NEW DELHI: Congress leader Shashi Tharoor on Monday said all in the party wish to take on the BJP rather than each other.

The Thiruvananthapuram MP who is set for an electoral face-off with Congress veteran Mallikarjun Kharge for the party president’s post, said the two have no ideological difference.

His remarks came a day after Kharge said he told Tharoor that it would be better to have a consensus candidate but the Lok Sabha MP insisted on a contest for the “sake of democracy”.

The polling for the Congress presidential election will be held on October 17.

The counting of votes will be taken up on October 19 and the results will be declared the same day. More than 9,000 Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC) delegates will vote in the poll.

JODHPUR: The Indian Air Force (IAF) on Monday inducted the first fleet of indigenously-built Light Combat Helicopter (LCH), which has been developed primarily for mountain warfare after a requirement for it was felt during the Kargil war in 1999

Developed by the state-run aerospace major Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL), the 5.8-tonne twin-engine gunship chopper is armed with air-to-air missiles, 20 mm turret guns, rocket systems and other weapons.

The fleet comprising four helicopters was inducted into the IAF at a ceremony at the Jodhpur Air Force Station in presence of Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, Chief of Air Staff Air Chief Marshal VR Chaudhari and other senior military officials. 

“It is a momentous occasion reflecting India’s capability in defence production,” Singh said.

The LCH would be effective in hitting enemy infantry, tanks, bunkers, drones and other assets in high-altitude regions, military officials said.

“Subsequently, the IAF and HAL began exploring the possibility of developing the platform with a capacity to carry an adequate weapon load, sufficient fuel and still be capable of operating in the higher reaches of the Himalayan ranges,” said an official.

JAMMU: Former Chief Minister of the erstwhile Jammu and Kashmir state Ghulam Nabi Azad has been elected the chairman of his newly formed Democratic Azad Party (DAP), a party leader said on Saturday.

A resolution to this effect was passed at a founder members session, which was held both in Jammu and Srinagar, the leader said, adding the decision was unanimous.

Azad, 73, who quit the Congress on August 26, launched DAP in Jammu on September 26 with the support of dozens of former ministers, ex-legislators and other prominent leaders, majority of whom also resigned from the Congress in his support.

They include former deputy chief minister Tara Chand, former ministers Peerzada Mohd Sayeed, Taj Mohiuddin, G M Saroori, R S Chib, Jugal Kishore, Majid Wani and Manohar Lal Sharma among others.

Azad spent four days in Kashmir from September 27 before returning to Jammu. 

NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday inaugurated the 6th India Mobile Congress at Pragati Maidan in Delhi and launched 5G services

Prime Minister Narendra Modi inspected the exhibition at Pragati Maidan.

The 5G telecom services seek to provide seamless coverage, high data rate, low latency and highly reliable communications system.

The three major telecom operators of the country demonstrated one use case each in front of the Prime Minister to show the potential of 5G technology in India.

The various use cases that will be demonstrated in front of PM in the exhibition include precision drone-based farming; High-Security Routers & AI based Cyber Threat Detection platforms; Automated Guided Vehicles; Ambupod – Smart Ambulance; Augmented Reality/Virtual Reality /Mix Reality in Education and Skill Development; Sewage Monitoring System; Smart-Agri Programme; Health diagnostics, among others.5G technology will offer a wide range of benefits to the common people. It will help in providing seamless coverage, high data rate, low latency, and highly reliable communications.

Also, it will increase energy efficiency, spectrum efficiency and network efficiency. 5G technology will help in connecting billions of Internet of Things devices, will allow higher quality video services with mobility at high speed, and delivery of critical services such as telesurgery and autonomous cars among others. 5G will help in real-time monitoring of disasters, precision agriculture, and minimising the role of humans in dangerous industrial operations such as in deep mines, offshore activities etc.

Unlike existing mobile communication networks, 5G networks will allow tailoring of requirements for each of these different use cases within the same network. 

Jabalpur: An alleged suicide by a lawyer triggered a violent protest on the premises of the Madhya Pradesh High Court’s Jabalpur bench here on Friday, police said.

The State Bar Council of Madhya Pradesh (SBCMP) appealed to the lawyers to abstain from work on Saturday, alleging that Anurag Sahu, the deceased, was being harassed by some officials and fellow advocates.

Sahu allegedly hanged himself at his house after pleading a case in the high court in the afternoon, a police official said.

Following his death, a group of lawyers staged a protest on the high court premises and allegedly set fire to the chamber of a lawyer who had appeared against Sahu in the court, he said.

Police were forced to cane-charge the protestors to restore order and some policemen sustained injuries during the incident, Superintendent of Police Siddharth Bahuguna told PTI.

Asked if the deceased lawyer had left behind a suicide note, the SP said the matter will be probed.

