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Karnataka HC quashes ED report on Janardhana Reddy’s wealth

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Janardhan Reddy

Bengaluru: The Karnataka High Court on Monday quashed the Enforcement Directorate report attaching the property of former minister Gali Janardhana Reddy and his company. The ED had earlier impounded assets worth Rs 884 crore belonging to the Reddy couple.

For former minister, Reddy, who secured conditional bail after being in jail for long, this is a big relief. On Monday, the division bench of the high court comprising Chief Justice, S K Mukherjee, and Justice R B Budihal, upheld the petitions filed by Janardhana Reddy and his wife against the above cases, and dismissed both the cases which were filed by the enforcement directorate in 2011.

The high court observed that illegal mining is said to have taken place between 2004 and 2006. “The enforcement directorate filed cases under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act against the petitioners in 2011. This act has been ammended in 2009. Therefore, this ammended act cannot be enforced retrospectively,” the high court stated.

After the Central Bureau of Investigation registered cases of illegal mining, the enforcement directorate had registered two separate cases against Janardhana Reddy, his wife, and Brahmini Industrial Ltd owned by the family, on October 22, 2011 under money laundering act. It also had frozen landed property, houses, helicopter, bank accounts, deposits and other assets worth Rs 884 crore belonging to the accused. The cases had been registered by the directorate suo motu after the Supreme Court ordered investigation into illegal mining involving Reddy and others.

(Agencies)

Dalit JNU scholar, who was found dead, had led Rohith Vemula movement

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jnu Muthu Krishnan

New Delhi: The Dalit JNU scholar who allegedly committed suicide had previously been a student of the Hyderabad University and was at the forefront of the movement against the varsity’s administration following the suicide of Rohith Vemula.

Twenty-eight-year-old Muthu Krishnan, who was from Tamil Nadu’s Salem district, completed his MPhil from the University of Hyderabad (UoH) in 2015 before joining JNU for his PhD.

The deceased student, a resident of JNU’s Jhelum hostel, was found hanging from the ceiling fan of a friend’s residence in South Delhi’s Munirka area yesterday.

The JNU Students Union (JNUSU) is alleging that Krishnan was targeted for his association with the movement seeking justice for Rohith Vemula and depression made him take the extreme step.

While Krishnan has not left any suicide note, a recent Facebook post by him criticising “discriminatory” admission policies in JNU is being widely circulated on social media.

“There is no Equality in M.phil/phd Admission, there is no equality in Viva – voce, there is only denial of equality, denying Prof Sukhadeo Thorat recommendation, denying students protest places in Ad – block, denying the education of the Marginal’s.

“When Equality is denied everything is denied,” he wrote in the Facebook post on March 10.

Police, on the other hand, is maintaining that no prima facie evidence has been found indicating JNU administration’s role into the issue.

“Till now no evidence has been found that the extreme step was taken by the student owing to any issues at the university,” said a senior police officer, adding, “He is said to have been depressed for sometime over some personal issues”.

“A PCR call was received at 5.05 PM yesterday that a person had locked himself in a room at a house in Munirka Vihar. On reaching the spot, police forced open the door as a portion of the latch was uprooted from inside,” he said.

Meanwhile, the JNU authorities are keeping mum over the incident, saying police is investigating the issue.

(PTI)

For MCD election in Delhi, use ballot paper, not EVMs: Kejriwal to EC

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arvind-kejriwal

New Delhi: Days after Bahujan Samaj Party chief Mayawati raised questions over Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) following her party’s dismal show in Uttar Pradesh Assembly election, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal has appealed the Election Commission to use the ballot paper system in soon to be held civic election.

Kejriwal has written to Chief Secretary asking to direct the state Election Commission to use paper ballots instead of the EVMs in the MCD election.

Kejriwal’s letter comes shortly after the Congress advised the Delhi CM not to use EVMs in MCD election. “Not prejudiced-nor casting aspersions on results, I want Arvind Kejriwal to hold MCD elections through Ballot papers,” Congress leader Ajay Maken had said on Monday.

Elections for the three municipal corporations in Delhi are due in April.

The Election Commission (EC) had earlier refuted the allegations of tampering of Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs), as levelled by BSP supremo Mayawati.

The EC said that the EVMs could not be tampered with and that candidates are allowed to randomly check the machines before the actual voting.

“The machine is both mechanically and electronically protected to prevent any tampering/manipulation. The programme used in these machines is burnt into a one time programmable chip so that it cannot be altered or tampered with,” the EC said in its reply to Mayawati.

