Archives for 2023

MUMBAI:  After the Nitish Kumar-led grand alliance government in Bihar started the caste-based census, the Opposition in Maharashtra has voiced support for the move. 

Nationalist Congress Party chief Sharad Pawar has welcomed Nitish’s decision, saying the census in that state was the result of strong sentiments attached to social justice for years. He said the caste-based count will help in getting the exact number of each caste. “This will help in drawing development plans targeted at each caste group. Only then will we be able to achieve overall growth. The Maharashtra government should also start it as early as possible,” said the NCP chief.

Maharashtra Congress chief Nana Patole said he was the first person to raise the demand in the Maharashtra assembly. When he was the Assembly speaker, he passed the one-line resolution in favour of carrying out the caste-based survey. “The decision was taken unanimously. But then we went out of power. The new government seems reluctant to carry out such a census.

We demand that the Maharashtra government should follow its Bihar counterpart and start the enumeration process,” said Patole. “The exercise will provide us with scientific data on each caste. It can be used to draw and implement several development plans for the previously deprived people,” said Patole.

A senior NCP leader said in the absence of authentic data, development works have failed to reach the desired levels. “We wish to remove disparity occuring between sections,” he said. 

NEW DELHI:  The Aam Aadmi Party government in Delhi has paid Rs 25.25 crore to lawyers fighting for it in the alleged Delhi excise policy scam case, while its total spending for lawyers’ fee was Rs 28.10 crore over the last 18 months, sources said.

According to Raj Bhavan sources, senior advocate Dr Abhishek Manu Singhvi received Rs 18.97 crore of the Rs 25.25 crore, while another lawyer, Rahul Mehra, who has often appeared in jailed minister Satyendar Jain’s cases, got Rs 5.30 crore during the period.

Singhvi received Rs 14.85 crore in 2021-22 and then got Rs 4.1 crore further. Mehra’s payment, which showed as Rs 2.4 lakh in the expenditure list of the statement in 2020-21, rose to Rs 3.9 crore in 2021-22 and currently recorded at Rs 1.3 crore.

During 2021-2022, the amount spent for paying lawyers in cases related to the excise department was Rs 16.09 crore and the same during the eight months of 2022-2023, was Rs 5.24 crore, Raj Bhavan sources said.

The sources further added that before the liquor scam came to light, the total expenditure of AAP government in Delhi amounted to only Rs 6.70 crore, wherein the main component went to the general administration department (GAD) and the health department.

Ahmedabad : Members of the right-wing outfits Vishwa Hindu Parishad and Bajrang Dal on Wednesday created a ruckus at a mall in Vastrapur area here and tore up posters and other publicity material of the upcoming film “Pathaan” starring Shah Rukh Khan and Deepika Padukone.

The mall also houses a multiplex.

Vastrapur police rushed to the spot and detained five activists, said inspector J K Dangar. They were released later, he said.

In a video shared by the VHP, activists can be seen shouting slogans and tearing posters as well as large cut-outs of Pathaan’s star cast.

Gujarat VHP had earlier said it will not allow the screening of the film anywhere in Gujarat, mainly because of the song ‘Besharam Rang’, where Padukone is seen wearing a saffron dress while dancing with Khan.

“We will not allow Pathaan’s screening in Gujarat. Today’s protest against the movie’s release in Ahmedabad should be taken as a warning by all the theatre owners across the state. They must stay away from releasing the movie in their theatres or multiplexes,” said Gujarat VHP spokesperson Hitendrasinh Rajput.

Portuguese soccer star Cristiano Ronaldo has been banned from playing two games due to a disciplinary action taken against him by the FA, following the defeat of Manchester United against Everton in April 2022.

Ronaldo was to make his debut for Al Nassr, the Saudi Arabian football club, on Thursday. The 37-year-old player was to play his first game against Al Ta’ee at Mrsool Park for Al Nassr, but Ronaldo’s debut is now postponed, reports Khaleej Times.

Ronaldo was found guilty of improper and violent conduct by the English FA in November and suspended for two matches for smashing a teenage fan’s phone after the defeat against Everton.

Video footage apparently showed Ronaldo grabbing the phone from the boy’s hand in fury and smashing it on the floor before walking away after the match.

The soccer player was fined £50,000 along with the ban, but could not serve the suspension as his contract with Manchester United was terminated. Ronaldo would have to serve the ban when he joined a new club.

The player will have to stay out of the matches against Al Ta’ee and Al-Shabab.

Washington (AP): E-commerce giant Amazon and business software maker Salesforce are the latest US technology companies to announce major job cuts as they prune payrolls that rapidly expanded during the pandemic lockdown.

Amazon said Wednesday that it will be cutting about 18,000 positions. It’s the largest set of layoffs in the Seattle-based company’s history, although just a fraction of its 1.5 million global workforce.

“Amazon has weathered uncertain and difficult economies in the past, and we will continue to do so,” CEO Andy Jassy said in a note to employees that the company made public. “These changes will help us pursue our long-term opportunities with a stronger cost structure.”

He said the layoffs will mostly impact the company’s brick-and-mortar stores, which include Amazon Fresh and Amazon Go, and its PXT organizations, which handle human resources and other functions.

