Archives for 2017

New Delhi: Polls to elect the next President of India will be held on July 17 for which the nomination process will begin from June 14 with the issuance of a notification, the Election Commission announced today.

The counting of votes will take place on July 20 in New Delhi where all the ballot boxes will be brought.

Both the ruling NDA and the opposition are yet open their cards on the presidential candidate. While the ruling alliance is likely to announce its nominee in the next few days, the opposition is seeking to unite all non-NDA parties under a common platform to put up a consensus candidate for the presidential election.

As per the schedule, June 28 is the last day for nominations, while a candidate can withdraw from the electoral battle till July 1. If there is no consensus between the NDA and the opposition, the number of serious candidates in the fray will be clear by July 1 evening.

(Agencies)

Naya Gaon (MP): The farmer movement in Madhya Pradesh moved into high political gear Thursday as Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi and other senior party leaders were detained by police when they tried to make their way to Mandsaur, ground zero of the protests.

Police moved in to stop Gandhi as he defied elaborate security arrangements and tried to force his way into the state from Naya Gaon in Neemuch, about 400 km from the state capital Bhopal.

Surging crowds of Congress supporters followed him, shouting slogans like “Jai Jawaan, Jai Kisaan” and “Rahul Gandhi zindabad”.

Hundreds of Congress workers as well as senior leaders like Rajasthan Congress chief Sachin Pilot and Madhya Pradesh legislator Jaiwardhan Singh also courted arrest. They were taken to the guesthouse of a cement company, a police official said.

Gandhi, also accompanied by senior party leaders Digvijay Singh, Kamal Nath and Janata Dal-United’s Sharad Yadav, took the opportunity to hit out at Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

He told reporters that Modi could waive loans worth Rs 1.50 lakh crore of the rich but not for farmers. “He can’t give the right rates for their agricultural produce, can’t give them bonus, can’t give compensation… He can only give them bullets.”

Lashing out at Centre and the Madhya Pradesh government, he blamed both Modi and Chief Minister Shivraj Chouhan for the deaths of five farmers in Mandsaur on Tuesday.

There was high drama as the police tried to stop what had turned into a rally of sorts with Gandhi leading from the front. When police tried to push him back, he ran into a field nearby from where he was detained.

Police tried to stop them saying there was curfew in Mandsaur. At this, Digvijay Singh and Kamal Nath protested, saying they wanted to go there to restore peace but were being stopped.

Determined to meet the families of farmers in distress, Gandhi had walked for close to 100 metres before entering Madhya Pradesh from Dalia village in Rajasthan’s Chittorgarh district.

“Before entering MP, Gandhi rode pillion on a motorcycle in Nimbahed in Chittorgarh district for about five to seven kilometres,” IG Udaipur Anand Srivastava told PTI.

“Gandhi reached Udaipur from Delhi in a chartered plane and left for Madhya Pradesh in a four wheeler by road… After the bike ride, he walked to cross the border,” he said.

There are almost 2,000 people and nearly 150 vehicles with Gandhi, sources at the police control room said.

(IANS)

Bengaluru: A Muslim student was on Wednesday June 7 refused entry the Legislative Assembly hall in Vidhana Soudha for wearing hijab.

The girl was part of a group of students from Christ College who had come to the Vidhana Soudha to watch the ongoing Assembly session.

While the students were entering the gallery of the Assembly hall, the girl was stopped by the guards and asked to remove her scarf, but the student refused to do so.

News agency IANS reported that the student was asked to remove her burqa.

The police asked her to remove the burqa and subjected her to security check for around 20 minutes, IANS said.

The girl student of Christ Junior College was in tears when the security staff told her to remove the burqa.

“Someone took a video of the police asking her to remove the burqa,” Christ Junior College Principal Fr Biju K Chacko told IANS.

“The police allowed her to enter the assembly gallery only after the teachers assured them about the girl’s identity,” he said.

(Agencies)

Thiruvananthapuram: Ruling LDF and opposition UDF in Kerala joined hands in the assembly today to resist the Centre’s ban on sale of cattle for slaughter in the animal market and termed it as “fascist” move.

During the one-day session, called exclusively to discuss the cattle ban notification, members of ruling CPI(M)-led LDF and Congress-headed UDF opposition held that it was not only an “intrusion” into state’s rights, but also an”infringement” on the rights of people on the choice of their food habits.

The House also passed a resolution asking the Centre to withdraw the notification, which saw the lone BJP MLA, O Rajagopal, dissenting.

Members from both sides also attacked the NDA government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and termed the ban as a “fascist” move.

