NEW DELHI: In a sequel to the chair-car version of Vande Bharat (VB) trains, the Railway Ministry is working to rollout the latest sleeper class version by January 2024, prior to the announcement of parliamentary elections, a senior official of the railway ministry said. A design of this train has already been prepared and will soon get approvals for test and subsequent serial production, he added.

The Vande Bharat trains are expected to be a big upgrade from the premium Rajdhani Express service. The sleeper class-version of these trains will be run on the routes to cover overnight rail journey like New Delhi-Patna, New Delhi-Lucknow and others.

India’s first and the second semi-high speed Vande Bharat trains have covered a cumulative distance of more than 18 lakh route kms since it started in 2019 till date.  The total distance- covered by these two VB trains, is almost equivalent to orbiting the earth 42 times! In next few years, these trains will be able to cover the distances worth orbiting the Earth and the Moon together at least 100 times.

After four years of intensive work and planning, country’s first and the second Vande Bharat trains as electric multiple units at semi-high speed, were flagged off by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2019 on the New Delhi-Varanasi and New Delhi-Katra in J&K routes.

The first VB train was flagged on the New Delhi-Varanasi route and the second one was on New Dehi-Katra route to provide fast rail transportation to these pilgrim cities. The railway ministry is also working towards exporting these trains by 2026 to cover the international markets of South Africa and European countries and rolling out more than 100 VB trains and running them for at least one lakh route kms.
Sources also said that the announcement for rolling out the second lot of 350-400 new Vande Bharat is expected to be part of the next Union Budget 2023-24.

New VB trains to cover overnight rail journey
The Vande Bharat trains are expected to be a big upgrade from the premium Rajdhani Express service. The sleeper class version of these trains will be run on the routes that  cover overnight rail journey like New Delhi-Patna, New Delhi-Lucknow and other similar routes. 

NAVSARI(S.GUJARAT) : A centre of tribal politics in Gujarat, Vansda is about 340 km from Ahmedabad. Gujarat Bharatiya Janata Party chief CR Patil has ‘adopted’ the Vansda assembly; little doubt, then, the BJP is trying its best to capture the seat.

Pradeep Garasia, president of the Samast Adivasi Samaj Sansthan,’ is fighting for the rights of tribal community for years. “Not only Vansda, look at the condition of tribals across Gujarat and India. In the name of development, just any project is announced for the area without asking the tribal communities,” says Garasia.

“If you look at Vansda, Tapi, Navasari, Dang, and the entire tribal belt of south Gujarat, you will understand what is wrong with the government approach. First, the government took up the project of displacing the people of 69 villages in the name of Par-Tapi river link. When tribal opposition grew against it, the government decided to drop it,” says Garasia.

Eventually, Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel announced in May that the project was being scrapped, but how much damage the entire decision-making has caused would be clear only after the Assembly results. “The project would have damaged our land, rivers and the environment. What kind of development was it?” asks Garasia.

Anant Patel, a Congress leader, has stood up for the tribals regardless of whether his party opposes the project or not. Patel, 45, is an MLA from Vansda constituency and has been at the forefront of protests in Navsari and Valsad districts against land acquisition for highway projects. Patel heads the Gujarat Congress’ Adivasi (tribal) Cell.

Nikunj Patel, a social worker and computer engineer, says the protest against the river linking project was against the entire tribal community. “I want to ask the government that if development is to go on, then why do you choose tribal land?” he says.

This time BJP has given the ticket to Piyush Patel, a former government officer. “During his stint, he never listened to us. So, what will he do if he becomes MLA?” asks Nikunj.There are 141 villages in the Vansda assembly constituency, which is considered a stronghold of the Congress. Over 90% of the population in Vansda taluka is tribal. Political observers say the river-linking project is going to cost heavily for BJP, not only in Vansda or Dang but in many tribal belt which stretches from Ambaji in the north to Umergam in the Valsad district, which has 27 reserved seats. In 2017, Congress won 15 of them while BJP won eight.

