New Delhi: TMC MP Mahua Moitra on Tuesday launched a stinging attack on the government over the Adani-Hindenburg issue and said the billionaire businessman had ‘topi-pehnau-ed (duped)’ the country.

While participating in the debate on the ‘Motion of Thanks to the President’s Address’ in Lok Sabha, Moitra, without naming Adani, said that a famous person whose name starts with ‘A’ and ends with ‘I’ and is not Advani, who stinks of crony capitalism, had duped everyone.

Soon after she concluded her speech, there were angry exchanges between Trinamool Congress (TMC) and BJP members. Moitra was heard using certain objectionable words to which the Chair objected and urged members to avoid cuss words.

Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pralhad Joshi asked Moitra to apologise out of morality and said if she does not it would reflect on her culture.

Moitra brought two birthday caps in the House to press her argument that the businessman being most talked about had “topi-pehnau-ed” the government.

She demanded that an enquiry be ordered against the activities of the Adani group.

Beginning her address by quoting from President Droupadi Murmu’s address, Moitra said, “Every word I utter is going to be an oblation and offering a truth into my ‘maha yagna’ of nation building.”

“I want to start off by saying as an ex-investment banker, I want companies to thrive. But I want honest, hardworking Indian companies to strive and not trapeze artists. As an MP colleague of mine likes to say the Chair always asked me not to get angry. I will not be angry for what I have to say. I will only say that we’ve all been fooled,” she said.

Moitra also alleged that the businessman gives the impression that doing things for him means that one would be in the prime minister and home minister’s good books.

Referring to a statement by the Adani group in which it had said that short-seller Hindenburg’s report was a calculated attack on India, she said, “The pride of India is not the wealth of one individual, pride of India lies in the robustness of its institutional structures.”

She said a company which is in infrastructure makes five to 15 per cent returns if they are lucky and if they get everything right, but the multiple with which this company ‘A’ was trading was absolutely outrageous.

Even Google, Amazon and Microsoft don’t trade on such multiples, she said.

“Honourable home minister, he has topi-pehnau-ed you…he is getting security clearances from the ministry of home affairs…Madam, finance minister he has topi-pehnau-ed you,” the TMC leader said.

“This man has been allowed to use LIC, SBI to get money as and when he likes. Honourable civil aviation, he has ‘topi-pehnau-ed’, you shipping minister, he has topi-pehna-ed you petroleum minister, he has ‘topi-pehnau-ed’ oil PSUs…power minister he has topi-pehnau-ed you,” she said.

“India is on its way to becoming the third largest economy in the world. Don’t let him smear your time in government, with a stink of crony capitalism. Please immediately order a full complete and thorough investigation into all matters…Our country’s reputation is at risk,” Moitra said.

She also said the House too has historically seen some of the greatest debates, some friendly, some not so friendly sparring matches.

“But it is more and less a sacred place where elected representatives could speak their minds without fear of favour…Today and I say this with a heavy heart, Lok Sabha is a space which stands out more for what cannot be said in this hall, then what can we say. The list of unmentionables is actually far longer than the list of mentionables,” she claimed.

“We cannot say China, we cannot say Pegasus, we can not say BBC, we cannot say Morbi, we cannot say Rafael, and sometimes we cannot even say Modi ji…,” she said.

The opposition has been demanding a joint parliamentary committee probe or a Supreme Court-monitored investigation into the allegations of fraud and manipulation made by the US-based short seller Hindenburg Research against billionaire Gautam Adani’s companies that triggered an unprecedented stock crash. The group has denied the charges.

The opposition parties have alleged that the meltdown in Adani Group shares is a ‘mega scam’ that involves common people’s money as public sector LIC and SBI have invested in them and have questioned the government on steps taken by it.

Muzaffarpur: A complaint was filed before a Bihar court on Tuesday, against RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat for allegedly denigrating Brahmins in a recent speech.

