New Delhi: Hitting out at Pakistan for “aiding and abetting terror”, NDA’s Vice Presidential candidate M. Venkaiah Naidu on Sunday reminded it not to forget what happened in 1971 in a reference to the Bangladesh War in which it faced a humiliating defeat.

Naidu was addressing the annual Kargil Parakram Parade here, held in remembrance of soldiers killed in a war with Pakistan in Jammu and Kashmir’s Kargil sector in 1999.

“Our neighbour should understand that aiding and abetting terror will not help them, they should recall what happened in 1971… Terrorism is the enemy of humanity, it has no religion,” he said.

Criticising Pakistan for “mixing terrorism with religion” as its state policy, the former Union Minister asserted that Kashmir is an integral part of India and “not an inch” of it will be ceded.

He also urged Pakistan to shun the path of confrontation.

“We are a peace loving people. We never attacked any country. We don’t want war, we don’t want confrontation. We want to have peace and good relations with our neighbours, but they should also reciprocate,” Naidu said.

(IANS)

New Delhi: The Women and Child Development ministry today launched an online platform to enable women employees of the central government to file complaints related to sexual harassment at the workplace.

“We are also going to soon conduct a national survey to assess the nature and magnitude of sexual harassment at the workplace,” Union minister Maneka Gandhi said after launching the portal at her office here.

The WCD minister also instructed officials to make the ‘SHe-box’ (sexual harassment electronic box) as “interactive” as possible.

“To begin with, central government women employees can file complaints, but we are going to widen the ambit to include the private sector as well,” she said.

“We just need to make a few changes in our online interface. Once it is done, employees from private companies would also be able to lodge complaints,” Gandhi added.

The decision to host an online platform for sexual harassment cases was taken by the WCD ministry last October after the minister received complaints from women employees in various ministries.

(Agencies)

Gandhinagar: In a body blow to the Congress in Gujarat, one of its tallest leaders Shankarsinh Vaghela, Friday announced he was quitting the party but ruled out joining BJP.

The dramatic announcement By Vaghela, a former RSS and BJP member, was made at a public event organised to celebrate his 77th birthday. It came a day after the disunity in the state Congress came out in the open when it transpired that at least eight of its 57 MLAs had not voted for the joint opposition’s presidential Meira Kumar.

Vaghela, the Kshatriya strongman whom his supporters fondly address as ‘Bapu’, said: “I am not going to join BJP. I will not join any political party”.

He, however, said he was not going to retire from politics, triggering speculation he may float his own party and then cobble together an anti-Congress, anti-BJP front ahead of the Assembly elections likely in November or December.

“Today, I free myself from Congress and I set Congress free,” he said.

Vaghela’s decision to quit the Congress is a cause of concern for the party, which has been out of power in the state for close to two decades. He enjoys considerable support in North Gujarat

Congress would, however, draw some comfort from the fact that only two of its MLAs, including Vaghela’s son, Mahendrasinh, attended the event.

Vaghela is reported to be upset with the party high command for not being declared the chief ministerial candidate for the Assembly elections.

He had stopped attending state Congress meetings for some time, and had even unfollowed Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi on Twitter to register his protest.

Vaghela said he was left with no option, claiming that state Congress leaders “got together to push me out of the party” after he told them to do their homework to take on the BJP in the upcoming polls.

He also accused the party of taking “supari”, a common term in some states for contract killing, from the BJP to let it win Gujarat, once dubbed the BJP’s laboratory for testing its Hindutva politics.

“You don’t fight the BJP and won’t allow those who do to fight them”, said Vaghela who had a long association with Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his RSS days.

The elections will also be seen as a prestige fight for Modi and BJP President Amit Shah.

Vaghela also claimed that Congress had expelled him yesterday. But the party denied that it had expelled Vaghela or initiated disciplinary action against him.

“Both these claims are entirely incorrect,” Congress chief spokesperson Randeep Surjewala said in New Delhi.

Surjewala said the party respected Vaghela which was reflected in him being given important responsibilities and positions. He hoped Vaghela would continue to work for the party despite quitting his posts.

“Vaghela wanted that present PCC president (Bharatsinh Solanki) should be replaced and he be appointed in his place.

This is a decision of the party and its leadership and no individual can decide it.

Vaghela, currently the leader of the opposition in the Assembly, had quit BJP over 20 years ago and formed Rashtriya Janata Party. He headed the RJP government in 1996 before merging his party with Congress.

“Party is bigger than individuals. Each one of us needs to understand that interests of the party and its ideals are bigger than the ambition of one person”, Surjewala said.

Vaghela, a former Union minister, claimed some Congress leaders had issued a “diktat” to partymen to not attend his birthday celebrations.

(PTI)

Srinagar: Calling the Monday arrest of seven of its leaders “revengeful and arbitrary”, the Hurriyat leadership has called for a shutdown in the Kashmir Valley on Tuesday.