Attack on CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury at A K G Centre in New Delhi yesterday also had its echo in the assembly here with the party members alleging that Sangh Parivar was trying to “silence” political rivals through “muscle power”.

The members of both the Fronts said the ban on sale of cattle for slaughter in the animal market was not only communal, but also essentially anti-working class and anti-farmer.

It thus has to be withdrawn, they said.

They also alleged that the move was an attempt at corporatisation of the meat-trading sector, which was now an additional source of income for small and medium farmers.

Rajagopal said the coming together of LDF and UDF in the assembly was a sign of a “grand alliance” forming at the national level to take on BJP.

He said the House has been “misused” for political purposes as the Centre has already made it clear that it was ready to make changes in the notification after getting suggestions from states.

Moving the resolution Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan slammed the the Centre, saying the ban was to implement the political agenda of Sangh Parivar.

“The NDA government, that has failed to fulfil any of its promises, was raking up issues such as cattle slaughter to divide the people through communal polarisation for political gains,” he said.

Vijayan also brought to the notice of the assembly the serious ‘adverse’ consequences the ban would have on various sectors including agriculture, dairy, leather industry and meat export trade.

“The notification is impractical in Kerala where 95 per cent of the population is non-vegetarian. It is clearly an intrusion into the citizens choice of food,” he said.

On the impact on state’s meat trade, Vijayan said every year 2.5 lakh tonnes of meat worth Rs 6,552 crore was sold in Kerala annually.

Vijayan also mentioned about the farmers unrest in Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra and said the community was already in crisis and the new decision would further add to their woes.

The Chief Minister said the state government would implead in the connected case pending in the Supreme Court.

Describing the notification as another “surgical strike” by the Modi government “like the note ban”, opposition leader in assembly Ramesh Chennithala said this was “a sign of arrival of fascism” in the country.

“Modi has transformed himself into ‘abhinava Hitler’ (neo Hitler),” he alleged.

Speaker P Sreeramakrishnan said there seems to be an “indirect interest” behind the notification.

CPI(M) veteran and former Chief Minister V S Achuthanandan, KC-M leader K M Mani were among those who spoke on the occasion.

The Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) notified the stringent Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (Regulation of Livestock Markets) Rules, 2017 under the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, 1960 on May 25, banning the sale and purchase of cattle from animal markets for slaughter.

Kerala government was the first to protest against the Centre’s notification. It has also decided to convene a meeting of all Chief Ministers to discuss the issue.

Vijayan has also written to his counterparts in other states asking them to “stand together” and “oppose” the ban and urged the Prime Minister to withdraw the new regulations.

The Chief Minister has also written to Modi opposing the ban and urging him to withdraw the new regulations.

Beef fests were held in various parts of the state last month to protest against the ban with some youth Congress activists in Kannur publicly slaughtering a calf to register their protest.

(Agencies)

Bhopal: Madhya Pradesh Home Minister Bhupendra Singh today said that the five casualties during farmers’ agitation in Mandsaur occurred during police firing.

“Five persons were killed in police firing,” Singh said over the phone.

The minister’s remarks assume significance as the authorities had been claiming that the police had not fired during protests at Pipliamandi in Mandsaur district in which five farmers were killed two days ago.

Minutes after the incident, the then Mandsaur Collector S K Singh had said that the police told him categorically that “neither did they fire nor did they have any orders to fire”.

Asked what provoked the police to fire, the home minister said it is being probed in the magisterial inquiry.

However, he said the situation was now peaceful in western Madhya Pradesh.

Meanwhile, contingents of Rapid Action Force (RAF) were today deployed in Mandsaur which has been on the boil since the violence two days ago.

Two companies of RAF, comprising around 100 men each, have moved into Pipliamandi, the police said.

While two companies of RAF have been posted in the district’s Garoth area, another two have been deployed along the Mwoh-Neemuch Highway to prevent any untoward incidents, they said.

The situation is tense but under control, the police said.

DIG Ratlam Range Avinash Sharma is camping in Pipliamandi where farmers, agitating for the last seven days for loan waiver and better crop prices, defied prohibitory orders yesterday, beat up officials and policemen and resorted to violence and arson.

Senior police officials have also been deployed to oversee the law and order situation in all sub-divisions of Mandsaur district, the official said.

The situation in western Madhya Pradesh is posing a major challenge for Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan and providing a rallying point for the opposition parties.

The Shivraj Chouhan government had sought to cool tempers by announcing certain measures, including a loan settlement scheme for those cultivators who had defaulted on repayment of farm loan borrowed by them earlier.

The scheme will cover around six lakh farmers, with accumulated dues of Rs 6,000 crore, according to the government.

(Agencies)