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Nasheman News : The Union Cabinet on Wednesday approved a notification to begin the election process to constitute the 17th Lok Sabha.
The Cabinet chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi approved the notification.
The Lok Sabha elections will be held in seven phases from April 11 to May 19 and counting of votes in all 543 constituencies will be taken up on May 23.
Nasheman News : The Rajasthan High Court on Monday issued notices to actors Saif Ali Khan, Neelam, Tabu and Sonali Bendre in the blackbuck poaching case.
Dushyant Singh, a local, who was allegedly accompanying the actors when the incident took place, was also issued a notice.
The notices have been issued on a plea by the Rajasthan Forest Department, which has appealed against the acquittal of the five by a Jodhpur court last year.
All five have been asked to file their replies within eight weeks.
The case dates back to October 1998, when actors Salman Khan, Saif Ali Khan, Neelam Kothari, Tabu and Sonali Bendre allegedly went on a hunting expedition in Kankani village near Jodhpur and killed two blackbucks.
Killing of blackbucks is prohibited under the Wildlife Protection Act.
Salman Khan was declared guilty in the case, but was granted bail in April last year.
His accomplices, actors Saif Ali Khan, Tabu, Sonali Bendre and Neelam as well as Dushyant Singh, were acquitted by the court, which gave them the benefit of doubt.
Nasheman News :A five-judge Constitution Bench on Wednesday reserved its order on sending the contentious Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid Ayodhya title dispute case for mediation even as the Hindu parties including the state of Uttar Pradesh opposed the court’s suggestion.
A five-judge Constitution Bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi reserved the order on the matter as Solicitor General Tushar Mehta appearing for Uttar Pradesh said, “It (mediation) will not be advisable and prudent to take this path.”
Senior counsel C.S. Vaidyanathan, who appeared on behalf of the deity Ram Lala, opposed the mediation and told the court that the birth place of Lord Ram was a matter of faith and belief and they cannot take a contrary view in the mediation.
Nasheman News : The Delhi Assembly has sought help from the state government for turning paperless after the delay in the implementation of the Centre’s project for paperless Assemblies.
During the budget session of the Assembly, which concluded last week, the General Purposes Committee (GPC) of the Delhi Vidhan Sabha had tabled a report stating the paperless project was “badly delayed”.
“The Assembly Secretariat sought Rs 20 crore in the budget estimates for 2019-20. The project will be modified to suit the needs of the Assembly and it’s members,” said the report.
The government has allocated the amount for the purpose.
“A lot of papers are used in the Assembly. Our aim is to make it paperless by the next session. The work will start from April and the implementation will take around six months,” Delhi Assembly Speaker Ram Niwas Goel told media.
“It will take a little time, as we need to first develop a centralised system. There will be a display screen on MLAs’ seats. Everything, from questions and answers to reports, will be available on the touch of finger,” he said.
Goel said the study and the estimate part of the project has been completed and with the sanctioning of the money, the work will also begin next month.
“A team from the Assembly visited the Himachal Pradesh Assembly in 2015 after it turned paperless to get first hand knowledge. They (Himachal Assembly) also have nearly the same number of MLAs as we do,” he said.
For turning paperless, the Delhi Assembly will work with the Information and Technology Department of the state government as well as the National Informatics Centre (NIC), the GPC report said.
The GPC had approved the implementation of ‘e-Vidhan’ in the Assembly and recommended adoption of the Himachal model.
A draft project report estimating a cost of Rs 17.79 crore was submitted to the Ministry of Information and Technology in October 2015. But later, the project was transferred to the Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs, the report said.
On its part, the Parliamentary Affairs Ministry had decided to implement the National e-Vidhan Application (NeVA) project in all state Assemblies.
The Ministry was of the view once all Assemblies adopted NeVA, funds for the physical infrastructure would be released in phases, said the GPC report.
Nasheman News : There has been no change in Article 370 and 35A following the Union Cabinet’s decisions on Jammu and Kashmir, and any reports to the effect were “mischievous”, official sources said here on Thursday.