“These machines are not networked either by wire or by wireless to any other machine or system. Therefore, there is no possibility of its data corruption,” it added.

Mayawati had alleged that the EVMs used in Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand Assembly elections had been tampered with in a way that every vote goes to the BJP.

In a letter to the EC, Mayawati asked the poll panel to hold the results of Uttar Pradesh and Uttarkahand assembly elections and do re-polling using paper ballots.

Even former Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav said that if a political party is levelling such serious allegations, the EC should look into it.

(IANS)

Bengaluru: BJP councillor Srinivas Prasad hacked to death

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Srinivas Prasad

Bengaluru: A BJP councillor was hacked to death today by unidentified assailants In Bengaluru’s Anekal district, police said. “BJP councillor and Dalit leader Srinivas Prasad, popularly known as Kithaganahalli Vasu, was stabbed with sharp weapons around 5 am,” Bengaluru Rural Superintendent of Police Vinit Singh told news agency PTI.

Speaking about the motive behind the crime, Mr Singh said, “It is too early to comment on it as we are investigating the case.”

On October 16, an RSS worker was hacked to death in Bengaluru, which led to massive protests by BJP and RSS workers in the state. Reacting to the incident, RSS Media Coordinator for Karnataka, Rajesh Padmar said the state government should take strong steps to stop such politically-motivated killings. He also demanded an immediate and impartial investigation.

“In the last two years, more than 10 RSS-VHP-BJP activists have been killed. It is a dangerous development in a democratic set-up,” Mr Padmar said.

He also said that Srinivas Prasad was a soft-spoken person and has no criminal cases against him.

(PTI)

Muslims will get representation in UP’s BJP govt: Venkaiah Naidu

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Venkaiah Naidu

New Delhi: Union Minister Venkaiah Naidu said on Sunday that Muslims will get representation in the BJP government in Uttar Pradesh even though the party did not field any candidate from the community in the recent Assembly elections in the state.

The minister said in an interview to Hindustan Times – “If (a Muslim) MLA is not there, an MLC (member of legislative council) will be there… there will be Muslim representatives in the government.”

On BJP not fielding any Muslim candidate in UP, he said, “It was a weakness, not a mistake. We could not find suitable candidates confident of winning; whom the party thought could win.”

At the same time, Naidu added that a section of Muslims had supported the BJP in the elections.

“Because of the triple talaq issue, Muslim women, especially younger women, voted for us,” he told a newspaper.

Yesterday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, after accepting felicitations from party leaders and supporters at BJP headquarters, had said that he saw the election results, particularly in UP, as the “foundation of the new India”.

He had added that the BJP-led dispensation would take everybody along as “in democracy governments are formed with a majority but run with consensus”.

Noting that the government had no right to discriminate against anybody, PM Modi had said, “This government is of those who have voted for it and also those who have not. Of those who have walked along, and also of those who have not.”

“Everybody will join in the making of a new India,” he had further said.

Driven by the ‘Modi wave’, the BJP on March 11 stormed to power in UP after 14 years, securing three-fourths majority and demolishing rivals SP- Congress and BSP in a keenly-contested Assembly polls.

Showing astonishing performance, the BJP got 312 seats in the 403-member Assembly. Its allies Apna Dal(S) and SBSP bagged nine seats and four seats, respectively, taking the total tally of the combine to 325.

On the other hand, the SP won 47 seats while its ally the Congress got 7 seats. The BSP won just 19 seats, finishing a dismal third.

Significantly, the Congress lost all the four Assembly seats in Amethi district, the pocket borough of Nehru-Gandhi family, with BJP bagging three of them.

The BJP-led alliance swept all the eight Assembly segments falling under PM Modi’s Lok Sabha constituency Varanasi.

(Agencies)

US man sets Florida store on fire to keep ‘Arabs out’

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Police charge 64-year-old man with arson after he attempted to set shop ablaze to ‘run the Arabs out of our country’.

Prosecutors will determine if Lloyd will be charged with a hate crime [Courtesy: Port St Lucie Police]

Prosecutors will determine if Lloyd will be charged with a hate crime [Courtesy: Port St Lucie Police]

by Al Jazeera

A man in the US state of Florida faces a first-degree arson charge after attempting to set a convenience store ablaze because he thought it was owned by Muslims.

Richard Leslie Lloyd, 64, told police he tried to set the Port St Lucie shop on fire to “run the Arabs out of our country”, according to news reports on Sunday.

According to police, however, the shop owners were of Indian descent.

Local television channel WPTV reported that Lloyd was angry at Arabs “due to what they are doing in the Middle East”.

