Nasheman News :  Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday inaugurated three medical colleges in the state and laid the foundation stone for the Women’s Engineering College in Ramgarh district.

The three medical colleges inaugurated by Modi are located in Dumka, Palamau and Hazaribagh. According to Chief Minister Raghubar Das, academic sessions in the three colleges will start from June this year.

During his visit, the Prime Minister laid the foundation stone for the Women’s Engineering College in Ramgarh district, the third such institute in the country and the first in eastern India. 

Modi also laid the foundation stone online for four 500-bed hospitals at Jamshedpur, Palamau, Hazaribagh and Dumka, which will be constructed at a cost of Rs 1,904 crore.

This apart, the Prime Minister laid the foundation stones for a Rs 517 crore drinking water project for Hazaribagh and pending and new irrigation projects worth Rs 160 crore.

“The Central government is focusing on the health of the people of the state. In coordination with the state government, three new medical colleges have been opened in one day. There were only three medical colleges in the state before and now three more have been added. People will get treatment and the youth will get medical education,” said Modi while addressing a rally here.

Modi also opened the Jharkhand government’s scheme to provide mobile phones to the farmers by handing over cheques worth Rs 2,000 each to five farmers.

He launched another scheme to provide 200 ml milk to school students daily as part of the midday meal programme.

“Our government is dedicated to do away with the ‘middlemen’ so that benefits reach the people directly,” Modi said.

Nasheman News :  A purported audio tape in Kannada has put the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its leader B.S. Yeddyurappa in Karnataka in the dock. Its contents expose their desperation to topple the JD-S-Congress coalition government in the state ahead of the Lok Sabha elections, due in April-May.

Defying the adage “once bitten, twice shy” Yeddyurappa not only got too ambitious only to get caught on the wrong foot but has also pushed the party into trouble by trying to lure a senior JD-S legislator to join the BJP.

Trying to fish in the troubled waters of the Congress, which is witnessing power struggle between state leadership and a dozen of legislators, including four rebels, the BJP made a desperate bid to dislodge the government to grab power or ensure a spell of President’s Rule during the general elections.

According to a police complaint and a counter-complaint by the JD-S and the BJP, Yeddyurappa tried to “bribe” JD-S member Naganagouda Kandakur of Gurmitkal through the latter’s son Sharanagouda at Devadurga on February 7.

Voices of BJP’s two other legislators, Shivanagouda Naik from Devadurga and Preetham Gowda from Hassan, are also apparent in the tape offering “crores” to Sharanagouda to get his father Kandakur resign and contest from the same seat (Gurmitkal) on a BJP ticket in a by-election.

With Sharanagouda recording the conversation between him and the BJP trio and playing it to the media the next day (February 8) here in the presence of Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy, the BJP and Yeddyurappa tried to wriggle out of the situation by first boycotting the 2019-20 budget presentation on February 8 and disrupting the 10-day session.

Going on offence to defend itself, the BJP protested against the state government’s decision to inquire into the audio tape through a special investigation team (SIT) and sought a judicial or a House committee probe.

The state government rejected the BJP demand for a judicial probe into the veracity of the 80-minute audio tape and got the budget for fiscal 2019-20 passed in the Assembly by voice vote on Thursday amid the din caused by the opposition.

Though Yeddyurappa initially denied that the voice in the tape was his and accused the JD-S of producing a fabricated and distorted version, a damaging reference to Assembly speaker K.R. Ramesh Kumar by Naik that he could be bribed Rs 50 crore for not disqualifying Kandakur in the event of defection to the BJP embarrassed him (the Speaker).

An attack on Preetham Gowda’s house at Hassan, about 180 km from Bengaluru, on Wednesday, allegedly by JD-S workers in retaliation to the former’s remarks against JD-S supremo H.D. Deve Gowda, as recorded in the audio tape, also led to the 104-member BJP group to disrupt the Assembly proceedings, forcing the Speaker to adjourn the House ahead of the last day of the budget session on Friday.

However, the BJP continues to make a brave face. “The audio tape will have no bearing on our prospects in the Lok Sabha elections as the probe into it is by the police and not judiciary. Depending on outcome, we will challenge it in a court,” BJP’s state unit spokesman Vamanacharya told IANS here.

Even as the Congress heaved a sigh of relief with dissident and rebel legislators attending the Assembly on Wednesday and voting on the budget, the JD-S has been mocking the BJP for failing to topple the eight-month-old coalition government.

“The state government will not succeed in its bid to embarrass our party as courts will need presentable evidence, appearance of witnesses, which will only drag the case on. The audio tape will die its own death,” said Vamanacharya.

Reiterating the demand for a judicial probe into the audio tape, the BJP leader said it was only the judiciary that has the right to give out the report on the issue as the police will be under pressure from the state government in the inquiry.

It’s not the end of the story. Be ready to expect more such revelations and political cacophony as the Lok Sabha elections near. 

