Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge on Thursday accused the government of using the President’s address to the joint session of Parliament for political “gains” and dubbed it a compilation of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s speeches in rallies.

Speaking in the Lok Sabha on the motion of thanks to the President’s address, Kharge criticised the government’s actions like demonestisation, GST implementation and the Rafale fighter jet deal and said that the BJP came to power in 2014 by “misleading the people which it is still continuing”.

“This was not President’s address. It was a compilation of Prime Minister’s speeches in rallies. Here is a Prime Minister who never listens to anyone but keeps talking about himself. The use of President’s address for political gains shows that how low this government can stoop to save its deteriorating reputation,” he said.

He alleged that the government was not only weakening Constitutional institutions but trying to finish them day after day.

“This government is not working according to the Constitution. Issues are not being discussed in the Cabinet. Whatever Modiji says, that happens,” he said referring to the Constitution amendment Bill that provides 10 per cent reservation for economically poor among general categories.

Kharge said that even as the Bill was taken up in the Lok Sabha for discussion and passing in an unstarred reply in Paliament, the Minister concerned had denied that the government has any proposal to provide reservation for the poor among upper castes.

He said that it pained him when the President, in his address, compared the work done by the Modi government and the previous governments.

“At least give us the credit for our work. But you won’t give us credit because you are full of hatred. Despite our doing so much work, you allege every now and then that nothing has happened in last 60 years,” the Congress leader said.

He listed the Congress’s achievements in the form of reducing illiteracy and infant mortality rate while it took several measures like green revolution, establishing educational institutions and many other pioneering measures.

Kharge said the Congress governments in the past had done everything to save the country and the democracy while the BJP-led government has been misleading the youth.

“We developed this country as self-dependent, competent and one with self respect. We strengthened the democracy and saved the country. You came in power by making false promises but you did not stop here. You are continuously lying. Because it has been in your habit,” he said.

Referring to issues of demonestisation and the GST, Kharge slammed the government saying the two decisions broke the back of the farmers, labourers and the small and medium businessmen.

He also raised the issue of Rafale fighter jet deal and demanded a joint parliamentary probe into it.

Hitting out at government over the farmers’ plight across the country, he said it did nothing for the farmers in the last five years.

“Why are you not writing off the farmers’ loans when you can waive Rs 1.10 lakh crore of loans of industrialists. You did nothing for the farmers. You did not even implement the promises for them. Now, when you are going to face elections, you are trying to give them something. But this is not going to work,” he said.

Nasheman News :The Union Cabinet on Wednesday approved an amendment to the Cinematograph Act, 1952, to tackle the menace of film piracy and copyright infringement making penal provisions of three-year jail term or Rs 10 lakh fine or both.

Addressing the media, Union Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said “If one, without authorisation, undertakes digital duplication of various creative works or by any other means of digital technology, one can be made to suffer three-year jail punishment and Rs 10 lakh fine.”

This step will help our film industry in dealing with the menace of piracy, he said.

Nasheman News : The Union Cabinet on Wednesday approved the setting up of a circuit bench of the Calcutta High Court at West Bengal’s Jalpaiguri.

The bench will have jurisdiction over four districts: Darjeeling, Kalimpong, Jalpaiguri and Cooch Behar.

According to an official release, the decision comes against the backdrop of the decision of the Calcutta High Court Full Court Meeting in 1988, the cabinet decision of June 2006 approving the setting up of high court circuit bench at Jalpaiguri and the visit by a team of judges led by Chief Justice of Calcutta High Court to the proposed site of the circuit bench on August 30, 2018 to assess the progress on infrastructure facilities there. 

Nasheman News : Two days after new CBI Director Rishi Kumar Shukla took charge, the government on Wednesday shunted out two Deputy Inspector General (DIG) rank officials from the agency, including one whose name surfaced during controversy between former Director Alok Verma and his then deputy Rakesh Asthana.

The Appointment Committee of the Cabinet approved the curtailment of tenure of Abhay Singh, a 2002-batch Madhya Pradesh cadre officer and Anish Prasad, a 2003 batch Tripura cadre officer, whose name figured during the clash in the agency as in favour of Verma.

The Committee also promoted CBI Joint Director Praveen Sinha, a 1988-batch Gujarat cadre Indian Police Service (IPS) officer, to the post of Additional Director in the agency and DIG Amit Kumar, a 1998-batch Chhattisgarh cadre officer, to the rank of Joint Director.

Anish Prasad was the head of CBI’s special unit, which taps phones and also keeps an eye on the activities of agency officers, when Verma ordered to registration of an FIR against Asthana on October 15, 2018. 

The special unit’s conduct came under scrutiny after CBI’s now Additional Director M. Nageswar Rao was given charge of interim Director of the agency when the government’s October 23, 2018 order divested Verma and Asthana of their powers and sent them on forced leave.