They said some people were spreading rumours about the cabinet decisions and the Home Ministry has clarified there was no change at all in respect of the two Articles.
Article 370 and 35A contain special provisions for Jammu and Kashmir.
The Union Cabinet on Thursday approved the Jammu and Kashmir Reservation (Amendment) Ordinance, bringing persons residing in the areas adjoining International Border within the ambit of reservation at par with persons living in areas adjoining the Line of Control (LoC).
The Cabinet also approved the proposal of Jammu and Kashmir government regarding amendment to the Constitution (Application to Jammu and Kashmir) order, 1954 by way of the Constitution (Application to Jammu and Kashmir) Amendment Order, 2019.
It will pave the way for giving benefit of promotion in service to the Scheduled Castes, the Scheduled Tribes and also extend the reservation of up to 10 per cent for “economically weaker sections” in educational institutions and public employment in addition to the existing reservation in Jammu and Kashmir.
Nasheman News : The Supreme Court (SC) on Tuesday said that it might order mediation for the amicable resolution of the Ayodhya title issue as it defers passing of a formal order till March 5, the next date of hearing.
The five-judge constitutional bench, comprising Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi, Justice S.A. Bobde, Justice D.Y. Chandrachud, Justice Ashok Bhushan and Justice S. Abdul Nazeer suggested mediation of the issue in the course of hearing of a batch of cross petitions challenging the 2010 Allahabad High Court verdict trifurcating the disputed site in three parts, giving one each to the Nirmohi Akhada, Ram Lalla and the original Muslim litigant.
“We are considering the possibility of healing relations” between two communities, Justice Bobde said, adding “we as a court can only decide the property issue”.
The suggestion however, was not accepted by the lawyers appearing for the Hindu parties.
But those appearing for the Muslim parties accepted it noting that the mediation and regular hearing on the petition challenging 2010 Allahabad High Court judgement will go on concurrently.
“On our side, we are agreeable so long it (mediation and hearing) is going concurrently,” senior counsel Rajeev Dhavan, representing a Muslim party, told the bench.
Appearing for a Hindu litigant, senior counsel C.S. Vaidyanathan said: “In a matter like this there is not much of meeting ground. It has been tried more than once. We don’t want to have another round of mediation.”
Advocate Ranjit Kumar, appearing for another Hindu litigant, said: “This has been tried in past, it has not worked. Mediation is not possible.”
Nasheman News : Hours after suspended AAP MLA Kapil Mishra stirred a controversy over his poem hitting out at so-called enemies of the nation residing in the country on social media, an official of the Department of Telecommunications lodged a formal complaint with the Delhi Police seeking an FIR against the legislator.
Ashish Joshi, an Uttarakhand-based IAS officer on his “official letter” sent a police complaint against Mishra to the Delhi police commissioner Amulya Patnaik alleging that “it is brought to your notice that one Kapil Mishra has circulated a highly incendiary video, provoking people to attack some citizens”.
“I saw the video on twitter. It has been uploaded on YouTube. The content of the video is self-explanatory and violates Indian Penal Code and IT Act,” Joshi said in his letter to the Delhi Police.
“The letter is issued in public interest,” Joshi added.
Soon after the letter was shared by Joshi on Twitter, many people retweeted it. Senior journalist Barkha Dutt, senior Supreme Court lawyer Prashant Bhushan, former AAP leader Ashutosh also retweeted demanding action against Mishra.
The suspended Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) MLA then also took to twitter and said that he would lodge a complaint against Joshi, Bhushan, Kavita Krishnan and Ashutosh for circulating fake news against him.
“This man Ashish Joshi – misusing letterhead and playing agenda. This is not part of his job. Tomorrow I shall lodge a complaint for misusing his official position. I shall also lodge a complaint againsty Bhushan, Krishnan, Ashutosh for spreading false information about me.”
