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Chandigarh: A bomb disposal squad was rushed to the spot after reports that a bombshell was found a few hundred metres away from the official residences of Punjab and Haryana chief ministers here on Monday, police said.
The bombshell was reportedly found on the Nayagaon-Kansal road, which is about 500-700 metres from the residences of Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann and his Haryana counterpart Manohar Lal Khattar.
Further details are awaited.
New Delhi: The legendary Kapil Dev believes any cricketer representing the country like Rishabh Pant should be “more careful” and hire drivers instead of getting behind the wheels to avoid the mishap that happened last week.
Kapil made the statement while reacting to Pant’s horrifying accident on Friday while driving his Mercedes on NH-58. The wicket-keeper batter is currently admitted in Max Dehradun with multiple injuries on head, back, knee and ankle. He was on Monday shifted from ICU to a private ward.
“We can avoid things that can lead to mishaps like these,” Kapil was quoted as saying by ABP News.
“Especially for these special players. I remember during my early playing days, I was riding a bike and met with an accident following which my brother never let me ride one.
“The players should be careful. They don’t need to drive themselves. They can afford drivers. I know a lot of people are passionate about driving but when one has so many responsibilities, one must take care of oneself,” the 63-year-old stated.
Pant’s injuries, especially the ones on knee and ankle, will keep him out of action for a minimum period of six months.
Bengaluru: A 19-year-old BTech student was allegedly stabbed multiple times by her friend, at a private university on the outskirts of Bengaluru on Monday, police said.
They said attempting to end his life, the accused too stabbed himself.
The victim girl student identified as Laya Smitha, who was rushed to hospital was declared brought dead, while the accused, identified as Pawan Kalyan, who has suffered injuries on the chest, is being treated at the hospital.
The incident occurred at the university, where the victim was studying, while the accused is said to be a BCA student from another college.
Both are said to be from a village in Mulbagal taluk of Kolar district, police said, other students, who noticed the duo lying in a pool of blood, alerted the college authorities and security staff.
Rajanakunte Police said they are yet to ascertain the motive or reason behind the murder. A case has been registered and investigation is underway.
There was a sense of panic among the students of the college, where the incident happened.
AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi
Hyderabad: Hitting out at Prime Minister Narendra Modi over demonetisation, president of AIMIM (All-India Majlis-E-Ittehadul Muslimeen) president Asaduddin Owaisi on Monday challenged the BJP to celebrate ‘Demonetisation Day.’
He slammed the Modi government over the reason cited for the demonetisation that was decided upon to primarily check flow of black money, among others. He claimed demonetisation affected the economy.
According to Owaisi, the decision (on demonetisation) was wrong as it led to a decline in the growth of the GDP to 4 per cent in 2019-2020 from 8.3 per cent in 2016-17.
“We want to tell the Prime Minister why don’t you celebrate ‘Demonetisation Day’. If demonetisation was a success and if they think it was a success we challenge the BJP why don’t they celebrate ‘Demonetisation Day’. The Prime Minister knows that women, daily wage workers, artisans, drivers, electricians, and masons were affected owing to demonetisation. Why doesn’t the BJP celebrate ‘Notebandi Divas’,” the Hyderabad MP told reporters here.
Quoting a report, Owaisi said 50 lakh people lost employment. “After demonetisation, people took loans. Prime Minister shrunk the workforce and that showed his incompetence. Today, 32.18 lakh crore of currency is in circulation as against 17.97 lakh crore (during that time),” Owaisi said.
The Supreme Court in a 4:1 verdict today upheld the decision to demonetise the Rs 1,000 and Rs 500 notes by saying the decision-making process was not flawed.
Observing that the decision being an economic policy of the executive cannot be reversed, a 5-judge Constitutional Bench headed by Justice S A Nazeer said there has to be restraint in matters of such a policy and the court cannot supplant the wisdom of the executive by a judicial review of its decision.
Justice B V Nagarathna differed from the majority judgment by invoking the RBI Act, saying the scrapping of high-value currency notes should have been done through legislation not a notification.
Gunjan Patidar Co Founder Zomato
Online food delivery platform Zomato Ltd said its Co-founder and Chief Technology Officer Gunjan Patidar resigned from the post on Monday.
Patidar was one of the first few employees of Zomato and built the core tech systems for the company, it said in a regulatory filing.
“Over the last ten-plus years, he also nurtured a stellar tech leadership team that is capable of taking on the mantle of leading the tech function going forward. His contribution to building Zomato has been invaluable,” the company said.
It, however, did not disclose the reasons for his resignation.
In November last year, another co-founder of the company, Mohit Gupta, resigned. Gupta, who had joined Zomato four-and-half years back, was elevated to co-founder in 2020 from the position of CEO of its food delivery business.