Soon after, Rao moved out Prasad from the special unit. Since, Prasad has been handling the charge of the administration division. 

Prasad will now have to go back to Tripura with immediate effect as the government order said it is the “premature repatriation” of the the officer who is being sent to his “parent cadre consequent on curtailment of the tenure in CBI”.

Abhay Singh was the in-charge of the CBI’s Narda sting probe involving several Trinamool Congress leaders till June 2018 but there wasn’t any movement in the case due to which he was shifted to Ranchi at that time. Singh has been placed at the disposal of the union Home Ministry, the Department of Personnel order said. 

Nasheman News :The Lok Sabha was adjourned for the day on Wednesday without transacting any business as a mark of respect for Biju Janata Dal member Ladu Kishore Swain, who died on Tuesday.

Soon after the House met for the day, Speaker Sumitra Mahajan announced that the Odisha MP had passed away.

The House paid silent tribute to the member and was then adjourned for the day.

Swain died at age 71 on Tuesday night. He was admitted to Apollo hospital in Bhubaneswar on Tuesday due to kidney-related ailments.

He was elected to the Lok Sabha from Aska constituency in 2014.

Nasheman News :  As the Lok Sabha elections approach, lunches hosted by politicians are getting traction not only for the who’s who attending them but also for the message these apparently send about the host’s political stocks within his party and outside.

There have been quite a few lunches and get-togethers over the past few weeks, most of them being annual events. The events were hosted by leaders from across the political divide including the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP).

The lunch hosted by Union Food Processing Minister Harsimrat Kaur Badal was the talk of the town as it was attended by women leaders of several parties.

There was an evident bonhomie between NCP’s Supriya Sule, DMK’s Kanimozhi, Union Minister Smriti Irani and BJP MP Kirron Kher.

A picture of the event, tweeted by Harsimrat Kaur Badal a day later, showed the women leaders holding each other’s hands.

“Life worked its magic on us yesterday afternoon, when a routine lunch became a trip to childhood,” she said in the tweet. The lunch was held a day for before the day of interim budget.

It was also attended by NCP chief Sharad Pawar, Home Minister Rajnath Singh, Consumer Affairs Minister Ram Vilas Paswan, Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad and Health Minister J.P. Nadda. The leaders treated themselves to some sumptuous Punjabi dishes.

Another lunch hosted by former Union Minister and NCP leader Praful Patel for journalists in the first week of January appeared to be a show of strength of opposition leaders who are coming together with the goal of defeating the BJP and ousting the Narendra Modi government in the coming Lok Sabha election.

Those who attended it included Congress’ Ahmed Patel, BSP’s Satish Chandra Mishra, SP’s Ram Gopal Yadav and Jaya Bachchan, DMK’s Kanimozhi and Tiruchi Siva, Trinamool’s Derek O’Brien and Dinesh Trivedi, CPI-M’s Sitaram Yechury, CPI’s D. Raja, National Conference leader Farooq Abdullah and Lalu Prasad’s daughter Misa Bharti of the RJD. 

They also posed for a group photograph as a message of opposition unity.

On Sunday, BJP President Amit Shah and Rajnath Singh launched party’s campaign seeking suggestions from the voters for the party’s poll manifesto. 

The programme, followed by lunch, was attended by several Union Ministers, besides editors from different media houses.

Union ministers Narendra Singh Tomar, Radha Mohan Singh, Anupriya Patel, Ashwini Choubey and Vijay Goel, besides former Union Minister Rajiv Pratap Rudy, too, hosted lunches for journalists which were attended by senior party leaders. BJP MP Udit Raj also held a get-together over “Litti Chokha”.

Most of the lunches were held around Makar Sakranti, which is celebrated across the country in different ways. 

Former Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda hosted lunch on Makar Sakranti at his residence which was attended by several senior Congress leaders including Ghulam Nabi Azad, Mallikarjun Kharge, Ahmed Patel, Motilal Vora and Janardan Dwivedi. 

Apart from Deepender Hooda and his son, several second-generation Congress leaders were present including R.P.N. Singh and Madhu Goud Yaskhi.

Congress spokesperson Abhishek Manu Singhvi also hosted a lunch for media persons in the second week of January which was attended by several party leaders including Ahmed Patel and Dwivedi. 

A trial court in Madhya Pradesh has issued a ‘death warrant’ against a school teacher who has been convicted of raping a four-year-old girl.

The trial court in Satna district has sent the death warrant of Mahendra Singh Gond (28) to the Central Jail in Jabalpur, a prison official said on Monday.

The rape convict’s death warrant has been received from the trial court and he (Gond) is in the process of challenging his death penalty in the Supreme Court, Jabalpur Central Jail’s law officer Ashok Singh told PTI.

