Archives for 2022

Bhatt, the first noted Bollywood celebrity to have joined the Yatra, was seen walking with Gandhi while having a discussion with him.

People cheered as she walked for some distance at a brisk pace with Gandhi. The actor-director-producer has been vocal about various issues on social media.

She made her debut as an actor with the 1989 film “Daddy”.

Daughter of veteran filmmaker Mahesh Bhatt, the actor delivered critically-acclaimed performances in movies such as “Dil Hai Ki Manta Nahin”, “Sadak”, “Phir Teri Kahani Yaad Aayee”, “Sir” and “Zakhm”, before venturing into production and direction with “Tammana”, “Sur”, “Paap” and “Holiday”.

The Yatra resumed from MGB Bajaj showroom, Balanagar Main Road, Hyderabad City, with Rahul Gandhi along with other Bharat Yatris continuing their walk on the 56th day of the Yatra.

The Bharat Jodo Yatra commenced on September 7 from Kanyakumari in Tamil Nadu.

Gandhi has completed the marathon walk in Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh, before beginning the Telangana leg of the yatra last week.

The Telangana state Congress has formed 10 special committees to coordinate the yatra.

DHARAMSALA: Kangra is the largest district in Himachal Pradesh with 15 seats in the 68-member Assembly. As discontent brews within the ruling BJP, it won’t be easy for it to win in these seats. The feeling in the saffron camp is that nominations have been given to ‘outsiders’ in at least five of the 15 seats. Those who did not get the ticket are contesting as Independents.

Kangra is the nerve centre of state politics, so the route to forming the government here passes through the district. The district gave Himachal its first non-Congress CM in 1977 when BJP formed the government under Shanta Kumar. It has since remained a BJP fortress, with Kumar becoming the CM twice. Kangra has 30% OBC population that can alter the outcome in eight seats. The BJP’s problems in the district started after Kumar decided to retire from electoral politics as the party did not groom a second line of leadership.

The party is facing rebellion in Dharamsala, Kangra, Dehra, Indora and Fatehpur seats. The BJP has allotted the ticket to AAP turncoat Rakesh Chaudhary from Dharamsala and denied re-nomination to sitting MLA Vishal Nehria. The result is that the party’s block unit rebelled in Dharamsala, with BJP block president Anil Chaudhary and the party’s district ST Morcha chief Vipin Nehria filing their nomination as Independents. While Chaudhary withdrew his papers on Saturday after party placated him, Nehria remains in the fray.

Pawan Kajal was the acting state president of Congress. After he switched sides, BJP has given him the ticket from Kangra as he wields influence among the OBC community. Thus the Zila Parishad member and BJP leader Kulbhash Chaudhary is fighting as an Independent. But the saffron party is banking on the personal vote bank of Kajal who fought the 2012 elections as an Independent and won. He then joined the Congress and contested the 2017 polls and again won. Many local BJP leaders, including former MLA Sanjay Chaudhary, have opposed Kajal. Former MLA Surinder Kaku is the Congress candidate and is banking on the support of government employees.

The BJP has also tried to strengthen itself by inducting Independent Hoshiar Singh from Dehra Assembly segment but was forced to shift Jawalamukhi MLA Ramesh Dhwala to Dehra as it faced rebellion. Now Singh again quit BJP and filed papers as an Independent. Meanwhile, BJP MLA Ravinder Ravi has been given ticket from Jawalamukhi seat.

BJP candidate from Dharmashala, Rakesh Chaudhary, says the party will win at least 12 seats from Kangra. “There is no rebellion. Everyone, except Vipin Nehria, has been placated. The rebels are not grassroots leaders, so they will have hardly any impact,” he adds. 

Gone are days of raja-rani: Shah

Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Tuesday launched an attack on the “ma-beta” Congress party, questioning how individuals facing charges can give a good government in the hill state. His words appeared to be a dig at Congress leaders Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi in Delhi, as well as Pratibha Singh and her son Vikramaditya Singh in Himachal. Addressing a public rally in support of Bhattiyat MLA and BJP candidate in the Assembly polls, he urged people to re-elect the saffron party to power, breaking the state’s tradition of not repeating a government. “There is democracy in the country and gone are the days of raja-rani. It is the time of common people. We have to elect a government that works for the development of the state,” he said.      

It should be noted that the order which was issued on Monday to grant citizenship was done under the citizenship act 1955 as the new CAA rules are not being framed. In a similar manner, the government has issued a notification to grant citizenship to non-Muslim migrants from the three countries in several districts of Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan, Punjab and Haryana in 2016, 2018 and 2021 too.

Though in January 2020, the MHA notified that the Citizenship Act would be operational from January 10, 2020, it later sought an extension from the parliamentary committees on grounds of the Covid-19 pandemic. Since then, the ministry has been granted seven extensions so far.  In the recent extension, permission has been granted from the Rajya Sabha till December 31, 2022, and the Lok Sabha has granted the time till January 9, 2023.

