Archives for March 2023

BHOPAL: In the battle for the crucial 48 per cent women vote in the year-end Assembly polls in Madhya Pradesh, the Opposition Congress has countered the BJP government’s ambitious Rs 1,000 monthly support for financially weak women Laadli Behna Scheme with twin promises.

“The BJP government says it will give Rs 1,000 monthly, but once our government is back in the state, Rs 1,500 will be given monthly to women in the state. And that’s not all as we’ll also give cooking gas LPG cylinders for just Rs 500 each,” former chief minister and state Congress president Kamal Nath announced at a public rally in Narsinghpur district on Sunday. Nath is on a tour of the Narsinghpur district and the adjoining Chhindwara district.

Nath wondered how just Rs 1,000 monthly support will help women amid rising prices. “Not just that but several conditions have been imposed in the Rs 1,000 monthly scheme of Shivraj Singh Chouhan….”

Another former chief minister and Congress MP Digvijaya Singh in his native Guna district too made light of the recently launched scheme. “It’s the same government that is even taking away refrigerators and television sets of Laadli Behnas on failure to pay the electricity bills. Just wait and watch, the BJP will also get houses of Laadli Behnas confiscated in future,” Singh said.

Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan on March 5 launched Rs 1,000 monthly support Laadli Bahana Scheme for married, widowed, divorced and abandoned women aged between 23 years and 60 years.

Cong counters BJP, promises Rs 1.5k per month 

Opposition Congress has countered the BJP government’s ambitious Rs 1,000 monthly support for financially weak women Laadli Behna Scheme with twin promises. It also promised cooking gas LPG cylinders for just Rs 500 each, stating that BJP’s Rs 1k wouldn’t suffice for women.

BHOPAL: In the battle for the crucial 48 per cent women vote in the year-end Assembly polls in Madhya Pradesh, the Opposition Congress has countered the BJP government’s ambitious Rs 1,000 monthly support for financially weak women Laadli Behna Scheme with twin promises.

“The BJP government says it will give Rs 1,000 monthly, but once our government is back in the state, Rs 1,500 will be given monthly to women in the state. And that’s not all as we’ll also give cooking gas LPG cylinders for just Rs 500 each,” former chief minister and state Congress president Kamal Nath announced at a public rally in Narsinghpur district on Sunday. Nath is on a tour of the Narsinghpur district and the adjoining Chhindwara district.

Nath wondered how just Rs 1,000 monthly support will help women amid rising prices. “Not just that but several conditions have been imposed in the Rs 1,000 monthly scheme of Shivraj Singh Chouhan….”

Another former chief minister and Congress MP Digvijaya Singh in his native Guna district too made light of the recently launched scheme. “It’s the same government that is even taking away refrigerators and television sets of Laadli Behnas on failure to pay the electricity bills. Just wait and watch, the BJP will also get houses of Laadli Behnas confiscated in future,” Singh said.

Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan on March 5 launched Rs 1,000 monthly support Laadli Bahana Scheme for married, widowed, divorced and abandoned women aged between 23 years and 60 years.

Cong counters BJP, promises Rs 1.5k per month 

Opposition Congress has countered the BJP government’s ambitious Rs 1,000 monthly support for financially weak women Laadli Behna Scheme with twin promises. It also promised cooking gas LPG cylinders for just Rs 500 each, stating that BJP’s Rs 1k wouldn’t suffice for women.

NEW DELHI:In a complaint addressed to the Director of the Enforcement Directorate (ED), leaders of 18 Opposition parties demanded a thorough probe into the New York-based short seller Hindenburg Research’s report, which accused the Adani group of stock price manipulation and fraud.

The complaint to the ED was released to the media shortly after the Delhi Police stopped a march taken out by 18 Opposition parties to the agency’s headquarters to submit it.

In the letter, the leaders alleged that the Adani Group companies are accused of having established a network of offshore shell companies and offshore funds controlled by parties related to the Adani Group for the purposes of “artificially inflating stock valuations and to give a distorted picture with regard to the group companies’ financial health”.