The intended target was the Met Mart store in the town 180km north of the city of Miami.

According to police, Lloyd carried out the attack on Friday morning while the shop was still closed.

Police said Lloyd was hoping that by setting a rubbish bin on fire he would ignite a bigger blaze targeting the shop.

“When the deputies arrived, they noticed the dumpster had been rolled in front of the doors and the contents were lit on fire,” Sheriff Ken J Mascara was quoted as saying in a statement.

“Upon seeing our deputies, the man put his hands behind his back and said ‘Take me away’.”

‘Doing his part for America’

Lloyd said he was “doing his part for America” by carrying out the attack, according to the arrest affidavit.

“It’s unfortunate that Mr Lloyd made the assumption that the store owners were Muslim when, in fact, they are of Indian descent,” said Mascara.

“Regardless, we will not tolerate violence based on age, race, colour, ancestry, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, national origin, homeless status, mental or physical disability.”

Police said they will review Lloyd’s mental health, and will leave it to prosecutors to determine if he can be charged with a hate crime.

The attack was the latest in a string of recent assaults targeting minorities in the United States.

On March 3, a Sikh man was shot and wounded outside his home in Seattle in Washington state, a day after a man of Indian origin was killed in the US state of South Carolina.

In late February, an Indian engineer working in Kansas was killed and two other people wounded after a gunman shouting racial slurs opened fire on them.

China’s Communist Party hardens rhetoric on Islam

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Regional Chinese officials make repeated warnings about threat of religious ‘extremism’ during meeting in Beijing.

President Xi Jinping had issued an order to "Sinicise" the country's ethnic and religious minorities [Reuters]

President Xi Jinping had issued an order to “Sinicise” the country’s ethnic and religious minorities [Reuters]

by Al Jazeera

China’s ruling Communist Party has hardened its rhetoric on Islam, with top officials making repeated warnings about the spectre of global religious “extremism” seeping into the country, and the need to protect traditional Chinese identity.

Shaerheti Ahan, a top party official in Xinjiang, on Sunday became the latest official from a predominantly Muslim region to warn political leaders gathered in Beijing that the”international anti-terror situation” is destabilising China.

Officials from Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, which has an ethnic Hui population that is predominantly Muslim, warned similarly this past week about the perils of “Islamic extremism”.

Speaking at a regional meeting open to the media, Ningxia Communist Party secretary Li Jianguo drew comparisons to the policies of US President Donald Trump‘s administration to make his point.

“What the Islamic State and extremists push is jihad, terror, violence,” Li said. “This is why we see Trump targeting Muslims in a travel ban.

“It doesn’t matter whether anti-Muslim policy is in the interests of the US or it promotes stability, it’s about preventing religious extremism from seeping into all of American culture.”

Over the past year, President Xi Jinping has directed the party to “Sinicise” the country’s ethnic and religious minorities.

Regional leaders in Xinjiang, home to the Muslim Uighur ethnic minority, have also ramped up surveillance measures, police patrols and demonstrations amid fear of violence blamed on Muslim groups.

Although some scholars question whether global armed networks have penetrated China, top Chinese officials are increasingly echoing calls to counter “extremism”.

News of growing anti-Islam sentiment come as the South China Morning Post published a story about the growing popularity of similar anti-Islam expressions online targeting young Chinese Muslims.

Wu Shimin, a former ethnic affairs official from Ningxia, said that ideological work must be strengthened in the region to promote a Chinese identity among its Hui population, the descendants of Muslim traders plying the Silk Road centuries ago.

“The roots of the Hui are in China,” Wu said. “To discuss religious consciousness, we must first discuss Chinese consciousness. To discuss the feelings of minorities, we must first discuss the feelings of the Chinese people.”

Mohammed al-Sudairi, a doctoral student at the University of Hong Kong and an expert on Islam in China, said the comments by Ningxia party officials reflected the increasingly anti-Islamic rhetoric that has been rolled out over the past year by the top leadership in Beijing.

“There’s a strengthening trend of viewing Islam as a problem in Chinese society,” Sudairi said.

“Xi Jinping has been quite anxious about what he saw as the loss of party-state control over the religious sphere when he entered power, which necessitated this intervention. I don’t think things will take a softer turn.”

In Xinjiang, where hundreds of people have died in recent years in violent attacks, the government’s rising rhetoric has coincided with new security measures that activists said exacerbate a cycle of repression, radicalisation and violence.

The government, meanwhile, said Xinjiang faces a grave separatist threat from Uighur fighters allegedly linked to al-Qaeda and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), though it provides little evidence for such claims.