The petition was filed before the court of Chief Judicial Magistrate of Muzaffarpur by advocate Sudhir Kumar Ojha who has cited media reports of Bhagwat’s address on Sunday at Mumbai where he was attending a function held on the occasion of birth anniversary of Sant Ravidas, a medieval mystic poet and Dalit icon.

In his speech, in Marathi, the RSS chief had blamed “pandits” (the priestly class) for the rigid caste hierarchy that prevails in the Hindu society.

Some media outlets reported that Bhagwat spoke about “Brahmins”, who have been associated with priestcraft.
A statement was issued later by the RSS, the parent body of the BJP , denying that Bhagwat had referred to any particular caste and asserting that by the word “pandits” he implied the scholars of yore who condoned caste system.

Nonetheless, Ojha, a serial litigant who remains in news for his petitions against celebrities of all hues, has prayed that Bhagwat, be booked under IPC sections relating to hurt caused to religious feelings and breach of public peace.

Interestingly, Ojha has also ended up calling Bhagwat the chief of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh as well as Vishwa Hindu Parishad, an RSS affiliate.

The court has posted the matter for hearing on February 20.

New Delhi: Union Home Minister Amit Shah has said there is no place for violence and Left Wing Extremism ideas in the “self-reliant New India” under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Chairing a meeting of the Parliamentary Consultative Committee of the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) on Tuesday, he said the ministry’s policy in dealing with Left Wing Extremism (LWE) has three main pillars strategy to curb violence with a ruthless approach, better coordination between the Centre and states, and eliminating support for extremists through public participation in development.

Shah said the Modi government has adopted a policy of zero tolerance towards LWE and all kinds of violence.

There is no place for violence and LWE ideas in the “self-reliant New India” under the leadership of Modi, he said.

The home minister said the three-pronged strategy has given historic success in curbing LWE in the last eight years.

He said for the first time after nearly four decades, in 2022, the number of deaths of civilians and security forces has been brought under 100, and there is a 76 per cent reduction in violent incidents related to LWE in 2022 in comparison to 2010.

Besides, the number of civilian and security personnel who lost their lives in LWE incidents has come down by 90 per cent to 98 in 2022 in comparison to 1,005 in 2010, and the number of LWE-affected districts fell to 45 from 90.

He said the MHA is determined to destroy the entire ecosystem of LWE by financial choking.

The BSF air wing has been strengthened with the induction of new pilots and engineers in the last one year to aid operations in LWE-affected areas and save the lives of the country’s soldiers, he said.

Shah said the Modi dispensation has made several successful efforts for better coordination with governments of LWE-affected states without any party or ideology-related bias.

The Modi government is providing funds for modernisation of state police forces and assistance related to construction of fortified police stations in the affected states without any discrimination, he said.

The minister added that security as well as accelerated development in LWE-affected areas is the main focus of the government’s policy and it is taking several steps for the all-round development of these areas.

New Delhi: Doctors at a leading private hospital here on Tuesday said they have reported an “unusual” case of a nine-year-old girl who suffered epileptic seizures triggered by the smell of “mehndi” applied on her hand.

The case study has been published in the January 2023 edition of the Clinical Neurophysiology, the Sir Ganga Ram Hospital said in a statement.

The department of neurology at the hospital recently reported “an unusual case” of a nine-year-old girl who was suffering epileptic seizures after application of “mehndi”, it said.

When she had suffered her first convulsion after application of “mehndi”, she had “abrupt loss of consciousness, leading to fall and convulsions for 20 seconds”, doctors at the hospital said.

Recently, she was brought to the hospital for further check-up, they said.

“Mehndi” is the art of making designs on someone’s hands with “henna”, a reddish-brown herbal dye.

According to Dr (Col) P K Sethi, senior consultant, department of neurology at the hospital, “This was an unusual case of reflex epilepsy, where epileptic seizures are consistently induced by identifiable and objective-specific triggers as against other epileptic seizures which are usually unprovoked.”