“Over the last three months, several crucial pieces of evidence have been made available against the Adani Group in the public domain. Yet, the ED, which claims to pursue such cases with vigour and fairness has to launch even a preliminary inquiry into these very serious charges. We are constrained to file this official complaint so that the ED is compelled to investigate a relationship that has serious implications not just for our economy but most importantly, our democracy,” said the letter written by Mallikarjun Kharge, Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha. 

Soon after the march began from Parliament this afternoon, the Parliamentarians were stopped by a large contingent of Police. Though many leaders tried to negotiate with the police to let them meet the ED Director in small groups, the police did not relent.

Speaking to the media, Congress leader Pramod Tiwari said that the members are returning to Parliament as they are told that the ED Director was unwilling to meet the MPs.

Calling the allegations ‘serious and far-reaching charges of corporate fraud’, the complaint said, “This case involves stock-price manipulation through fraudulent means and the misuse/monopolization of public resources to benefit a single corporate group.”

Trinamool Congress was missing from the list of signatories of the letter and its members did not attend the march. 

Reminding the ED that it cannot turn around and abdicate its jurisdiction, the letter said “charges related to accounting fraud, the dubious nature of how the Follow-On Public Offer was manipulated behind the scenes, the shocking similarity with Adani’s previous actions for which they have been investigated by your predecessors, are all available in the public domain.” 

“We are acutely aware of how in the recent past, the ED has also zealously pursued cases of alleged political favouritism including sharing concurrent jurisdiction with SEBI and CBI. We are also aware of the limited remit of the Supreme Court Commission appointed on the subject,” it said.  

In the letter, the leaders point out that the Adani Group companies are accused of having established a network of offshore shell companies and offshore funds controlled by parties related to the Adani Group for (1) artificially inflating stock valuations and (2) to give a distorted picture about the group companies’ financial health.

“Data available in the public domain actively lists 38 Mauritius shell entities controlled by the Adani group through Vinod Adani or close associates; as well as other entities in Cyprus, the UAE, Singapore, and several Caribbean Islands. The purpose of these entities was to “round trip” money into the Adani companies for the aforementioned reasons,” it said.

The letter says that Vinod Adani, Gautam Adani’s brother, is alleged to have played a key part in setting up networks that create a causal link between the off-shore entities and Adani’s Indian companies. 

“These actions are also patently illegal since they violate the basic rule that at least 25% of free float be held by non-promoter entities,” the letter said, adding, “It is surprising that despite all of the above, the ED has shown little to no interest in pursuing a basic investigation into the entities’ affairs,”.

The letter also listed several other allegations against the group, which were available in the public domain, said the leaders.

MUMBAI:  Having already lost out on a series of mega projects which got allocated to other states, Maharashtra is now set to lose the once-profitable Mahananda Dairy to the Central government. 

According to the state government, the Mahananda Dairy will be soon handed over to the Centre-run National Dairy Development Board (NDDB). Maharashtra dairy minister Radhakrishna Vikhe Patil attributed the decision to the state government’s inability to run the firm.  

“We did not want to hand over the Mahananda Dairy to a private trust or company, and as such, decided to rope in NDDB. The talks are at the final stage. However, NDDB told us that they will only accommodate 350 employees of Mahananda Dairy out of the total 940 employees. Mahananda Dairy is very much in trouble and not even able to pay the salaries of its employees,” Patil said.

NCP MLA Jitendra Ahwad said, “There were several key Central government offices in India’s financial capital Mumbai, but these offices are also either shifted being to Gujarat or Delhi. Mahananda Dairy was once a profit-making entity. It owns a big chunk of land in Mumbai. I am afraid that by handing over the Mahananda dairy to the Central government, they may hand over the land as well. Why should Maharashtra be deprived of all these resources?”