Nasheman News :  BJP president Amit Shah has termed the Pulwama attack “cowardice” and said that the sacrifice of the martyrs will not go in vain as there is a BJP government and not a Congress one at the Centre.

Shah was addressing a BJP youth rally in Lakhimpur district of Assam on Sunday. 

“By killing our soldiers, if you think you have won the battle, then you’re wrong. Be it in the Northeast or in Kashmir, the BJP government has never tolerated a threat to India’s security. Our government is committed to fight against terrorism and we have proved it in the past through the surgical strikes as well as through diplomacy. The whole world accepts the political will of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to fight against terrorism,” Shah said.

Promising not to let Assam become another turmoil-ridden state like Jammu & Kashmir (J&K), the BJP chief defended the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill 2016 and said, “We’ve put a stop to infiltration by bringing the National Register of Citizens (NRC) in Assam. If we come to power again, we will bring the CAB to identify and deport each one of the illegal Bangladeshis living in Assam.”

Claiming that there was a misinformation campaign over the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill 2016, he added, “Things are going to be very bad in Assam given the demographic changes that are taking place here. But some people want to use the anger over this Bill for their petty benefits.” 

Shah questioned the roles of the state’s Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) and the Congress governments in implementing the Assam Accord and said that none of these parties took any steps to stop infiltration.

Referring to Clause VI of the Assam Accord, which assures a constitutional safeguard for the indigenous people of the state, Shah said the Modi government has constituted a high powered committee for its implementation and it will be implemented if the BJP comes back to power in the next elections.

The BJP president also highlighted the development work done by the Modi government in Assam and said that while the previous UPA government gave merely Rs 79,000 crore to the state, the NDA government has so far sanctioned close to Rs 3 lakh crore under different schemes and in the 14th Finance Commission.

He appealed to the people of the Northeast to vote for the BJP in the forthcoming Lok Sabha elections and said that the BJP is bound to come back to power.

Defending her decision to enforce the rule making wearing helmets compulsory for motorists in Puducherry, Lieutenant Governor Kiran Bedi on Thursday said that Chief Minister V Narayanasamy’s wife died in a two-wheeler accident, but he is now calling her decision an autocratic one.

“His wife died in a road accident because she wasn’t wearing a helmet while riding a scooter. That was a few years ago. It is tragic… If I go on the road and I tell people to wear a helmet, he says it’s autocratic,” Bedi told the media.

Puducherry Chief Minister V Narayanasamy had on Wednesday staged a protest against Kiran Bedi outside her official residence Raj Nivas. His protest came two days after Bedi hit the road and advised two-wheeler owners to wear helmets.

Hitting out at the protest being led by Narayanasamy, Bedi said that the Puducherry Chief Minister should have waited for her reply after writing a letter on several issues.

“He (CM) wrote a letter to me on February 7 on 36 issues, some of which don’t exist or have been settled. I received it on February 8. Yesterday, he sits on a dharna saying he demands a reply. The letter didn’t say that if you don’t reply by February 13, I will sit on a dharna,” Bedi said.

“I wrote to him (Puducherry CM) a letter that ‘you are welcome to come and see me on February 21 at 10 am, as I am on a tour till February 20 starting today. I will return on February 20 midnight. And tell me what could be more right. He is still sitting there. He isn’t allowing people to wear a helmet. One Puducherry citizen dies every third day. I have asked the police to enforce the decision. He is committing contempt of court and I am only carrying out my duty,” Bedi said.

Nasheman News :Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday paid homage to 40 CRPF troopers killed in a terror attack in Jammu and Kashmir’s Pulwama district on Thursday and laid wreaths on their mortal remains.

The bodies of 40 troopers were air-transported in a special plane from Srinagar to Palam airbase in Delhi on Friday evening.

Modi circumambulated the mortal remains after paying tribute. 

Those present at the wreath laying ceremony included Congress President Rahul Gandhi, Home Minister Rajnath Singh, Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, Information and Broadcasting Minister Rajyavardhan Rathore and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, among others.

The chiefs of the armed forces – Air Chief Marshal B.S. Dhanoa, Chief of the Naval Staff Sunil Lanba and Army chief General Bipin Rawat – also paid homage along with senior CRPF officers. 

In the worst-ever terror attack in Jammu and Kashmir since militancy erupted in 1989, a suicide bomber on Thursday rammed his SUV packed with explosives into a CRPF bus on the Srinagar-Jammu highway in Pulwama district, killing at least 49 troopers and leaving the security established stunned.

New Delhi, Nasheman News : The Union government has called an all-party meeting on Saturday in the wake of Thursday’s terror attack on Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) troopers in Jammu and Kashmir’s Pulwama district.

Sources said the meeting is scheduled to begin at 11 a.m. at the Parliament Library Building.

Home Minister Rajnath Singh is likely to brief all the parties about the gruesome attack and the security situation in Jammu and Kashmir.