“Another lie about me is also being spread that government has lodged a complaint against me. Ashish Joshi has miused his official letterhead. He is the same person who lodged a complaint against BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra. His only work is to promote the agenda of Left parties,” Mishra said attaching few snapshots of the tweets shared by Joshi in the past.
The entire controversy erupted after Mishra on Monday morning recited and posted a video of a poem on Twitter hitting out at the so-called enemies of the nation within the country.
“It’s Now or Never. Pull them out on streets, as the traitors are hiding inside our house. Kapil Mishra exposing Terrorism supporters in India,” he said in his tweet.
Reacting sharply to the video of Mishra, Shehla Rashid, Barkha Dutt, Bhushan, Ashutosh, Krishnan took to twitter to lodge a protest.
“Dear IPS Madhur Vermaji, this person who has a huge following and is an MLA from Delhi, is giving an open, emotive call to people to enter our homes, drag us to the streets and lynch us,” Rashid tweeted.
“What a revolting man. This is direct incitement to violence and lynchijg and merits a jail term and account being scrapped ASAP cc,” Dutt tweeted.
The case in which Kumar was convicted and sentenced relates to the killing of five Sikhs in Delhi Cantonment’s Raj Nagar Part-I area of southwest Delhi on November 1-2, 1984.
Supreme Court judge Justice Sanjiv Khanna on Monday recused himself from hearing the appeal of former Congress leader Sajjan Kumar challenging the Delhi High Court verdict sentencing him to life term in a 1984 anti-Sikh riots case.
The matter came up for hearing before a bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi.
The 73-year-old Kumar had surrendered before a trial court here on December 31, 2018 to serve the sentence in pursuance of the high court’s December 17 judgment awarding him life imprisonment for the “remainder of his natural life”.
The case in which Kumar was convicted and sentenced relates to the killing of five Sikhs in Delhi Cantonment’s Raj Nagar Part-I area of southwest Delhi on November 1-2, 1984 and burning down of a gurudwara in Raj Nagar Part-II.
Nasheman News : The Election Commission (EC) on Friday lodged a police complaint against unknown persons for spreading “fake news” about non-resident Indians (NRIs) being allowed to vote online in the coming Lok Sabha elections.
In a letter to Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP), New Delhi district, the EC said that publication of such fake news using the logo of the EC was causing “severe confusion in the public, thereby creating public nuisance and mischief”.
“The unauthorised use of EC logo and the completely false statement regarding online voting seems to be done with a deliberate intent to cause mischief and mislead the public,” the EC complaint read.
The poll panel said it has already asked Twitter and WhatsApp to remove this fake news from their platforms.
It said the false news and unauthorised use of EC logo was violative of various sections of the Indian Penal Code and asked the police to lodge an FIR and “promptly investigate” the matter.
Nasheman News : Government think tank Niti Aayog Vice Chairman Rajiv Kumar on Friday said banks are in a position to pass on interest rate cut benefits to the consumers and the industry.
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) had on February 7 announced a repo rate cut of 25 basis points, and so far State Bank of India (SBI) is the only bank to have followed it with a small rate cut of 5 basis points.
“Credit growth has perked up and will increase further, so banks are in a position to pass on the benefits of a rate cut,” Kumar said at an event.
He said the government had to struggle through NPAs in the banking sector.
“We inherited a banking sector with NPAs worth Rs 10.5 lakh crore. But now that struggle seems to be over and the banking sector is looking up again indicating that the interest rate cut be passed on for the growth of the economy,” said Kumar.
Speaking at the event, Punjab National Bank (PNB) MD and CEO Sunil Mehta said, “Deposit rates are our sources of funding. The moment this funding goes down, we won’t be able to serve our customers.”
On Thursday, Reserve Bank Governor Shaktikanta Das had met CEOs and MDs of public and private sector banks to persuade them to pass on benefits of lower interest rates to the consumers.
But the banks expressed their concerns on protecting margins to provide for the NPAs and banking operations, which, they said, may be hit if they start passing on the full rate cut to consumers, without any headroom.