Chandigarh: All Opposition Congress MLAs today submitted their resignation to the Punjab Assembly Secretary here today to protest the Supreme Court’s ruling favouring Haryana on the SYL issue.

State Congress chief Amarinder Singh, meanwhile, launched a fresh attack on Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal, alleging Badal has “failed to protect the interest” of the people and announced that his party will take out a rally on the issue on Sunday.

The 42 MLAs, including leader of Opposition Charanjit Singh Channi, Sunil Jakhar, Sukhjinder Randhawa and Balbir Singh Sidhu, went to the Assembly here and submitted their resignations to Assembly Secretary Shashi Lakhanpal Mishra as Speaker Charanjit Singh Atwal was not present.

Senior Congress leaders, including Amarinder Singh, Partap Singh Bajwa and Ambika Soni accompanied the MLAs. “I will submit the resignations to the Speaker. He will see whether to accept them or not,” Mishra said.

A Congress spokesperson denied reports in a section of the media that they have submitted the resignations to the Governor.

Speaking to mediapersons, Amarinder said, “I am not in Parliament and our MLAs are not in Vidhan Sabha. We will go to the people. We are going to burn the effigies of the government for not protecting Punjab’s rights.”

“We will hold a rally at the tail-end of the canal system in southernmost part of Punjab on Sunday, which will be affected (by the verdict),” he said.

Hitting out at Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal, the state Congress chief asked, “Why is Badal not protecting Punjab’s interests? Is it because he has made a lot of money and doesn’t care what happens in his area?”

The water dispute assumed a new dimension with the Supreme Court yesterday holding as unconstitutional the 2004 law passed by Punjab to terminate the Sutlej-Yamuna Link (SYL) canal water sharing agreement with neighboring states.

“All the questions have been answered in the negative,” a five-judge bench headed by Justice A R Dave said, while pronouncing its decision on the Presidential reference.

The judgement makes it clear that the Punjab Termination of Agreements Act, 2004 is “unconstitutional” and Punjab could not have taken a “unilateral” decision to terminate the water sharing agreement with Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Rajasthan, Jammu and Kashmir, Delhi and Chandigarh.

The bench, which also included Justices P C Ghose, Shiva Kirti Singh, A K Goel and Amitava Roy, was unanimous in holding that all the five questions of Presidential reference have to be answered in the negative.

The judgement implies that the 2004 Act was not in consonance with the apex court judgement of 2003 which had mandated the construction of the SYL canal that was stalled.

(Agencies)

Madikeri: Scores of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) members, including its state president B.S Yeddyurappa, were arrested on Thursday who were protesting against Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah for celebrating the birth anniversary of Tipu Sultan and also for the killings of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and party activists in the state.

Places like Gulbarga and Madikeri saw heavy deployments of state reserve police force to quell violent protests.

“Arrested while protesting against the Cong government for celebrating Tippu Jayanti. Will scrap this Jayanti within 24hrs of forming BJP govt in 2018,” Yeddyurappa Tweeted.

Talking to media, former chief minister Yeddyurappa said that he met Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh to refer the case to the National Investigation Agency (NIA) to probe the killings of the BJP and RSS workers

“We met Rajnath Singh and requested him to constitute a proper inquiry and refer it to the NIA for which he has agreed. We know very well that more than 18 deaths took place recently, so I don’t know why Siddaramaiah is bent upon celebrating Tipu sultan programme. We are holding state-wide protests against the government,” Yeddyurappa said.

The Congress government views Tipu Sultan as a patriot who fought against the British.

However, the BJP and the RSS views are completely different from those of the state government, who regard Tipu Sultan as a tyrant monarch and for his biasness against Hindus.

(ANI)

New Delhi: Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said that people can withdraw the new series of Rs 500 and Rs 2,000 notes from the ATMs from Thursday midnight.

“ATMs will start functioning from today (Thursday) midnight. People can withdraw the new currency notes,” Jaitley told TV channel CNN-News 18 in an interview.

The government demonetised Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes from November 8 midnight. New notes of Rs 500 and Rs 2,000 denomination are being issued starting Thursday in banks and post offices.

Lakhs of anxious people made a beeline to banks and post offices on Thursday to exchange their old Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes. Most private and public sector bank branches were seen jampacked with customers.

With the ATMs giving out new currency from midnight, it is expected to ease the queues before the banks and post offices that were witnessed entire day on Thursday.

All banks have been directed to work for 12 hours on Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday to clear the rush of desperate customers for exchange transactions and, if required, remain open even next Sunday (November 20).

Jaitley said that a total amount of Rs 14 lakh crore is in circulation in the economy in high denomination notes. “But how much will be replaced by people, I cannot predict,” he said.

(IANS)

In an embarrassing incident, Karnataka education minister Tanveer Sait was caught watching porn on his phone during Tipu Jayathi celebrations in Raichur.

In a footage shown by local channels, Sait is seen shamelessly browsing through the photographs of skimpily-clad women as other speakers were praising the brave acts of Tipu Sultan.

The opposition BJP has called for his resignation, saying Sait had “no moral authority to continue as a Minister”. Incidentally, in 2012, two BJP MLAs had been caught watching porn on their cell phones in parliament.

Mumbai: Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) on Thursday announced that Ishaat Hussain will be the new Chairman of the board of directors of the company in place of Cyrus Mistry with immediate effect.

Tata Sons has also issued a special notice under Section 169 (read with Section 115) of the Companies Act, 2013, and made a requisition for an extraordinary general meeting of shareholders to consider the removal of Mistry as a director of TCS.

“Hussain shall hold office as Chairman of the company until a new chairman is appointed in his place,” the company said in a regulatory filing.

Tata Sons had removed Mistry, 48, as chairman of Tata Sons last month saying he had lost the confidence of the board due to several factors and that the trustees were increasingly concerned with the growing trust deficit.

Ratan Tata, who had made room for Mistry four years ago, was reinstated as the chair in an interim capacity.

Hussain, 69, took over as director finance of Tata Sons in July 2000. Earlier, he joined the board as an executive director in July 1999. He is also a director of several Tata firms — Tata Industries, Tata Steel and Voltas. Besides, he is the chairman of Voltas and Tata Sky.

Prior to joining Tata Sons, Hussain was senior vice president and executive director of finance at Tata Steel for almost 10 years. He joined the board of the Indian Tube Company (a Tata Steel associate) in 1981 and moved to Tata Steel in 1983 after the company was merged with Tata Steel.

A chartered accountant by training from Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales, he graduated in economics from St. Stephens College in New Delhi.

(Agencies)

New Delhi: Long queues were seen outside banks across the country and also at RBI counters for replacement of old Rs 500 and 1,000 notes as banks opened today after demonatisation of such bills by the government on Tuesday.

Following the decision, banks were shut yesterday to stock lower denomination cash and new security-featured Rs 500 and Rs 2,000 notes. Banks have made additional arrangements for exchanging cash and deposit of old high denomination notes in order to handle heavy rush.

Banks have been asked to be open on weekends including Sunday to deal with the situation. It may be noted that ATMs are not functional today.

In order to meet the demand of new currency notes, the government has imposed a limit on withdrawal of Rs 10,000 per day and Rs 20,000 per week. This limit, however, will be increased in the coming days.

People have been allowed to exchange old notes of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 at any bank or head post office or sub-post office with a daily limit of Rs 4,000 while showing ID proof up to November 24.

Withdrawal from ATM will be a restricted to Rs 2,000 per day per card in the first few days, which will later be raised to Rs 4,000 later.

People, however, can deposit the old notes of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 in banks or post office accounts from November 10, till December 30, 2016 without any limit.

(PTI)