“In our reported case, seizures were consistently induced by the application of ‘mehndi’,” Sethi said.

In the hospital settings, “mehndi” was applied to the right hand of the patient.
“Henna” has a very distinctive earthy smell and as soon as the “mehndi” applied on her hand was brought near to the chest of the patient, she started having seizures, doctors said.

“Video-electroencephalography revealed an organised background with a posterior rhythm of 9 hz. The patient became restless which were followed by seizures,” the hospital said in the statement.

“In our patient, seizures were not triggered by mere application of ‘mehndi’ on hands and feet, rather it was the fragrance which acted as the stimulus leading to stimulation of functional anatomic networks,” Sethi said.

The patient was prescribed sodium valproate and parents were advised to avoid exposure to “mehndi”. The patient is stable now with no reported case of seizure, doctors said.

Gaziantep (Turkiye): Thinly-stretched rescue teams worked through the night into Wednesday, pulling more bodies from the rubble of thousands of buildings downed in Turkiye and Syria by a catastrophic earthquake that killed more than 8,000, their grim task occasionally punctuated by the joy of finding someone still alive.

Turkiye’s disaster management agency said the country’s death toll had risen to 6,234 as more bodies had been recovered. Over 8,000 fatalities have been reported, including those from neighbouring Syria.

Amid calls for the government to send more help to the disaster zone, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was to travel to town of Pazarcik, the epicenter of the quake, and to the worst-hit province of Hatay on Wednesday.

Turkiye now has some 60,000 aid personnel in the quake-hit zone, but with the devastation so widespread many are still waiting for help.

Nearly two days after the magnitude 7.8 quake struck southeastern Turkiye and northern Syria, rescuers pulled a three-year-old boy, Arif Kaan, from beneath the rubble of a collapsed apartment building in Kahramanmaras, a city not far from the epicenter.

With the boy’s lower body trapped under slabs of concrete and twisted rebar, emergency crews lay a blanket over his torso to protect him from below-freezing temperatures as they carefully cut the debris away from him, mindful of the possibility of triggering another collapse.

The boy’s father, Ertugrul Kisi, who himself had been rescued earlier, sobbed as his son was pulled free and loaded into an ambulance.

“For now, the name of hope in Kahramanmaras is Arif Kaan,” a Turkish television reporter proclaimed as the dramatic rescue was broadcast to the country.

A few hours later, rescuers pulled 10-year-old Betul Edis from the rubble of her home in the city of Adiyaman. Amid applause from onlookers, her grandfather kissed her and spoke softly to her as she was loaded on an ambulance.

But such stories were few more than two days after Monday’s pre-dawn earthquake, which hit a huge area and brought down thousands of buildings, with frigid temperatures and ongoing aftershocks complicating rescue efforts.

Search teams from more than two dozen countries joined the Turkish emergency personnel, and aid pledges poured in.

But with devastation spread multiple several cities and towns some isolated by Syria’s ongoing conflict voices crying from within mounds of rubble fell silent, and despair grew from those still waiting for help.

In Syria, the shaking toppled thousands of buildings and heaped more misery on a region wracked by the country’s 12-year civil war and refugee crisis.

On Monday afternoon in a northwestern Syrian town, residents found a crying newborn still connected by the umbilical cord to her deceased mother. The baby was the only member of her family to survive a building collapse in the small town of Jinderis, relatives told The Associated Press.

Turkiye is home to millions of refugees from the war. The affected area in Syria is divided between government-controlled territory and the country’s last opposition-held enclave, where millions rely on humanitarian aid.

As many as 23 million people could be affected in the quake-hit region, according to Adelheid Marschang, a senior emergencies officer with the World Health Organization, who called it a “crisis on top of multiple crises.”

Many survivors in Turkiye have had to sleep in cars, outside or in government shelters.