In the evening, the SBCMP appealed to the lawyers to stay away from court proceedings across the state on Saturday to protest against advocate Sahu’s suicide.

Council’s vice chairman R K Singh Saini claimed in a statement that Sahu was facing harassment from some officers and advocates.

The Bar Council will also write to the Chief Minister demanding action against the policemen who “mercilessly lathi-charged the advocates”, he said.

New Delhi(PTI): Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday inaugurated the India Mobile Congress (IMC) 2022 exhibition ahead of the formal launch of 5G mobile telephony services in India.

After inaugurating the exhibition at Pragati Maidan here, he went around pavilions set up by different telecom operators and technology providers to get a first-hand experience of what 5G can do.

He started with Reliance Jio’s stalls, where he witnessed the ‘True 5G’ devices displayed and experienced the use case through Jio Glass.

Flanked by Telecom Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw and billionaires Mukesh Ambani of Reliance, Sunil Bharti Mittal of Bharti Airtel and Kumar Mangalam Birla of Vodafone Idea, he spent time understanding the indigenous development of end-to-end 5G technology.

He thereafter visited stalls of Airtel, Vodafone Idea, C-DOT and others.

United Nations: In a first, Mahatma Gandhi made a special appearance at the United Nations, sharing his message on education at the world organisation as it commemorated the International Day of Non-Violence on the occasion of the Indian leader’s birth anniversary.

A special life-size hologram of Gandhi was projected during a panel discussion organised on Friday by India’s Permanent Mission to the UN and UNESCO Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Education for Peace and Sustainable Development (MGIEP) at the UN headquarters here to commemorate the International Day of Non-Violence.

The International Day of Non-Violence is observed on October 2, the birthday of Gandhi. According to the General Assembly resolution of June 2007, which established the commemoration, the day is an occasion to “disseminate the message of non-violence, including through education and public awareness”.

The resolution reaffirms “the universal relevance of the principle of non-violence” and the desire “to secure a culture of peace, tolerance, understanding and non-violence”.

The panel discussion featured India’s Permanent Representative to the UN Ambassador Ruchira Kamboj; CEO of The King Centre, Atlanta Bernice King; and youth representative and digital education transformation champion Princess Hayu of Indonesia.

The discussion, moderated by UNESCO MGIEP Director Anantha Duraiappah, was focussed on Education for Human Flourishing’.

It was part of the Ahinsa Lecture Series and kickstarted the 10-year celebration of UNESCO MGIEP. It was for the first time at the UN that a life-size hologram of Mahatma Gandhi led the panel discussion, a statement said.

A voice-over accompanying the Gandhi hologram shared the iconic leader’s thoughts on education.

“Literacy is not the end of education or even the beginning. By education, I mean an all-around drawing out of the best in the child and the man, body, mind and spirit. By spiritual training, I mean education of the heart,” Gandhi said.

Ahead of the panel discussion, a message by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres was read out.

In his message, Guterres said Gandhi’s life and example reveal a timeless pathway to a more peaceful and tolerant world, as the UN chief called on the international community to walk this path together, in solidarity, as one human family.

Director of the Mahatma Gandhi Digital Museum in Hyderabad Birad Yajnik told the event’s audience that the hologram was the second edition of the Gandhi hologram in 4k.

He recalled that the making of the hologram was a process that started in 2018 when Ambassador Kamboj was in South Africa.

In 2019, in association with the MGIEP, a dialogue with a hologram of Gandhi was envisioned. Ananda and his team researched the collected works of Gandhi and his thoughts on education.

“At our end, digitally graphic files were further sculpted, merged with motion graphics to produce a high-definition hologram that narrated the script,” Yajnik said, adding that this version led the panel discussion at UNESCO in Paris and later in New Delhi.

“The future of this hologram is to enable it with AI (Artificial Intelligence) voice engine that can engage the people of the world. The message of Mahatma Gandhi is a message of peace and love, a message that the world desperately needs today. And this would be our small effort to bring it to the youth of the world through the language of technology,” Yajnik said.

Guterres said in his message that the International Day of Non-Violence celebrates not only Gandhi’s birthday, but the values he embodied that echo across the decades: peace, mutual respect and the essential dignity shared by every person.

“Sadly, our world is not living up to those values. We see this through growing conflicts and climate chaos. Poverty, hunger and deepening inequalities. Prejudice, racism and rising hate speech. And a morally bankrupt global financial system that entrenches poverty and stymies recovery for developing countries,” he said.

The UN chief emphasised that the world can defeat these challenges by embracing Gandhi’s values and working across cultures and borders to build a better, more peaceful future for all.

“By investing in people’s health, education, decent jobs and social protection to prevent people from falling and catch them when they do. By ensuring access to financing and debt relief for all countries. By supporting developing countries as they build resilient infrastructure and protect populations from the impacts of climate change, while also accelerating the transition from planet-killing fossil fuels to renewable energy.