In November, Jassy told staff that layoffs were coming due to the economic landscape and the company’s rapid hiring in the last several years. Wednesday’s announcement included earlier job cuts that had not been numbered. The company had also offered voluntary buyouts and has been cutting costs in other areas of its sprawling business.

Salesforce, meanwhile, said it is laying off about 8,000 employees, or 10% of its workforce.

The cuts announced Wednesday are by far the largest in the 23-year history of a San Francisco company founded by former Oracle executive Marc Benioff. Benioff pioneered the method of leasing software services to internet-connected devices a concept now known as “cloud computing.”

The layoffs are being made on the heels of a shake-up in Salesforce’s top ranks. Benioff’s hand-picked co-CEO Bret Taylor, who also was Twitter’s chairman at the time of its tortuous
44 billion sale to billionaire Elon Musk, left Salesforce. Then, Slack co-founder Stewart Butterfield left. Salesforce bought Slack two years ago for nearly
28 billion.

Salesforce workers who lose their jobs will receive nearly five months of pay, health insurance, career resources, and other benefits, according to the company. Amazon said it is also offering a separation payment, transitional health insurance benefits, and job placement support.

Benioff, now the sole chief executive at Salesforce, told employees in a letter that he blamed himself for the layoffs after continuing to hire aggressively into the pandemic, with millions of Americans working from home and demand for the company’s technology surging.

“As our revenue accelerated through the pandemic, we hired too many people leading into this economic downturn we’re now facing, and I take responsibility for that,” Benioff wrote.

Salesforce employed about 49,000 people in January 2020 just before the pandemic struck. Salesforce’s workforce today is still 50% larger than it was before the pandemic.

Meta Platforms CEO Mark Zuckerberg also acknowledged he misread the revenue gains that the owner of Facebook and Instagram was reaping during the pandemic when he announced in November that his company would by laying off 11,000 employees, or 13% of its workforce.

Like other major tech companies, Salesforce’s recent comedown from the heady days of the pandemic have taken a major toll on its stock. Before Wednesday’s announcement, shares had plunged more 50% from their peak close to
310 in November 2021. The shares gained nearly 4% Wednesday to close at
139.59.

“This is a smart poker move by Benioff to preserve margins in an uncertain backdrop as the company clearly overbuilt out its organization over the past few years along with the rest of the tech sector with a slowdown now on the horizon,” Wedbush analyst Dan Ives wrote.

Salesforce also said Wednesday that it will be closing some of its offices, but didn’t include locations. The company’s 61-story headquarters is a prominent feature of the San Francisco skyline and a symbol of tech’s importance to the city since its completion in 2018.

A video-clip from a CCTV footage purportedly showed an MLA of the ruling BRS in Telangana assaulting a worker of a toll plaza and went viral on social media, prompting the legislator to deny the allegations.

The clip beamed by local TV news channels also purportedly showed the Bellampalli MLA Durgam Chinnaiah slapping the worker near the plaza on a national highway in Mancherial district on Tuesday.

The incident happened when the MLA was travelling in his car.

The footage shows some people, including a gunman, near the toll plaza. It further shows a person approaching a man and slapping him after which the man is seen moving away.

The legislator, on his part, denied media reports on the incident.

According to the MLA, a toll fee was being collected even before the work on the highway was completed. ”I only enquired regarding the norms. There was no response from officials. When I asked for their manager, this person (toll plaza staff) spoke rudely to me. I did not manhandle or attack anyone,” Chinnaiah said.

A senior police official told PTI that no complaint has been lodged till now, but an inquiry has begun.

”We’ve not received any sort of complaint till now. We are verifying and will proceed accordingly,” the official said.

Tamil Nadu BJP president K Annamalai

Chennai: Tamil Nadu BJP president K Annamalai on Wednesday sought to make light of the resignation of Gayathri Raguramm from the party, saying he has no regret about those leaving the organisation and wished such persons well wherever they are.

Scores of women were joining the national party, Annamalai said in response to Raguramm’s allegation on Tuesday that women were not safe under his leadership in the party.

“I have no regret when someone leaves the party if they don’t like it. Let them have a good life,” he told reporters here.

Asked about the ‘charge’ against him by the actor, Annamalai named certain vernacular publications and said they often level charges against him and that Raguramm’s allegation should be included in “that category”.

However, it was good that such debates were happening as people watch them and they could arrive at a conclusion.

“People leave the party for different reasons…you know I am aggressively opposing the (ruling) DMK. There are some internal issues (in the BJP) but I don’t want to discuss about (certain people’s) connections. My response is silence to whatever a particular media says about me. People are watching and they will decide. Same is the case with those who have left the party. I wish them well wherever they go,” Annamalai added.

Announcing her decision to sever ties with the saffron party on Tuesday, Raguramm had said she chose to quit for not being given opportunity for an enquiry, equal rights and respect for women. “Under Annamalai leadership, women are not safe. I feel better to be trolled as an outsider,” she had tweeted.

Incidentally, days before she was removed from the post and suspended from the party, BJP sports and skill development cell president Amar Prasad Reddy accused her of meeting a member of DMK president and Chief Minister M K Stalin’s family and angrily reacted “no space for betrayers in BJP.”

Raguramm, however, retorted saying it was her friend’s birthday party and that she had no idea of who were invited there.