“We don’t have a tent, we don’t have a heating stove, we don’t have anything. Our children are in bad shape. We are all getting wet under the rain and our kids are out in the cold,” Aysan Kurt, 27, told the AP. “We did not die from hunger or the earthquake, but we will die freezing from the cold.”

Erdogan said 13 million of the country’s 85 million people were affected, and he declared a state of emergency in 10 provinces. More than 8,000 people have been pulled from the debris in Turkiye, and some 380,000 have taken refuge in government shelters or hotels, authorities said.

In Syria, aid efforts have been hampered by the ongoing war and the isolation of the rebel-held region along the border, which is surrounded by Russia-backed government forces. Syria itself is an international pariah under Western sanctions linked to the war.

The United Nations said it was “exploring all avenues” to get supplies to the rebel-held northwest.

In addition to the thousands killed in Turkiye, another 37,011 have been injured.

The death toll in government-held areas of Syria has climbed to 812, with some 1,400 injured, according to the Health Ministry. At least 1,020 people have died in the rebel-held northwest, according to volunteer first responders known as the White Helmets, with more than 2,300 injured.

The region sits on top of major fault lines and is frequently shaken by earthquakes. Some 18,000 were killed in similarly powerful earthquakes that hit northwest Turkiye in 1999. (AP)

Uddhav Thackeray

Mumbai: Uddhav Thackeray, who heads a faction of the Shiv Sena, on Wednesday said that the decision by the Supreme Court on the disqualification of the party’s rebel MLAs should come first and then by the Election Commission on who the original party belongs to.

Addressing a press conference, Thackeray also asked why the EC froze the Shiv Sena name and its bow and arrow’ symbol when it has not been used by the rival Eknath Shinde faction yet.

“The decision on disqualification should come first and then by the Election Commission (which faction Shiv Sena belongs to),” Uddhav said, adding that the apex court will start hearing the matter related to the disqualification of rebel MLAs on a daily basis from February 14.

The Sena was split last June after a rebellion led by Shinde, prompting his faction and the one headed by Uddhav Thackeray to try to stake claim over the party’s name and its symbol.

Ravi Shankar Prasad

New Delhi: BJP member Ravi Shankar Prasad on Wednesday accused the Gandhi family of being involved in corruption, saying those out on bail were hurling “baseless” accusations against the Government.

Speaking in the Lok Sabha on the Motion of Thanks on the President’s address, Prasad said Rahul Gandhi’s remarks on Tuesday were “baseless, shameful and full of lies, and came from a feeling of dejection”.

On Tuesday, Gandhi had attacked the Government over the Hindenburg report, claiming that the meteoric rise in Gautam Adani’s fortunes happened after the BJP came to power in 2014 as he rose in the global rich list from the 609th to the second spot eventually.

“Those out on bail and are currently facing trial (in National Herald case) are levelling baseless allegations,” Prasad said countering Gandhi.

Gandhi has not been able to accept the fact that people had twice elected Narendra Modi as the prime minister and will again do so in 2024, he said.

He said the Adani group has also invested in states of Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh and Kerala, which are ruled by non-BJP parties.

Prasad also countered the allegations made by Gandhi regarding Adani’s assets in foreign countries, saying that even during the UPA rule, the group had made overseas investments.

“Rahul Gandhi has a problem with the growth of Indian businesses. Things have changed under the Modi Government. Now businesses are growing honestly, and commissions and dealings have stopped. Hence the Congress party has a problem,” Prasad said.

The BJP leader from Bihar said the Congress rule was marred by corruption in 2G spectrum allocation, Commonwealth Games, besides coal and Adarsh Housing scams. They also want weapons for defence forces to come from abroad.

“The family which is deep in corruption is levelling allegations against Modi Government, which is focussing on development,” Prasad said, accusing Gandhi of misleading the House.

Certain remarks made by Gandhi in the House on Tuesday were expunged from the records.