India's largest selling Urdu weekly, now also in English
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Tuesday said the Congress would have done much better in the Karnataka Assembly election if it had allied with the Janata Dal-Secular (JD-S).
Banerjee did not name the BJP but congratulated the “winners”.
“Congratulations to the winners of the Karnataka elections. For those who lost, fight back. If Congress had gone into an alliance with the JD-S, the result would have been different. Very different,” she tweeted.
As many as 80 people were killed in five states due to thunderstorms and lightning strikes since yesterday, with Uttar Pradesh alone recording 51 deaths, the Home Ministry said today. Meanwhile, six more deaths, including a girl aged under four, were reported today from the state of Bihar, parts of which were lashed by a thunderstorm that uprooted trees, electric poles and billboards.
The IMD again issued an advisory of a thunderstorm accompanied with squall and hail with wind speed reaching 50-70 kilometers per hour being “very likely” at isolated places over Uttarakhand, Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh and Gangetic West Bengaltomorrow.
Thunderstorms accompanied by gusty winds are also likely at isolated places over east Uttar Pradesh, Assam, Meghalaya, Nagaland, Manipur, Mizoram, Tripura, sub Himalayan West Bengal, Sikkim, Odisha, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, coastal Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, south interior Karnataka, Kerala and north Tamilnadu, the weather office said.
Thunderstorms and lightning had lashed several states yesterday evening and the toll in related incidents had reached 51 in Uttar Pradesh alone, a Home Ministry spokesperson said. Fourteen people died in West Bengal, 12 in Andhra Pradesh, two in Delhi and one in Uttarakhand, the official added.
Of the 136 people injured in lightning strikes and thunderstorms, 123 were from Uttar Pradesh, 11 from Delhi and two from Uttarakhand. Lightning strikes and thunderstorms hit 24 districts in Uttar Pradesh, six in West Bengal, three in Andhra Pradesh, two in Delhi and one in Uttarakhand, the spokesperson said.
Dust storms and thunderstorms wreaked havoc in Delhi and parts of Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh yesterday, leaving behind a trail of destruction. High-velocity winds uprooted trees and affected road, rail and air services last evening at a number of places in north India, including the national capital.
Thunderstorms also occurred at isolated places in Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Punjab, Haryana, Chandigarh, Madhya Pradesh, Jharkhand, Assam, Meghalaya, Maharashtara, Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) had said yesterday.
The devastation comes over 12 days after storms hit Uttar Pradesh (UP), Rajasthan, Telangana, Uttarakhand and Punjab, killing 134 people and injuring over 400. UP was the worst affected, accounting for 80 deaths, most of them in Agra district in the western part of the state.
Subsequently on May 9, several parts of Uttar Pradesh were struck by a severe storm that left 18 dead and 27 others injured. In its advisory issued today, the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) said heat wave conditions were very likely at some places over west Madhya Pradesh, one or two places over east Madhya Pradesh and Vidharbha.
North Korea has started to dismantle its nuclear test site, which it had pledged to close down after the inter-Korean summit on April 27, according to media reports on Tuesday.
“Commercial satellite imagery from May 7 provided the first definitive evidence that dismantlement of the test site was already well underway,” Efe news agency reported citing the 38 North website report that published and analysed satellite images of the site.
Pyongyang had announced it would publicly dismantle its Punggye-ri nuclear facility between May 23 and 25 by destroying the tunnels in the complex with explosions, blocking entrances and removing observation areas, research centres, and security structures.
According to the report, many key operational support buildings have been razed since their last analysis.
Some of the rails and mining carts used for excavation of the tunnels in the complex have also been dismantled and other small buildings have been removed.
During the summit, Pyongyang had pledged to work for a complete denuclearisation of the peninsula, having promised to stop its weapons tests earlier.
The commitments came ahead of a summit to be held between North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and the US President Donald Trump to discuss a possible end to Pyongyang’s nuclear program.
North Korea has carried out six underground nuclear tests–including the last and most powerful one in September 2017–at the Punggye-ri site.
A number of analysts have doubted North Korea’s commitment to the denuclearisation, citing the example of 2008, when Pyongyang publicly dismantled parts of its uranium reprocessing plant but kept developing its nuclear programme.
A Border Security Force (BSF) trooper was killed on Tuesday in ceasefire violation by Pakistani rangers on the international border (IB) in Jammu and Kashmir’s Samba district.
“Pakistan rangers started ceasefire violation at 1.30 a.m. They resorted to unprovoked firing at the BSF positions on the IB in the early hours.
“BSF constable, Devinder Singh, was injured in the firing. He succumbed to his injuries later,” a BSF official said here.
The Indian positions retaliated effectively and strongly. Firing exchanges between the two sides continued for nearly three hours, he added.
There had been comparative calm on both the Line of Control (LoC) and the IB for nearly two months in the Jammu region.
Tuesday’s ceasefire violation disrupted the peace that the residents of border villages had been experiencing.
A Congress leader on Tuesday lamented that the party failed to plan for the Karnataka Assembly election and educate the people about the government’s welfare schemes.
“The party and its leaders, both in Bengaluru and Delhi, should have woken up much earlier and planned much better for the election to educate the people of the state about the Congress government’s welfare schemes,” Congress state unit Vice President B.K. Chandrashekar told IANS here.
“The good economic policies of the government weren’t communicated effectively to the people of Karnataka.”
Chandrashekar said the party’s set-up was a reason for its defeat in the state election that took place on Saturday. The votes were counted on Tuesday.
