarks that all senior BJP MLAs in the state have to bow before a Muslim Speaker is likely to rock the session. They may even derail the proceedings if the government fails to handle the situation deftly.
The new BJP state president has stated that they will not allow Zameer Ahmed Khan to take part in the session. The BJP will also question the government over drought relief measures, power crisis, failure to make much headway in irrigation projects, development works coming to a standstill, and shortcomings in the implementation of guarantee schemes.
Former CM and JD(S) state president HD Kumaraswamy has also made it clear that he will join forces with BJP to corner the government. JDS and Congress leaders were engaged in a bitter battle over alleged corruption in transfers, allegations against the CM’s son, and power theft charge against Kumaraswamy. The animosity between the ruling and opposition leaders is likely to cast its shadow over the session.
From the Opposition perspective, there are many potent issues to take on the government, and BJP and JD(S) will not let go of those issues. However, those issues should not lead to a deadlock, disrupting the proceedings endlessly as that is not the only strategy to convey the point to the people. Most of all, the Opposition must use all the provisions available within the legislative set-up to corner the government, and the ruling party should accommodate and take the opposition into confidence instead of taking a confrontational path.
Former Chief Minister Jagadish Shetttar, a veteran Congress leader from North Karnataka, who attended all the sessions held in Belagavi, is of the view that conducting the legislative session in Belagavi gives people a sense that the government has come to the region, and it is important to have constructive discussions.
Shettar was the Revenue Minister in the BJP-JDS coalition government when the session was held for the first time in Belagavi in 2006 on the Jawaharlal Nehru Medical College (JNMC) campus. He was also the Assembly Speaker when the foundation stone for the Suvarna Vidhana Soudha was laid. It was inaugurated by then-President Pranab Mukherjee when Shettar was the CM in 2012.
So far, the session has been conducted at Suvarna Soudha for only 90 days. The government annually spends nearly Rs 5 crore for its maintenance and not many state-level offices were shifted to either Suvarna Vidhana Soudha or the North Karnataka region as announced by governments earlier.
Shettar suggests cabinet meetings should be held in Suvarna Soudha once in three months and ministers should hold department meetings once a month.
Ironically, the magnificent structure comes to life just once a year when it is cleaned up and illuminated for the session. For most of the year, it goes almost unnoticed. That should not be the case with the governance and discussions held during the winter session. Members cutting across the party lines should strive to make it count.
RIYADH: Cristiano Ronaldo walked off the field with the gleeful chants of “Messi! Messi!” ringing in his ears from delighted Al-Hilal fans who had just watched their Saudi Pro League team beat the Portugal superstar’s Al-Nassr 3-0 in the Riyadh Derby on Friday.
The five-time Ballon d’Or winner may have finished on the losing team — Aleksandar Mitrovic scored twice after fellow Serbian Sergej Milinkovic-Savic opened Al-Hilal — but Ronaldo still remains the focus of attention in Saudi Arabian soccer despite the taunts of opposition fans referencing his great rival of nearly two decades.
When Ronaldo warmed up, there were cheers from the several thousand away fans, many of whom had No. 7 on their backs, and jeers from the masses of home supporters. But even in those hostile sections, parents pointed out the 38-year-old soccer great to sons and daughters.
Saudi soccer has not been the same since the former Real Madrid and Manchester United forward completed a move last December. Even fans of Al-Hilal, the most successful club in Saudi Arabia and Asia, with 18 and four championships respectively, acknowledge what he has done at Al-Nassr which has nine domestic titles.
“He has lifted the level of the whole of football here,” Riyadh resident Fahad Al-Qahtani, 25, told The Associated Press. “Al-Hilal will still be champion this season and we are still the biggest in Asia but Ronaldo has been amazing.”
In the previous 14 games of the league season, Ronaldo had netted 15 goals to top the scoring charts and help Al-Nassr move into second in the league behind Al-Hilal. His teammates now include former Liverpool star Sadio Mane, Marcelo Brozovic from Inter Milan and Alex Telles, who arrived from Manchester United.
“Cristiano is an example for everyone, an example that Al-Nassr are lucky to have,” Al-Nassr coach Luis Castro said. “He is an example of rigor, ambition and discipline. Lots of people want to be like Cristiano Ronaldo but few want to work like Cristiano Ronaldo. If you want something you have to give everything to get it.”
Ronaldo tried everything on Friday. In the second half with Al-Nassr trailing by a solitary goal, he shot a fierce volley high into the net but it was marginally ruled out for offside. Soon after he rolled around the floor of the Al-Hilal penalty area claiming that he had been elbowed. When Mitrovic scored his first and Al-Hilal’s second late in the game, Ronaldo insisted that he had been fouled in the buildup.
Hilal has its own superstar but a less influential one right now as Neymar, who signed from Paris Saint-Germain in August, suffered a serious injury while on international duty with Brazil in October.
On social media, Neymar posted good luck messages to his teammates, such as Mitrovic, midfielder Ruben Neves and defender Kalidou Koulibaly who all arrived in the summer as highly rated English Premier League players. They joined several Saudi Arabian internationals in the team such as Salem Al-Dawsari and Saleh Al-Shehri, who scored against Lionel Messi’s Argentina in Saudi Arabia’s famous 2-1 win at the 2022 World Cup.
The derby defeat on Friday left Al-Nassr seven points behind leader Al-Hilal after 15 rounds. Ronaldo may have his work cut out to help his team win title No. 10 but, given his form so far this season, he may still have the last laugh with the Messi chants fading away.
Ronaldo’s day was further soured with news from the U.S. that he has been hit with a class-action lawsuit seeking at least $1 billion in damages for his role in promoting cryptocurrency-related “non-fungible tokens,” or NFTs, issued by the beleaguered cryptocurrency exchange Binance.