“By securing and upholding the rights and dignity of all people – especially the most vulnerable, and girls and women who are too often denied their basic rights. By taking concrete action for inclusion, recognising multicultural, multi-religious and multi-ethnic societies as a richness, not a threat,” he said.

The Gandhi hologram made three appearances during the panel discussion, showing him both sitting and standing as he spoke about the values of education.

“We assess the value of education in the same manner as we assess the value of land or shares in the stock market. We want to provide only such education as would enable the student to earn more.

“We hardly give any thought to the improvement of the character of the educated. The schools and colleges are really a factory of turning out clerks for the government. On the contrary, real education consists in drawing the best out of yourself. What better book can there be than the book of humanity,” the Gandhi hologram said.

Education should provide access, equity, quality and affordability, Kamboj said, adding that it is very critical to provide holistic development as well as upliftment and dignity for every individual.

Stressing the importance of resilience, Kamboj said while education is imparted in schools and colleges, “I wonder how much we teach our children how to deal with the ups and downs.”

“That is also very critical…life doesn’t always dish out the best moments, you have to learn to deal with the ups and downs and, therefore, I think education should also be transformative in the sense that you teach youngsters to be able to take setbacks as you also take your successes,” she said.

Gundlupet (KTK): Congress leader Rahul Gandhi led ‘Bharat Jodo Yatra’ on Saturday delayed due to rains in Karnataka.

The march on its second day in the state was affected by the torrential rains in Gundlupet.

According to the Congress party sources, the Yatra was supposed to start at 6.30 am on Thondavadi in Chamarajanagar district on Saturday.

The Indian National Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh tweeted, “The 24th day of #BharatJodoYatra that was to start from Begur at 6:30am has been delayed due to rains. The rains arrived after a gap of 15 days and will benefit farmers. This is exactly what the Yatra is for, directly or indirectly!”

The former Congress president arrived at Gundlupet in Karnataka on Friday morning from Gudalur in Tamil Nadu.

The leader will spend 21 days covering 511 km in the state during his march which started from Kanyakumari on September 7 to Jammu on January 30, 2023.

Senior Congress leader Jairam Ramesh | PC: PTI

Gundlupet: Senior Congress leader Jairam Ramesh on Friday said he does not know if there would be a party presidential election on October 17, as the last date for withdrawal of nomination is not over yet.

The party General Secretary in-charge of Communications said both M Mallikarjun Kharge and Shashi Tharoor, who filed their nomination papers, are multi-dimensional personalities.

“All I can say is the election will be free, fair and transparent,” Ramesh said.

“Congress is a more internally democratic party than the BJP and is the only political party that has the system to elect its President and has elected presidents,” Ramesh added.

In response to a question on Kharge’s Dalit identity and electoral prospects for the Congress with him as a president, Ramesh said, Kharge has had a long public life having occupied various positions, and he cannot be looked at with only one lens.

“He (Kharge) is a multi-dimensional personality and so is Shashi Tharoor (other candidate). As of now, it is a contest between two multi-dimensional personalities. The last date for withdrawal is still not over, we don’t know whether there will be an election on October 17 or not,” he added.

The last date for withdrawal of nominations is October 8.

BSP president Mayawati

Lucknow, Sep 30: Bahujan Samaj Party president Mayawati on Friday said the ban on the Popular Front of India ahead of elections in some states was an act of “political selfishness” aimed at appeasing the RSS.

The Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) chief said this decision was behind countrywide demands to also ban the RSS.

In a tweet in Hindi, Mayawati said, “After targeting PFI (Popular Front of India) in various ways across the country, the Centre has finally banned it along with eight of its affiliates before assembly elections and considering it a policy of political selfishness and appeasement of the Sangh, there is less of satisfaction and more of restlessness.”

In a related tweet, she added, “This is the reason why the opposition parties are angry and attacking on this issue considering the government’s intentions to be flawed and the demand for banning the RSS is also openly being raised that if PFI is a danger for the internal security of the country why should other organisations like it should also not be banned?

The Centre on Wednesday banned the PFI, which has allegedly been involved in a series of violence and has “links” with global terror groups like ISIS, along with several associates for five years.

The organisations which were also banned under the stringent anti-terror law Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act include Rehab India Foundation, Campus Front of India, All India Imams Council, National Confederation of Human Rights Organisation, National Women’s Front, Junior Front, Empower India Foundation and Rehab Foundation, Kerala.

More than 150 people allegedly linked with PFI were detained or arrested in raids across seven states on Tuesday, five days after a similar pan-India crackdown against the 16-year-old group had led to the arrest of over a hundred of its activities and seizure of several dozen properties.