ADR: BJP gets max corporate donations in Guj between ’17-’21
The BJP has got a maximum of corporate donations from Gujarat between 2017 and 2021. According to Association for Democratic Reform (ADR), it is 16 times higher than Congress corporate donations.On Sunday, ADR released the data saying, “During the five years, maximum corporate donations worth Rs 163.544 cr were declared by BJP from 1,519 donors. The BJP received highest donations in FY 2018-19 of Rs 46.222 cr from 524 donations, whereas Congress got 10.46 crore during the period between 2017 and 2021. Four political parties – BJP, Congress, AAP and SKM – received corporate donations worth Rs 174.06 crore from 1,571 donors from Gujarat between FY 2016-17 and 2020-21. The report said between FY 2016-17 and 2020-21, six Gujarat-based companies donated to political parties via Prudent Electoral Trust, Torrent Power Limited, Torrent Pharmaceuticals Ltd, Torrent Pharma Limited, Cadila Healthcare Limited, Essar Bulk Terminal Paradip Limited, and Act Infraport Ltd.

NEW DELHI:  The Congress on Friday said that it will take legal action against the BJP for its attempts to discredit the Bharat Jodo Yatra by using doctored videos. The BJP IT cell head Amit Malviya had claimed that “Pakistan Zindabad” slogans were raised during the Bharat Jodo Yatra in Madhya Pradesh. 

Malviya had posted a video of the Yatra in which former Congress President Rahul Gandhi, party general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra and Madhya Pradesh Congress President Kamal Nath are seen walking and a voice purportedly shouting ‘Pakistan Zindabad’ is heard towards the end of the 21 second clip.

Launching a broadside against the BJP, Congress’ general secretary in-charge communications Jairam Ramesh said that a video “doctored” by the “dirty tricks department” of the BJP is doing the rounds to discredit the “highly successful” Bharat Jodo Yatra.

“We are taking the necessary legal action immediately. We are prepared for such tactics, and there will be payback,” he said. Earlier, Malviya had tweeted, “After Richa Chaddha’s public application to join Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat ‘Jodo’ Yatra, ‘Pakistan Zindabad’ (listen towards the end of the video) slogans raised in Khargon. INC MP posted the video and then deleted it after the faux pas came to light. This is Congress’s truth. ” 

The Congress spokesperson also claimed that the Madhya Pradesh government “intimidated” and aggressively prevented tribal families displaced by the diamond mining project in Chhatarpur district from meeting Rahul Gandhi this afternoon. “This is democracy-BJP style,” said Ramesh in a tweet.

In another tweet, Ramesh also alleged that the MP government “intimidated” and aggressively prevented tribal families displaced by the diamond mining project in Chhatarpur district from meeting Rahul Gandhi this afternoon.

NEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court on Friday passed an interim order restraining unauthorised use of actor Amitabh Bachchan’s voice, image or any other trait exclusively identifiable with him by any individual

The court’s order came on a lawsuit by the veteran actor alleging exploitation of his publicity rights as a celebrity by several individuals, including the persons behind a KBC lottery.

Bachchan is the host of popular TV game show Kaun Banega Crorepati (KBC).

Justice Navin Chawla said it is undisputed that Bachchan is a well-known personality and is likely to suffer an irreparable loss and disrepute if relief is not granted at this stage.

“I am of the view that the plaintiff has made out a prima facie case for grant of ex parte interim relief,” the judge said.

The court directed telecom authorities to take action to pull down websites providing content in violation of Bachchan’s rights.

It also directed telecom service providers to block access to telephone numbers circulating infringing messages.

Senior advocate Harish Salve said the relief of injunction was sought not only against the individuals named in the lawsuit but also against john doe parties or unknown parties who may be exploiting Bachchan’s publicity rights.

He said besides the lottery, domain names were registered under the actor’s name; there was Amitabh Bachchan Video Call and even T-shirts bearing his photographs.

The Ministry of Finance’s monthly dispatch delivered good news, indicating that inflationary pressures will likely ease in the coming months. But its understrappers have taken away the punch bowl, dropping hints about the ‘moderately’ brisk rate of growth and how their internal estimates were reportedly being lowered to 6.3% this fiscal, down from 7% projected by the central bank. One obvious reason is the bleak outlook of the global economy, that’s likely to be as weak next year as it was during the 2008 financial crisis, thanks to the Ukraine conflict, which is becoming a “forever war”. Besides, the government believes that the US monetary tightening could be a “future risk”, upsetting stock prices, currencies and bond yields, further leading to higher borrowing costs. This spells continued trouble for households and the industry, as it is battling high prices and rising interest rates.