Meanwhile, 16 lakh state government employees have threatened to go on strike from Tuesday if their demand for the restoration of the old pension scheme is not fulfilled even as CM Eknath Shinde appealed to them not to do so.

NEW DELHI: The National Sample Survey Office (NSSO) carried out the Multiple Indicator Survey (MIS) covering the entire country in its 78th round. The survey says that over 50 per cent of rural households do not use a clean source of energy for cooking food. 

Overall, around 37 per cent of households still use polluted sources of energy for cooking purposes. It raises questions over the success of the Government of India’s flagship scheme, Pradhan Mantri Ujjawala Yojana (PMUY), under which over 9.58 crore households received LPG cylinders.

However, in a stark difference,  92 per cent of urban households use clean energy sources for cooking. Here clean fuel refers to LPG, other natural gas, gobar gas, other biogas, electricity (including solar/ wind power generators) and solar cookers.

Experts say that higher costs of LPG are major hindrances against the scheme. The filling rate of the LPG cylinder has been low. However, last year Rameshwar Teli, Minister of State in the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas in Lok Sabha, informed Parliament that the per capita consumption of PMUY beneficiaries increased from 3.01 refills in 2019-20 to 3.68 in 2021-22.  

Domestic emission is one of the major sources of pollution in the Indo-Gangetic plains, one of the most polluted regions of the planet. People are using firewood, chips and crop residue, kerosene, dung cake and other traditional sources of fuels for household cooking, which is the primary source of emissions of Particulate Matters (PM) 2.5 in Punjab, Haryana, Uttar  Pradesh, Bihar, West Bengal, Chandigarh and Delhi. “The unclean fuels contribute nearly 19 per cent of the total emissions in the region,” said Bhupender Yadav, Union minister for environment, forest and climate change, told the Lok Sabha.

The NSSO survey was scheduled for January-December 2020, but due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the survey continued up until August  15, 2021. The report also says that 99 per cent of households lighting their house and 36.6 per cent of households heating their house are using a clean energy source.

NEW DELHI: Both houses of the Parliament were adjourned for a fourth consecutive day amid uproar over the BJP’s demand for an apology over Congress Leader Rahul Gandhi’s remarks in the UK, while the opposition pushed for a Joint Parliamentary Committee probe into alleged stock manipulation by the Adani Group. 

The rucks come as Congress leader Rahul Gandhi is expected  today at parliment

As soon as the Lok Sabha assembled for the day, some opposition members came to the well of the house and began shouting slogans, demanding a Joint Parliamentary Committee probe into alleged stock manipulation by the Adani Group. Members of treasury benches also raised counter-slogans from their seats, demanding an apology from Gandhi for his remarks.

Lok Sabha speaker Om Birla urged the members to allow the House to function.

“I want to run the House, I want to give you enough opportunities and enough time to speak. You have to go to your seats. You come to the well and then go outside and tell that you don’t get a chance to speak. This is not right,” he said.

Birla said the House has to be to function smoothly. “You don’t allow to run the House. You shout slogans. Parliament has dignity and we all have to maintain the dignity,” he said.

As the opposition members ignored his pleas, the speaker adjourned the House till 2 pm.

Meanwhile, the Rajya Sabha witnessed uproarious scenes soon after it met for the day, with the proceedings adjourned till 2 PM.

Trinamool Congress MPs were in the well of the House even before the start of the proceedings and raised slogans saying they are not being allowed to speak. TMC members were also wearing black masks as a mark of protest.

Chairman Jagdeep Dhankhar urged the members to take to their seats but the treasury benches raised their pitch demanding an apology from Rahul Gandhi for his democracy remarks made abroad.

Opposition members also created an uproar and the chair adjourned the House within two minutes of the meeting. The Rajya Sabha has not been able to transact any business ever since it met on Monday for the second leg of the Budget session, amid opposition uproar. The opposition members have been blaming the BJP for creating pandemonium in the House and for not allowing it to function.