DMK leader M.K. Stalin on Tuesday congratulated BJP’s Chief Ministerial candidate B.S. Yeddyurappa for his party’s victory in the Karnataka Assembly election.
In a tweet, Stalin also told the new government in Karnataka to release the Cauvery water due to Tamil Nadu without defying the Supreme Court verdict on the river row.
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There is no question of alliance with JD(S), says Sadananda Gowda
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader and former chief minister of Karnataka Sadananda Gowda on Tuesday scoffed away the possibilities of allying with the JD(S) and expressed confidence of his party forming an independent government in the state.
“There is no question of alliance (with JDS) as we are already crossing 112 seats,” claimed Gowda.
The latest trends in the counting of votes show the BJP is leading in the race to the Karnataka State Assembly, having claimed 101 seats, while the Congress trails with just 46 seats won, 38 seats going to the JDS and three seats being claimed by other parties.
Counting of votes began at 8 am for 222 out of 224 assembly constituencies in 58,546 polling stations in the state. The elections in two constituencies, Jayanagar and Rajarajeshwari Nagar, both in Bengaluru, had been postponed earlier.
A total of 2,654 candidates, including 216 women candidates were in the fray for the Assembly Elections this year. The BJP fielded 223 candidates, while the Congress and the JDS fielded 222 and 201 candidates respectively.
Out of the 224 seats, 36 of them are reserved for Scheduled Castes (SCs), while 15 of them are for Scheduled Tribes (STs).
It may be noted that a party or an alliance needs 112 seats to form the government.
Chandy gets partial relief in solar scam case
Former Kerala Chief Minister Oommen Chandy on Tuesday got partial relief in the solar scam scam case as the High Court said allegations of sexual exploitation against him need not be taken into account.
The court’s direction came while hearing Chandy’s petition over the solar scam Commission report. It said findings of the commission based on the letter of accused Saritha Nair which alleges sexual exploitation need not be considered.
However, the court failed to stay the ongoing probe based on the Commission report, which was also another demand of Chandy.
Chandy, approached the court demanding the one member Justice (retired) Sivarajan Commission be stayed as it had gone beyond its brief, and the letter of Saritha was never part of the Commission’s terms of reference. Hence, the probe that Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan ordered based on the letter should not take place.
The multi-crore solar energy investment fraud that rocked the Chandy government in 2013 was led by Saritha Nair and her live-in partner Biju Radhakrishnan, as it came to light that a section of the Chief Minister’s office had links with the couple.
The sleaze letter written by Nair when she was in jail names Chandy and numerous other top Congress leaders of sexually exploiting her.
Following the huge public outcry led by the then Left opposition, Chandy in 2014 announced that the Sivarajan Commission will probe the case.
With the change of government in 2016, the report was submitted last year to Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan.
Last year, on October 11, Vijayan told the media the judicial report had been accepted, adding that cases would be registered against Chandy and others based on Nair’s letter that claimed she was sexually exploited.
Later, the former Kerala Chief Minister approached the high court and brought in senior Congress leader Kapil Sibal as his counsel.
Leader of Opposition Ramesh Chennithala said the manner in which Vijayan tried to finish off political rivals based on a ‘letter’ has fallen flat and the very basis of the Commission report also has lost its credibility.
Congress should have allied with JD-S: Mamata
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.
Thunderstorms in Uttar Padesh and other 5 states 80 dead, 136 injured
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.
N.Korea dismantling nuclear test site: Satellite images
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.
BSF trooper killed in Pakistan firing in J&K
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.
Congress lagged in planning for Karnataka election: Leader
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.
Omar invokes Shakespeare to describe Congress defeat
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.
Ambassador Sarna slams US media for ‘negative’ portrayal of India
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.
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