Zomato had witnessed some top-level exits last year, including those of Rahul Ganjoo, who was head of new initiatives, and Siddharth Jhawar, the erstwhile vice-president and head of Intercity, and co-founder Gaurav Gupta.
K. Mohammed Haris
New Delhi: Asian Arab Chamber of Commerce (AACC) has appointed K. Mohammed Haris, Managing Director of Mukka Sea Food Industries Pvt. Ltd, Mangaluru as Trade Commissioner for United Arab Emirates by consensus of the Member countries on Wednesday. He was appointed by Saad Al Dabbagh, Chairman at the head office based in Doha, Qatar.
“While I warmly welcome Haris into the board as the Trade commissioner, his experience and commitment to excellence will be a major asset for the Global Trade bodies and especially between India and the Arab nations. Congratulations and best wishes in his new role as Trade Commissioner.” said Saad Al Dabagh in Qatar.
“India-UAE relations are witnessing an unprecedented momentum with a large number of opportunities for cooperation and increasing investments, in key sectors like infrastructure and technology” said Haris who is actively looking at his new role in promoting trade relations between India and the Arab world specifically the United Arab Emirates.
“In the trade world, there is no one quite Haris from Mukka Exports. He is brilliant, hard-working and devoted to getting trade right. He’s been a devoted entrepreneur for nearly two decades on the Fishing and Sea food business, advancing the prosperity of India’s trade narrative. Through his work on various trade agreements, he has opened the doors for Indian businessmen to deliver goods and services in the UAE, strengthening our economy, and securing our leadership abroad,” said Dr Krishnakumar IAS, the former minister of Defense and Agriculture, Govt of India.
Arab world considers it very significant that the Trade Commissioner from India who is inaugurated as the head of the trade commission in the international organization which embodies diversity with many memberships from developing countries in light of maintaining and reinforcing the multilateral trading system. AACC hopes that the Trade Commissioner will address a myriad of challenges facing the India UAE Free trade agreement thorough cooperation with the Members, by demonstrating his deep expertise and experiences, his calibre of coordination with major countries, as well as his managerial ability to run multilateral institutions, which he has previously cultivated in his distinguished capacities in leadership roles and as a founder promoter of Mukka Sea Food Industries Limited. He has worked in different verticals with strategic assignments across companies, said a release.
Mohammed Haris receiving Niryat Shri Award by then President of India Pranav Mukherjee in 2014.
He would help the UAE exporters who can now benefit from greater market access through preferential tariff rates. Some products will be subject to zero tariffs from day one – others will see them reduced over time. The CEPA, which was signed earlier this year, is expected to increase the total value of bilateral trade in goods to over $100 billion and trade in services to over $15 billion within five years, said the release.
He is the Managing Director at Mukka Sea food Exports Limited and his role of building new businesses and forging international relationships with the Arab World qualify him for taking up the role of Trade commissioner for the United Arab Emirates. As a co-founder of SHIPWAVES he was responsible for building the next general digital platform for Global trade by streamlining the supply chain with Cloud and AI and Blockchain technologies. He also set up India’s first steam sterilised fish meal plant with expansion of 8 plants across the globe. Mukka group today has a turnover of over INR 600 Crores (Dhs 300 million) per annum and is one of Asia’s fastest growing companies.
“Haris is a great choice for one of the new Trade Commissioner as he joins the AACC to usher in a new era with more Indian leadership than ever before,” said Tribhuvan Darbari the Vice President of the board. As he has skillfully negotiated trade deals and crafted our nation’s trade policy while gaining a sophisticated understanding of the opportunities available and the challenges facing the Indian market that is looking at 5 Trillion in the short term. I look forward to working with him, as well as the Director General, to resolve the Committee’s long-standing concerns with the Free Trade Agreements. I also look forward to addressing issues that have not always been prioritized, particularly when it comes to climate change, labor, and SME’s economic empowerment. I wish him the very best in this new endeavor and thank him for his commitment to public service.” he said.
Narayanpur: A church was vandalised and six police personnel, including an IPS officer, were attacked and injured on Monday during a protest by tribals in connection with an alleged religious conversion in Chhattisgarh’s Narayanpur city, police said.
Narayanpur superintendent of police (SP) Sadanand Kumar suffered a head injury during the protest on Monday afternoon.
According to Narayanpur district officials, tribals had gathered to protest against a clash that had taken place between two communities over alleged religious conversion in Edka village in the district on Sunday.
“Around 2,000 people were present for a meeting held in Narayanpur. Local tribal leaders Rupsai Salam, Narayan Markam and few others were leading the gathering,” Inspector General of Police (Bastar range) Sundarraj P told PTI.
After the meeting, the crowd separated into groups. Armed with sticks they charged towards a church located in a school, he said.