“We should have strategized at least two-three years ahead of the elections by setting up a think tank in order to counter (Prime Minister) Narendra Modi’s charm,” Chandrashekar said.
“The Congress failed in communicating to the people of the state that the politics of communalism and nationalism of the BJP must be rejected.” The Congress now needs a structural reconstruction, he added.
Reacting philosophically to the Congress defeat in Karnataka, former Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah on Tuesday invoked Shakespeare to describe the electoral debacle.
The National Conference leader wrote on his widely followed Twitter page: “Et tu Karnataka.”
Similar words were uttered by Julius Caesar in Shakespeare’s sublime tragedy when Caesar’s best friend Brutus stabbed him. The BJP was set to oust the Congress in the Karnataka Assembly vote count.
Indian Ambassador to the US Navtej Singh Sarna has slammed the American media for their “negative portrayal” of India, alleging that there is a tendency among foreign journalists based in India to pick up the “exception” stories and ignore the development news.
Sarna’s remarks came during his address at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a top American think tank.
“Now, it is more a case of pity than worry. India has moved on, you haven’t,” he said when asked about the portrayal of India in the mainstream American media.
Sarna said the American media picks up the “exception” stories, while ignoring the development news.
“There is a tendency to look at the social exception… there is a dowry case, there is a caste issue… so pick it up and splash it. But if there is a start-up story for instance… (they will say) that happens everywhere. Frankly it bothers me, but I do not loose sleep over it anymore… I used to (worry),” the top Indian diplomat said.
By such a “negative” portrayal of India, Sarna said, the American media was doing “injustice” to its public.
Sarna was participating in a panel discussion during the opening session of the “US & India: From Estranged Democracies to Natural Allies” organised by the top American think-tank.
“These (negative) pieces just sound like oddities. They show the narrow mindset of the journalists, of the editor and marginalise them rather than marginalise us anymore,” the Indian Ambassador said.
“If they (the American media) want to survive and remain relevant, they should move on,” Sarna said.
Referring to his previous four-year stint at the Indian Embassy here when he was its spokesperson, Sarna said this was what he tried “correcting then, but failed miserably”.
“It is extremely important for us, but I think it’s important for the United States as well to get a correct picture of, even if I was not in India and I would say of a very important country in the world. Unfortunately, can’t tell you, I can guess at the reasons,” he said.
The Supreme Court on Tuesday acquitted former cricketer and Punjab Tourism Minister Navjot Singh Sidhu from culpable homicide charges in a 30-year-old road rage case for which he was awarded a three-year jail term.
A bench of Justice J. Chelameswar and Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul acquitted Sidhu of culpable homicide not amounting to murder charges but convicted him for causing simple injury and imposed a fine of Rs 1,000 without any jail term.
The court also acquitted the other accused, his cousin Rupinder Singh Sandhu, of all charges.
The incident dates to December 27, 1988 when Sidhu and his cousin had beaten up Gurnam Singh and two others in what was described as a road rage case. Gurnam Singh later died.
On April 12 this year, the Punjab government supported the decision of the Punjab and Haryana High Court convicting the minister. It told the apex court that the 65-year-old victim had died after a fist blow from the cricketer-turned-politician.
The state had said there was no evidence at all to suggest that Gurnam Singh died due to cardiac arrest and not brain haemorrhage.
In 1999, the trial court in Patiala had acquitted Sidhu and his cousin saying the medical report stated that the death was due to a heart attack.
The High Court in December 2006 had overturned the lower court’s decision. It had said that Gurnam Singh did not die of cardiac arrest but due to the injury on his temporal lobe. Sidhu was awarded three years in jail for culpable homicide not amounting to murder.
The apex court in 2007 stayed the conviction after counsel appearing for Sidhu had contended that the findings of the High Court were based on opinions and not medical evidence.
Sidhu’s lawyer had argued that there were deficiencies in the medical evidence and the prosecution witnesses had given different statements on oath before the trial court.
Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah was on Tuesday trailing in both the constituencies where he contested, officials said.
The Congress leader was way behind G.T Deve Gowda of the Janata Dal-Secular in Chamundeshwari by over 13,000 votes, Election Commission officials said.
And after leading initially, Siddaramaiah fell behind B.R. Sriramulu of the Bharatiya Janata Party in Badami constituency by 428 seats.
N Mahesh,state president of the Bahujan Samaj Party(BSP) opened the party’s account in the state by emerging victorious from the Kollegal reserve constituency in Chamarajnagar district today.He had unsuccessfully contested from the same constituency during the previous 2013 Assembly elections.
It may be recalled here that the BSP had entered into an pre poll alliance with the Janata Dal Secular and as a result of such an understanding BSP was allotted 20 seats to contest. Kollegal was one such constituency where N Mallesh came second during the previous general elections.
N Mahesh defeated AR Krishnamurthy of the Congress to register the maiden victory for his party in the backward district bordering Tamil Nadu.He polled 31,362 votes garnering a vote share of 40.62 percent while his nearest rival AR Krishnamurthy bagged 24,764 votes and 32.07 share of votes polled. BN Nanjundaswamy of the BJP came third by getting 18,631 votes and 24.13 percent of votes polled.
During 2013 polls N Mahesh had got 37,209 votes and 25.40 vote share while S Jayanna,the winning Congress candidate had bagged 47,402 votes and 32.36 vote share.In fact last time the KJP of BS Yeddyurappa had played spoil sport as its candidate Balaraj S garnered 32,578 votes while GN Nanjundaswamy of the BJP had to be content with 17,089 votes.
Hindusthan Samachar/Manohar Yadavatti