ISIL released a video in late February purportedly showing Uighur fighters training in Iraq and vowing to strike China, according to the SITE Intelligence Group.

On Friday, Xi met Xinjiang officials, according to state media, and directed them to safeguard the region’s stability by erecting a metaphorical “great wall of iron”, a reference to the military response following the pro-democracy protest in Tiananmen Square in 1989.

Karnataka Bypolls: JDS still in dilemma to field its candidates

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JDS

Bengaluru: JDS is still uncertain whether to field its candidates to the by-elections scheduled to be held for Nanjangud and Gundlupet assembly constituencies as BJP and Congress are moving forward for neck to neck fight in the two constituencies. At present JDS doesn’t has a powerful candidate(s) to field them in the two constituencies. Also the term of the winning candidate is only limited for one year. Theretofore both JDS National President HD Deve Gowda and State President HD Kumaraswamy has decided not to field candidate for by-elections.

However, JDS Party workers are pressuring the party leaders to field party candidates to contest in the by-elections. Therefore, JDS leaders, HD Kumaraswamy and HD Deve Gowda have decided to take decision on the matter in a party legislature meeting which is expected to be held in Bengaluru on March 15. Based on the opinions of the party workers and other leaders JDS would decide weather party needs to field its candidate or not.

(Agencies)

Manohar Parrikar to be sworn in as Goa chief minister Tuesday

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manohar parrikar

Panaji: BJP leader Manohar Parrikar will be sworn in as chief minister of Goa Tuesday.

“I have tendered my resignation as Defence Minister and have sent it to the PMO. I will be taking the oath (as Goa chief minister) tomorrow evening, along with the cabinet ministers,” Parrikar told PTI today.

Asked how many ministers would be sworn in, Parrikar said, “The decision on the number of ministers and other issues are being currently worked out. Once the cabinet is finalised, we will inform the media.”

Goa Governor Mridula Sinha has invited Parrikar to form the next government in the coastal state after he submitted a letter of support from 21 legislators yesterday.

Three MLAs from the Goa Forward Party, three from the MGP and two Independents have pledged their support to Parrikar.

The BJP, which came second by winning 13 seats in the 40-member assembly after the Congress (17 seats), managed to garner support from other parties and Independents to attain majority under Parrikar.

(PTI)

Congress MLAs blame leadership for failure to form govt in Goa

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congress

Panaji: A group of Congress legislators in Goa were “upset” and blamed the party’s top leadership for the failure to form the government in the coastal state despite emerging as the single largest party in the assembly polls.

“I am very upset with the way our party leaders handled the situation after the (Goa Assembly poll) results, which gave us the first right — as the single largest party — to form the government. I feel let down at the functioning of the party leaders who could not take a decision at the right time,” Vishwajit Rane, who won from the Valpoi constituency, told PTI today.

He said that “gross mismanagement” by party leaders and the “delay” in choosing the Congress Legislature Party (CLP) leader hurt them. The Congress won 17 seats in Goa, only four short of the magic figure to form the government. Soon after the results threw up a hung assembly, Independent candidate Rohan Khaunte had extended support to the party.

Also, informal talks were on with three legislators of the Goa Forward Party on Saturday, before the BJP stole the march on its rival after it could not muster the numbers to capture power.

Congress’ lone woman legislator Jeniffer Monserratte representing Taleigao constituency said, “Our party leaders are to be blamed for the failure to form the government.” “People had given us the mandate but party leaders failed to respect it. It is entirely their fault,” she said.

Similarly, senior leader and Curtorim legislator Aleixo Reginaldo Lourenco said that the people wanted the Congress to form the government but party leaders miserably failed to honour the verdict.

“Why should we blame someone for forming the government, when we failed in our responsibility? We were 17 in number,” Lourenco said. “People wanted us to form the government and hence, they had rejected the BJP. But we failed to give people their government,” he added.

All India Congress Committee General Secretary and in-charge of party affairs in Goa Digvijaya Singh said he would speak to the Congress legislators who have expressed resentment.

“Let us see. I will talk to them. I will find out,” Singh said today. Yesterday, despite being a runner-up behind the Congress, the BJP, which bagged 13 seats, pulled off a coup and staked the claim to form the next government in Goa in coalition with local outfits and Independents under Manohar Parrikar.

As the saffron party outmanoeuvred the Congress in its bid to power, Singh had accused Parrikar of indulging in “horse trading and hijacking the popular mandate which was in favour of the Congress”.

(Agencies)

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