When the police and district officials tried to stop them, some anti-social elements from the crowd hurled stones and attacked policemen with sticks, he said.
They entered the church and vandalised it.
“Narayanpur superintendent of police Sadanand Kumar and five to six other policemen sustained injuries in the attack. They were administered preliminary treatment. Their condition is stated to be stable,” the IG said.
Police personnel have been deployed in large numbers in the city, located around 300 km away from the state capital Raipur after the protest turned violent. Extra vigil is being maintained in sensitive areas.
An FIR will be registered and further action will be taken accordingly, the IG added.
Some visuals from the spot showed protesters barging into the premises of the church and ransacking it.
Talking to reporters at the hospital, SP Kumar said the protestors arrived near Viswadeepti High School in the afternoon and tried to charge towards the church located on the school premises.
“I rushed to the spot with other officials and tried to pacify the protestors. They seemed convinced and were about to return, but suddenly someone hit me with a stick on my head,” the police officer said.
Narayanpur Collector Ajeet Vasant said the meeting was held by the people belonging to a community to protest against alleged religious conversion in the area.
The community leaders had assured the meeting would be peaceful, but it turned violent, he said.
Last month, a large number of people belonging to the Christian community staged a protest in front of the Collector’s office in Narayanpur alleging “atrocities” against them.
Protestors from at least 14 villages of the tribal-dominated district had claimed they were allegedly assaulted and evicted from their homes for following the Christian faith and sought action by the administration into the matter.
BJP MP Tejasvi Surya
Ahmedabad: BJP MP Tejasvi Surya on Monday said the JD (S) is an “endangered party” which will become extinct in Karnataka after the upcoming Assembly elections.
He slammed JD(S) leader H D Kumaraswamy for calling Union Home Minister Amit Shah a “reincarnation” of Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels, saying his words reflect political frustration.
Addressing a press conference here, the Bengaluru South MP said the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) will retain power in Karnataka with a thumping victory similar to Gujarat.
Kumaraswamy on Saturday called BJP a party full of “hypocrisies and lies” and Amit Shah “a political chameleon” and “reincarnation” of Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels.
“The unparliamentary words used by Kumaraswamy reflect his political frustration. JD(S) is an endangered party and it will become extinct in Karnataka after the upcoming Assembly elections. That is the reason why he is making such statements,” said Surya, who heads BJP’s student wing Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha (BJYM).
“The kind of statements the leaders of Congress and JD(S) from Karnataka are giving for the last 10-15 days, it is clear they know the results of the upcoming elections. Like Gujarat, the BJP will register a thumping victory in Karnataka,” said Surya.
In recently-held Gujarat Assembly elections, the BJP won the seventh straight term with a record mandate by winning 156 of 182 seats.
Surya said the BJP will also win the elections in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, due this year.
Surya was in Ahmedabad as part of BJYM’s “Sushasn” or good governance Yatra wherein the youth wing members from different states will tour Gujarat to understand how the state achieved development under the BJP rule.
Some of the institutions they will visit during this two-day tour include the IFFCO plant, GIFT City, railway stations, Vidya Samiksha Kendra and Forensic Sciences University campus among others.
“At least 50 BJYM workers from other states will also try to understand how the state unit of BJYM helped the BJP register a sweeping victory in the state elections,” said Surya.
“The Gujarat elections have already written a foreword for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. BJYM played an important role in BJP’s victory in Gujarat. During this tour, our workers from other states will also study and understand Yuva Morcha’s role during polls and we will prepare our state units in other states as per this Gujarat model,” he said.
Speaking on former Karnataka minister Gali Janardhan Reddy’s announcement on the formation of a new political party, Surya said the “people of Karnataka and workers of BJP will give a befitting reply to those who indulge in such misadventure”.
He lauded Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union minister Amit Shah for the Centre’s war on drugs and added “drug mafias” will be eliminated from the country in the next 2 to 3 years.
Speaking on a border row between Karnataka and Maharashtra, Surya said the people of Karnataka have full confidence in Shah, who is handling the issue.
“Such issues are connected with people’s emotions. Amit Shah held a meeting with the CMs of both states to find a lasting solution. The people of Karnataka are confident that everyone will get justice when a leader like Shah is handling this issue. We are confident that not even one per cent injustice will be done,” said Surya.
Kyiv: Ukrainian forces fired rockets at a facility in the eastern Donetsk region where Russian soldiers were stationed, killing 63 of them, Russia’s defense ministry said on Monday, in one of the deadliest attacks on the Kremlin’s forces since the war began more than 10 months ago.
Ukrainian forces fired six rockets from a HIMARS launch system and two of them were shot down, a defense ministry statement said. It did not say when the strike happened.
The strike, using a US-supplied precision weapon that has proven critical in enabling Ukrainian forces to hit key targets, delivered a new setback for Russia which in recent months has reeled from a Ukrainian counteroffensive.