The controversial law, which was passed in December 2019 seeks to grant Indian citizenship to non-Muslim ‘persecuted minorities’ from Bangladesh, Afghanistan, and Pakistan Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, Buddhists, Parsis and Christians — who came to India till December 31, 2014.

MORBI: The contractors who carried out repairs of the ill-fated suspension bridge at Morbi in Gujarat were not qualified to carry out such jobs, the prosecution told a court here.

While the bridge flooring was replaced, its cable was not replaced and it could not take the weight of the changed flooring, the prosecution, citing a forensic report, told the magistrate’s court on Tuesday.

Chief Judicial Magistrate M J Khan remanded four of the arrested accused — two managers of the Oreva Group  and two sub-contractors who had repaired the bridge — in police custody till Saturday.

The court remanded five other arrested men, including security guards and ticket booking clerks, in judicial custody as police did not seek their custody, prosecutor H S Panchal said.

Police had on Monday booked nine persons under Indian Penal Code Section 304 (culpable homicide not amounting to murder).

The four accused remanded in police custody were OREVA managers Dipak Parekh and Dinesh Dave, and repairing contractors Prakash Parmar and Devang Parmar, hired by the OREVA Group.

Citing a Forensic Science Laboratory (FSL) report, Panchal told the court that forensic experts believed the main cable of the bridge snapped because of the weight of the new flooring.

“Though the FSL report was presented in a sealed cover, it was mentioned during the remand plea that the cables of the bridge were not replaced during the renovation and only flooring was changed, the weight of the bridge increased due to the four-layered aluminium sheets for the flooring and the cable snapped due to that weight,” Panchal told reporters.

The court was also informed that both the repairing contractors were “not qualified” to carry out such work. 

“Despite that, these contractors were given the bridge repair work in 2007 and then in 2022. So the accused’s custody was needed to find out what was the reason for choosing them and at whose instance they were chosen,” the prosecutor said.

Lucknow: A court here rejected the bail plea of Kerala-based journalist Siddique Kappan in a Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) case on Monday.

The court had reserved its order in the matter on October 12.

Passing the order, Special Judge of Enforcement Directorate (ED) matters Sanjay Shankar Pandey observed that the offence was serious in nature and hence, Kappan was not entitled to bail at this stage.

The ED had booked Kappan in the PMLA case for allegedly obtaining money from a foreign country illegally and utilising it in acts against the interest of the nation.

Kappan was arrested along with three others on October 6, 2020 while they were on their way to Hathras in Uttar Pradesh to report on the alleged gangrape and killing of a 19-year-old woman. He has been in jail since then.

Police had initially booked the journalist for offences under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA). Subsequently, the ED also lodged a case against him under the anti-money laundering law.

The federal agency submitted in the court that Kappan worked for the Tejas daily and was an active member of the now-banned Popular Front of India (PFI). It is alleged that he was asked to incite riots in Delhi in 2015.

It was revealed during the probe that an amount of Rs 1.38 crore was given to PFI members to disturb the communal harmony in the country after the Hathras case.

Kappan allegedly helped the PFI members to convert this black money into white.

The journalist had earlier obtained bail in the UAPA case from the Supreme Court.

A view of the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya

Lucknow: The Allahabad High Court on Monday reserved its order on the issue of maintainability of an appeal challenging the acquittal of all 32 accused, including former deputy prime minister LK Advani, in the Babri mosque demolition case.

A Lucknow bench of justices Ramesh Sinha and Saroj Yadav passed the order on the appeal by two Ayodhya residents Haji Mahmood Ahmad and Syed Akhlaq Ahmad.

The other leaders whose acquittal has been challenged are the then Uttar Pradesh chief minister Kalyan Singh, senior BJP leaders MM Joshi, Uma Bharti, Vinay Katiyar and Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh, and Sadhvi Ritambhara.

The duo alleged in the petition that they were witnesses in the trial against the accused and “victims” of the demolition of the disputed structure.

In its objection, the state government and the CBI had stressed that the two appellants were not complainants or victims in the case and as such they cannot appeal as a stranger against the verdict of the trial court.

After hearing the arguments of the parties, the bench reserved its order.

The Babri mosque was demolished by ‘karsewaks’ on December 6, 1992. After a long legal battle, the special CBI court on September 30, 2020 pronounced the judgment in the criminal trial and acquitted all the accused.

The trial judge had refused to believe newspaper cuttings and video clips as evidence as the originals of the same were not produced, while the entire edifice of the case rested on these pieces of documentary evidence.

The trial judge had also held that the CBI could not produce any evidence that the accused had a meeting of mind with karsewaks who demolished the structure.

Assailing the findings of the trial court, the appellants have pleaded that the trial court committed an error in not convicting the accused persons, whereas ample evidence was on record.

In the appeal, the appellants have urged that the judgment of September 30, 2020 be set aside.

On September 5, the CBI had filed a written preliminary objection against the maintainability of the appeal. The appellants filed their rejoinder in the court on Monday and concluded their arguments.