Hurriyat leaders Syed Ali Geelani, Mirwaiz Umer Farooq and Muhammad Yasin Malik gave the call for a ‘Kashmir Bandh’ to condemn what they called were the “revengeful, arbitrary, and illegal arrests”.

Nayeem Khan, Farooq Ahmad Dar alias Bitta Karate, Altaf Ahmad Shah, Shahid-ul-Islam, Ayaz Akbar, Peer Saifullah and Raja Mehrajuddin Kalwal were arrested by the National Investigation Agency on charges of receiving funds from Pakistan to sponsor terrorist activities and stone-pelting in the Valley.

While six separatist leaders were arrested in Srinagar, Bitta Karate was arrested in Delhi.

Nayeem Khan and Ayaz Akbar were taken to Delhi from Srinagar on a Monday afternoon flight by NIA while the other arrested men would be flown in the evening.

(IANS)

New Delhi: Six Congress members were suspended from the Lok Sabha for five days by Speaker Sumitra Mahajan today on the ground of “highly unbecoming” conduct during their protests over the lynching issue that “undermined the Chair’s dignity”.

Mahajan announced her order as soon as the House met at 2.00 PM following an adjourment.

She said she was constrained to name Gaurav Gogoi, K Suresh, Adhir Rajan Chowdhury, Ranjeet Ranjan, Sushmita Dev and M K Raghavan for their improper behaviour.

In her order, she said all these members had torn official papers and thrown it towards the Chair, which prompted members of the treasury benches to shout “shame, shame”.

Some of these members had picked up papers from the Lok Sabha secretariat staffers’ table and had torn and thrown them, Mahajan said.

She said all this had happened despite her agreeing to a discussion on the issue of alleged atrocities against Dalits and Muslims.

Leader of the Congress in Lok Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge and a few other members had raised the issue of atrocities and she had allowed them to speak, Mahajan said.

Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ananth Kumar had also agreed to a discussion on the issue, but despite that many members stormed the Well, she said while pronouncing the order.

They did not stop despite her repeated requests to them to return to their seats and instead, indulged in the improper conduct, she said, while adjourning the House till 2.30 PM.

As she pronounced their suspension, many Congress members again trooped into the Well, with K C Venugopal being heard telling her that she should suspend all Congress members.

Congress President Sonia Gandhi was also present in the House.

When the House reassembled at 2.30 PM, Congress members were joined by the Left in protesting against the suspension, prompting Deputy Speaker M Thambi Durai to adjourn the House for the day.

(PTI)

New Delhi: The Supreme Court today said it will take a decision to list for early hearing a batch of petitions challenging the Allahabad High Court verdict in the Ram Temple-Babri Masjid land dispute case.

“We will take a decision on it,” a bench comprising Chief Justice J S Khehar and Justice D Y Chandrachud said when BJP leader Subramanian Swamy mentioned the matter for urgent listing and hearing.

Swamy said that the main appeals against the Allahabad High Court order are pending for the last seven years in the apex court and they required urgent hearing.

He also said that a separate petition had earlier been filed by him seeking enforcement of his right to worship without much hassle at the site.

He also said that he has been allowed by the apex court to intervene in the matter and is seeking expeditious disposal of the cases.

The Lucknow bench of Allahabad High Court had in 2010 ruled a three-way division of the disputed 2.77 acres area at the disputed site in Ayodhya in Uttar Pradesh.

The three-judge bench, by a 2:1 majority, had said the land be partitioned equally among three parties, the Sunni Waqf Board, the Nirmohi Akhara and ‘Ram Lalla’.

(Agencies)

Mumbai: Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) chairman Mukesh Ambani on Friday launched JioPhone – what he dubbed as ‘India ka Intelligent Smart Phone’.

The RIL chairman made this announcement while addressing the 40th Annual General Meeting (AGM) at the Birla Matushri Sabhagar at Mumbai’s Sir Vithaldas Thackersey Marg.

Mukesh Ambani, during the meeting, said the JioPhone will be a 4G enabled cost-efficient feature phone that can work on voice commands.

”Today, I am delighted to announce that JioPhone will be available to all Indians for an effective price of Rs 0,” the RIL chairman said.

The plan is to collect a fully refundable, one-time, security deposit of Rs 1,500, said the RIL chairman.

Jio is going to reinvent the conventional feature phone, he added.

Giving more details about the phone, Mukesh Ambani added, ”On the JioPhone, voice will always be free.”

He also announced his plan to declare ”DIGITAL FREEDOM” for all feature phone users from August 15.

Earlier, Mukesh Ambani’s daughter Isha Ambani had demonstrated the features of the much-anticipated JioPhone.

The phone has a key pad, but it also has voice command.

It also has many preloaded applications. Isha Ambani said that the phone has the most powerful speaker and would not need any enhancement.

The phone also comes with a distress button. This button would send a message to near and dear ones in case the phone user is in distress and presses the button.

The phone can also link their Jan Dhan accounts and other modes of secure payments.

The hardware is ready for these applications. Mukesh Ambani said that voice calls will always be free for Jio Phone users.

(Agencies)