The Ukrainian military has not directly confirmed the strike, but seemed to acknowledge what appeared to be the same attack that Russian authorities reported.
The Strategic Communications Directorate of Ukraine’s Armed Forces claimed Sunday that some 400 mobilized Russian soldiers were killed in a vocational school building in Makiivka and about 300 more were wounded. That claim could not be independently verified. The Russian statement said the strike occurred “in the area of Makiivka” and didn’t mention the vocational school.
Meanwhile, Russia deployed multiple exploding drones in another nighttime attack on Ukraine, officials said Monday, as the Kremlin signaled no letup in its strategy of using bombardments to target the country’s energy infrastructure and wear down Ukrainian resistance to its invasion.
The barrage was the latest in a series of relentless year-end attacks, including one that killed three civilians on New Year’s Eve.
On Monday, Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said that 40 drones “headed for Kyiv” overnight. All of them were destroyed, according to air defense forces.
Klitschko said 22 drones were destroyed over Kyiv, three in the outlying Kyiv region and 15 over neighboring provinces.
Energy infrastructure facilities were damaged as the result of the attack and an explosion occurred in one city district, the mayor said. It wasn’t immediately clear whether that was caused by drones or other munitions. A wounded 19-year-old man was hospitalized, Klitschko added, and emergency power outages were underway in the capital.
In the outlying Kyiv region a “critical infrastructure object” and residential buildings were hit, Gov. Oleksiy Kuleba said.
Russia has carried out airstrikes on Ukrainian power and water supplies almost weekly since October.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has accused Russia of “energy terrorism” as the aerial bombardments have left many people without heat amid freezing temperatures. Ukrainian officials say Moscow is “weaponizing winter” in its effort to demoralize the Ukrainian resistance.
Ukraine is using sophisticated Western-supplied weapons to help shoot down Russia’s missiles and drones, as well as send artillery fire into Russian-held areas of the country.
Moscow’s full-scale invasion on February 24 has gone awry, putting pressure on Russian President Vladimir Putin as his ground forces struggle to hold ground and advance. He said in his New Year’s address to the nation that 2022 was “a year of difficult, necessary decisions.”
Putin insists he had no choice but to send troops into Ukraine because it threatened Russia’s security an assertion condemned by the West, which says Moscow bears full responsibility for the war.
Russia is currently observing public holidays through January 8.
Drones, missiles and artillery shells launched by Russian forces also struck areas across Ukraine.
Five people were wounded in the Monday morning shelling of a Ukraine-controlled area of the southern Kherson region, its Ukrainian Gov. Yaroslav Yanushevich said on Telegram.
The Russian forces attacked the city of Beryslav, the official said, firing at a local market, likely from a tank. Three of the wounded are in serious condition and are being evacuated to Kherson, Yanushevich said.
Seven drones were shot down over the southern Mykolaiv region, according to Gov. Vitali Kim, and three more were shot down in the southeastern Dnipropetrovsk region, Gov. Valentyn Reznichenko said.
In the Dnipropetrovsk region, a missile was also destroyed, according to Reznichenko. He said that energy infrastructure in the region was being targeted.
Ukraine’s Air Force Command reported Monday that 39 Iranian-made exploding Shahed drones were shot down overnight, as well as two Russian-made Orlan drones and a X-59 missile.
“We are staying strong,” the Ukrainian defense ministry tweeted.
A blistering New Year’s Eve assault killed at least four civilians across the country, Ukrainian authorities reported, and wounded dozens. The fourth victim, a 46-year-old resident of Kyiv, died in a hospital on Monday morning, Klitschko said.
Multiple blasts rocked the capital and other areas of Ukraine on Saturday and through the night. The strikes came 36 hours after widespread missile attacks Russia launched Thursday to damage energy infrastructure facilities, and the unusually quick follow-up alarmed Ukrainian officials.
In Russia, a Ukrainian drone hit an energy facility in the Bryansk region that borders with Ukraine, Bryansk regional governor Alexander Bogomaz reported on Monday morning. A village was left without power as a result, he said.
Ayodhya (UP): A day before Rahul Gandhi-led Bharat Jodo Yatra’ is set to enter Uttar Pradesh, the chief priest of Ram Janmabhoomi temple here on Monday wished that the blessings of Lord Rama be always upon the Congress leader.
In a letter to Gandhi, the chief priest Acharya Satyendra Das extended his support to the former Congress chief over his move to unite the country.
“I hope and pray that the mission for which you are fighting may get success. I bless you for your long life,” the letter stated.
“You are working for the noble cause that is ‘sarvajan hitay sarvjan sukhaay’ in the interest of people and for the happiness of the people. I wish the blessings of Lord Rama be upon you always,” it added.