The trial court sent the death warrant through an e-mail to the Central Jail and Gond’s execution date has been fixed for March 2, 2019, he said.

The convict has other remedies also as he can file a mercy petition before the President of India, he said.

“The death warrant will be executed only after all the available legal remedies are exhausted,” Singh said.

The Madhya Pradesh High Court had on January 25 confirmed the death sentence awarded by the trial court to Gond.

The trial court had convicted the school teacher on September 19, 2018.

According to the prosecution, Gond was convicted for raping a four-year-old girl at Parasmaniya village in Satna district of Madhya Pradesh.

The trial court had sentenced Gond to death under the recently-introduced Indian Penal Code (IPC) Section 376(a)(b) (raping a minor under 12 years of age).

Gond was also found guilty under IPC Section 363 (kidnapping), for which he was awarded seven years’ rigorous imprisonment, besides being fined Rs 5,000, Singh said.

The convict went to the girl’s house on July 1, 2018 in an inebriated condition to meet her father.

There, Gond saw the girl sleeping next to her father on a cot outside their house. He returned home after meeting the girl’s father. After some time, Gond came back and spotted the girl alone on the cot as her father had gone to relieve himself.

Taking advantage of the situation, he picked up the child and took her to a nearby agriculture field where he raped her and dumped her in the bushes, the prosecution said.

When the girl’s father returned and did not find his daughter, he raised an alarm and the family launched a search for her. Later, they found her lying in the thick bushes.

The girl received severe injuries in the incident and was admitted to a Delhi-based hospital.

Gond was later arrested by the police and a charge sheet was filed against him.

Madhya Pradesh was the first state to enact a law in December 2017, providing for death penalty for rapists of girls below 12 years of age.

The Centre had brought an amendment in the IPC to punish the rapists of girls below 12 years of age with death last year.Read | Teen gangraped, pushed off terrace in DelhiWatch | Ground report from Bihar’s house of horror

A Delhi sessions court will begin hearing from February 21 the Sunanda Pushkar death case in which her husband and Congress MP Shashi Tharoor is facing abetment to suicide and cruelty charges. The Patiala House Court sent the case for trial after dismissing BJP MP Subramanian Swamy’s plea seeking to assist the court in the matter.

Tharoor has been charged under sections 498-A (husband or his relative subjecting a woman to cruelty) and 306 (abetment of suicide) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), but has not been arrested in the case. The Thiruvananthapuram MP was granted regular bail last year.

Pushkar was found dead in a suite of a luxury hotel in the city on the night of January 17, 2014. The couple was staying in the hotel as the official bungalow of Tharoor was being renovated at that time.

Nasheman News :The Supreme Court will hear on Tuesday a CBI plea against Kolkata Police Commissioner Rajeev Kumar who is accused of allegedly destroying evidence related to the Saradha chit fund scam.

A bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi declined a plea by Solicitor General Tushar Mehta seeking an urgent hearing on Monday.

Describing the situation as “extraordinary”, Mehta said: “We fear evidence will be destroyed.”

In response, the Chief Justice said: “We were late in reaching the court by a few minutes because we were reading your application… There’s no evidence of what you’re saying right now.

“If you show one proof they are tampering or even remotely thinking of it, we’ll come down so heavily that they will regret it.”

The applications seeks to restrain the Kolkata police commissioner from tampering with evidence. 

Another one for initiating contempt against the West Bengal Chief Secretary, Director General of State Police and Kolkata police chief were filed by the CBI on Monday.

The agency has sought direction to the state government to cooperate in the investigation of the scam and make available Rajeev Kumar for questioning.

The apex court gave the CBI a day’s time to place on record material to show that the State or its police were “engaged in or planning to destroy evidence connected with the investigation of the scam”.

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee continued her sit-in protest in Kolkata on Monday over the Central Bureau of Investigation’s attempt to question Kumar in connection with a ponzi scheme scam.

The Trinamool Congress supremo has accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Bharatiya Janata Party chief Amit Shah of attempting to destabilise her government.

The top court on May 9, 2014 handed over to CBI the investigation into the Rs 10,000 crore that were collected by Ponzi companies involving 25 lakh depositors.

The number was based on claims filed before a Commission of inquiry in West Bengal and Odisha.

New Delhi, Jan 31 (IANS) The Lok Sabha was on Thursday adjourned for the day soon after President Ram Nath Kovind’s address to the joint sitting of both Houses of Parliament.

The Lower House met for the first day of the Budget session after Kovind’s address in the Central Hall ended. Secretary General Snehlata Shrivastava laid a copy of the President’s address in the House.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh, Deputy Speaker M. Thambidurai and several other opposition leaders, including Congress’ Mallikarjun Kharge, were present in the House.

Speaker Sumitra Mahajan then adjourned the House for the day. The House will meet on Friday when the General Budget will be presented.