BSP chief Mayawati

Lucknow : BSP chief Mayawati on Wednesday said the Uttar Pradesh government should start some schemes which can provide relief to people suffering from poverty, unemployment and inflation.

The schemes can be announced in the Winter session of the state assembly which started on Tuesday, the former Uttar Pradesh chief minister said.

“In the interest of the people suffering from poverty, unemployment and inflation in UP, the government should also start some schemes in the ongoing assembly session here which can provide some relief to them

The BSP has only one member in the 403-member assembly.

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi (PTI)

New Delhi : Slamming the Modi government, Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday said prioritising crony businesses over play-fair ones leads to weakened manufacturing sector, depreciating currency, record high trade deficits, high interest rates, falling consumption and soaring inflation.

Tagging a media report which said that trade deficit and imports are at an all-time high, Gandhi hit out at the government.

“What happens when a government prioritises crony businesses over play-fair businesses?” Gandhi said.

“Result: Weakened manufacturing sector, depreciating currency, record high trade deficits, high interest rates, falling consumption and soaring inflation,” he said in a post on X.

After recording double-digit growth in October, India’s exports in November contracted by 4.85 per cent year-on-year to USD 32.11 billion, while the trade deficit widened to an all-time high of USD 37.84 billion due to record surge in gold imports.

According to the commerce ministry data, imports rose by 27 per cent year-on-year to a record USD 69.95 billion in November due to high inbound shipments of vegetable oil, fertiliser, and silver.

Gold imports during the month under review soared to an all-time high of USD 14.8 billion as against USD 3.5 billion in November 2023.

Cumulatively, during April-November this fiscal, exports increased by 2.17 per cent to USD 284.31 billion and imports by 8.35 per cent to USD 486.73 billion.

Trade deficit, the difference between imports and exports, during April-November widened to USD 202.42 billion from USD 170.98 billion during April-November 2023.

Home Minister Amit Shah

New Delhi : The Congress on Wednesday demanded the resignation of Home Minister Amit Shah for his remarks in the Rajya Sabha which it claimed were an insult to B R Ambedkar.

The opposition party also demanded that Shah should apologise publicly and in Parliament for his remarks.

Speaking with reporters in Parliament premises, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge said, “We demand resignation of Home Minister Amit Shah for ‘insulting’ Ambedkar; he should apologise to the nation.”

Addressing a press conference, Congress MP Neeraj Dangi said his party demands Shah’s apology for the remarks.

“In Rajya Sabha, Amit Shah Ji said that taking the name of Babasaheb Ambedkar Ji has become a fashion. This is a direct insult to the Dalits of the country and Babasaheb,” he said.

Shah has shown the whole country what kind of thinking BJP leaders have, he said.

“The deprived and exploited class, which they have insulted, this is the same class which will reduce them from 240 to 40,” Dangi said.

“On behalf of the Congress party, I demand that Amit Shah ji should apologize publicly and in the House. Considering what he has said about Babasaheb Ambedkar, he has lost the right to hold a constitutional post,” Dangi said.

He should resign from the post of Home Minister, he said.

The Congress on Tuesday alleged that Shah’s remarks in the Rajya Sabha during a debate on the Constitution show that the BJP and the RSS leaders have a “lot of hatred” for Ambedkar and demanded an apology from him.

Former Congress chief Rahul Gandhi had said those who believe in Manusmriti will definitely be at odds with Ambedkar.

Congress general secretary-in-charge communications Jairam Ramesh had shared a video snippet on X from Shah’s speech in the upper house.

The home minister attacked the Congress in the Rajya Sabha on Tuesday, saying the party treated the Constitution as the “private fiefdom” of one family and “played fraud” with Parliament.

Concluding a two-day debate on the “Glorious Journey of 75 Years of the Constitution of India”, Shah ripped into the Congress for its appeasement politics and claimed that the party wanted to breach the 50 per cent quota limit to provide reservation to Muslims.

He also asked the Congress if it supported the Muslim personal law and alleged that the party never worked for the welfare of the backward classes. Shah asserted that the BJP has already brought in a common civil code (Uniform Civil Code) in Uttarakhand and will implement it in all states.

Kochi: A female engineering student was killed and a youth sustained injuries when a huge palm tree branch fell on their motorcycle near Kothamangalam on Saturday.

Ann Mary C V (21), a native of Thrissur, was riding pillion on the bike driven by her college mate Altaf Aboobacker (21) around 6 pm at Chembankuzhy near the Nagarampara forest office, and the branch of the tree uprooted by the elephant, fell on them, police said.

Local forest officials who arrived at the scene rushed the duo to a private hospital in Kothamangalam.

According to Forest officials, the area often experiences frequent wild elephant intrusions.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi

New Delhi: The Union government has urged states to adhere to the original names of central-sponsored schemes, including 15 schemes that begin with “Pradhan Mantri” or “Prime Minister,” amid ongoing disagreements over their nomenclature.

Bengal and Tamil Nadu are among the states that have expressed discomfort with the names of these schemes, with Bengal even attempting to rename them, leading to tensions with the Centre. The central government has urged that states should not alter the names, as these schemes are jointly implemented by the Union ministries and state governments.

In a written response in the Rajya Sabha on 2 December, Rao Inderjit Singh, the Minister of State for Statistics and Programme Implementation, listed several schemes starting with “Pradhan Mantri” or “Prime Minister,” including the Pradhan Mantri Poshan Shakti Nirman, PM Schools for Rising India (PM-SHRI), Pradhan Mantri Uchchatar Shiksha Abhiyan, and others.

Funding for these schemes is shared between the Centre and states, with a ratio of 60:40 in most states, and 90:10 for Northeastern and Himalayan states. The government has also pointed out that states are expected to follow the guidelines of these centrally sponsored schemes, including their nomenclature, and make no changes without approval.

The issue came to the forefront when the Ministry of Rural Development stopped releasing funds to Bengal for the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY) and the PM Awaas Yojana-Grameen for two years, citing irregularities in beneficiary selection and the renaming of the schemes. The Ministry objected to the signboards on PMGSY roads referring to the scheme as the “Bangla Gram Sadak Yojana.”

Former Rajya Sabha member Jawhar Sircar criticised the naming of schemes after the Prime Minister, arguing that it served to rebrand existing projects and appropriated credit, diminishing the contributions of past leaders. He suggested that such practices undermined the legacy of martyred leaders like Mahatma Gandhi and Indira Gandhi.