The RBI began its hike cycle only in May, but the interest cover ratio for some 3,000-odd companies has fallen from 5.41 to 4.6 in H1-FY23, according to a Bank of Baroda study. The decline was largely due to falling profits, but higher interest costs, too, added their bit. But a slowing economic recovery would mean corporate profits will likely remain mixed. If, in April, evidence on consumption patterns suggested inflation having a lesser impact on low-income strata than on high-income groups according to the government, the RBI later added that sustained high inflation was having “pronounced adverse effects on the poorer segments” as well.

Against this backdrop, signs of inflation finally cooling down are heartening after staying above the 4% target for 37 consecutive months. But as RBI Deputy Governor Michael Patra observed, the existential question was whether the world is permanently shifting from a low-inflation environment to a high-inflation one. One of the reasons he cited was, given the macroeconomic and geopolitical uncertainties, unanticipated shocks aren’t completely ruled out, which means monetary policymakers must take into account not their known positions but their uncertain future trajectory. In essence, central banks literally “shoot blind”, and RBI’s policy actions next month will determine if India’s policymaker’s got the right shot.

NEW DELHI: Four years after decriminalising consensual sex between homosexuals, the Supreme Court on Friday sought the Centre’s response on same-sex marriage under the Special Marriage Act. The Act provides for civil marriage for Indian citizens irrespective of their religion or faith but limits access to couples comprising one male and one female.

A bench of Chief Justice of India D Y Chandrachud and Justice Hima Kohli was hearing the pleas filed by two gay couples, who said non-recognition of their marriage amounts to discrimination. The bench issued notice to the government and posted the matter after four weeks. 

Senior advocate Neeraj Kishan Kaul informed the bench that similar petitions are pending before the Kerala and Delhi high courts seeking recognition of same-sex marriage under the Special Marriage Act, Foreign Marriage Act and Hindu Marriage Act. 

Terming the issues highlighted in the pleas ‘live’, senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi said, “It’s an important issue affecting the nation. These are sequels of Navtej Singh and Puttaswamy case. We’re only talking about Special Marriage Act. The Act says marriage should be between two persons and doesn’t say that it’ll be a union of A & B.” 

In Navtej Singh’s case, the SC had held that LGBTQ+ community possesses the same human, fundamental and constitutional rights as other citizens. In Puttaswamy’s case, the SC’s nine-judge bench had held that the Constitution protects non-binary individuals and that protections under Articles 14, 15, 16, 19 & 21 cannot be restricted to biological sex of “male” or “female”.

NEW DELHI: Months after Prime Minister Narendra Modi advocated socio-economic and political uplift of Pasmanda Muslims at his party’s national executive meeting, the BJP is now learnt to have started making a new ‘electoral experiment’ with this section of the community with an intent to create a Muslim vote bank for the future. The Pasamanda Muslims, according to a rough estimate constitute around 70-80% of India’s Muslim population (19.50 crore). 

The party is organising conferences to win the community over by its policies and government welfare schemes launched for their socio-economic uplift. The first conference of Pasamanda Muslims was organised in Lucknow on October 16 this year, followed by six other places by the BJP’s OBC and the Minority Morcha (fronts).

So far, six other mega conferences for the communtiy have been organised. UP has the highest number of Pasamanda Muslims, accounting for around 3.5 crore of the population, while Bihar has approximately 1.5 crore such Muslims.

Sources say that the BJP is attempting to bring a larger chunk of the communities, especially those whose ancestors had once converted to Islam from various Hindu castes into the existing OBCs, the SCs and the STs into the fold of party’s votebank. “If the Saffron party succeeds in creating this new electoral equation with Pasamanda Muslim communities along with the OBC, SC and ST vote banks, the party will remain in power at the Centre for the next 50 years,” said a senior party leader.

Pasmanda is a Persian word that means the ‘ones left behind’. The word is used to describe the depressed classes among Muslims who have been deliberately or consciously excluded from the fruits of power and privilege.

Sachar Committee said OBC and SC/ST Muslims were 40% of India’s overall Muslim population in 2004-05. But Pasmanda activists and scholars say they make up 80-85% of India’s Muslim population that is around 19-20crore

Their voting percentage has always been registered more than  70% in every election

Backward, Dalit, and tribal Muslims use the word Pasmanda as an umbrella identity to flag caste-based discrimination within the community.

In UP, the population of Pasmanda Muslims is around 3.5 crore — highest in the country. In Bihar, it is around 1.5 crore

In country’s 18 states including Karnataka, Kerala MP, UP, Bihar and Jharkhand, the Pasmanda Muslims play a very decisive role in the elections, determining the results in a number of constituencies