“Our protest is also to counter Tamil Nadu MPs protest, who have been stalling the functioning of Parliament and are strongly opposing the Mekedatu project,” said BJP MP Shobha Karandlaje.

MPs from Karnataka staged a protest outside the Parliament in New Delhi on Thursday demanding the implementation of the controversial Mekedatu project. The MPs from across party lines held placards near the Mahatma Gandhi statue and demanded that the project be executed at the earliest.

Both Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha MPs demanded that the Centre grant permission for the early implementation. The protest was organised to show the unity among all political parties in Karnataka in favour of the project. “Our protest is also to counter Tamil Nadu MPs protest, who have been stalling the functioning of Parliament and are strongly opposing the Mekedatu project,” said BJP MP Shobha Karandlaje.

Chief Minister HD Kumaraswamy met Union Minister for Water Resources Nitin Gadkari to discuss the early implementation of the project on Wednesday. “In the meeting, Gadkari said he was convinced that the Mekedatu project will benefit Tamil Nadu. The minister also assured that he will direct his officials to fix a meeting of Chief Ministers of the two states at the earliest,” the Chief Minister’s office said.

“The project will help conserve excess water for our state. We need it for the people,” said PC Mohan, BJP MP for Bengaluru Central.

On Wednesday, the Union government said that a meeting of the heads of Tamil Nadu and Karnataka would be called soon. Nitin Gadkari is slated to discuss the merits of the projects with the representatives of the two states and also hear their grievances, sources in the CMO said.

Karnataka has proposed the construction of a balancing reservoir along River Cauvery river at Mekedatu to conserve excess water in the Cauvery river basin. The government plans to use the water to meet the drinking water requirements of Bengaluru, Ramanagara and Channapattana, and also generate electricity.  In November, the Central Water Commission gave Karnataka the green signal to prepare a Detailed Project Report.

However, the lower riparian state of Tamil Nadu is opposing the project saying that the Mekedatu project would curtail water supply from Cauvery river. They also argue that it is against the Supreme Court’s February verdict. Earlier this month, Tamil Nadu moved a contempt petition in the apex court against the CWC, Cauvery Neeravari Nigam Limited and Karnataka Water Resource Minister DK Shivakumar for ‘wilful disobedience’ of the SC order on Cauvery water sharing.

B A day-long strike by the employees and officers of the state-run banks against the merger of three public sector banks (PSBs) paralysed services across Karnataka on Wednesday, a union official said.

“The response to our strike call is overwhelming as over 1 lakh employees in about 5,000 bank branches stayed away from work to protest against the merger of Vijaya Bank, Dena Bank and Bank of Baroda,” All India Bank Officers Confederation (AIBOC) General Secretary S.K. Srinivas told IANS here.

The strike, second in a week after December 21 strike for wage revision, affected all categories of customers, as no transaction could take place though bank branches were “officially” open for business.

“Though boards of the three banks approved the merger despite opposition by their employees, the strike is to express our solidarity with them as we are against denationalisation and privatisation of state-owned banks,” said Srinivas.

Defending the strike, the trade union leader said if the employees and officers do not protest against the merger of the three banks now, the government would be emboldened to merge the remaining PSBs and privatise them eventually.

“The 1969 bank nationalisation was to usher in mass banking in place of class banking, which benefit only the rich and corporates without priority lending and social commitment. This government is reversing the 50-year-old policy and undoing all that the state-run banks have done for the common man,” reiterated Srinivas.

In spite of opposition by employees, including offices, the government merged the associated banks of the State Bank of India (SBI) last year, setting a bad precedence though they were affiliated to it and the latter (SBI) had majority ownership, recalled Srinivasa, who is also the General Secretary of the SBI Officers’ Association.

“But the merger of SBI with its sister banks led to closure of hundreds of branches across the country in the name of rationalisation and optimisation of the workforce,” said Srinivas.

As banks were closed from Friday to Sunday and again on Tuesday for Christmas, clearance of cheques and drafts were affected with no inter or intra-banking transactions.

“As we are aware of the impact the strike would have on customers, we worked on Monday to ensure them our services,” added Srinivas.

 Rajya Sabha MP Rajeev Chandrasekhar wrote to the Honourable Minister for Law & Justice, Electronics & Information Technology, Sh. R S Prasad urging his intervention to curb the growing digital sexual abuse of children as well as to regulate and shut down Mobile apps which threatens the safety of children.

Quoting a media report , Chandrasekhar said “There is an exponential growth in a few short video mobile apps due to their simple-to-navigate interface, and free availability on Google Play or App Store. Apps such as Kwai, Clip, TikTok, NewsDog, LiveMe and Helo, which threatens the safety of children are easily accessible and are becoming a new breeding ground for ‘grooming’ underage children for child pornography.”

“According to INTERPOL, around 2.4 million instances of online child sexual abuse were reported from India in 2017. US-based National Center for Missing and Exploited Children also reported that over 24.46 lakh children were abused in 2017 in India. These are just the reported cases, there could be many that go unreported.” Rajeev said.

“Such Apps have a high demand from vernacular entertainment consumers in different states in India. The abusers try to contact children using these vernacular languages. With easy availability of internet and smart phones, there has been a surge in cases of child sexual abuse, harassment, bullying and blackmail where the perpetrator finds his victim on one of the available social video apps.” Chandrasekhar said.

MP Rajeev Chandrasekhar shared his recommendation on steps which could be taken and urged the Ministry to add and modify as they deemed necessary: –

1. Create a permanent institutional framework to monitor and regulate online content that falls under the category of Digital Exploitation of Children. A suggested institutional framework could be a permanent inter-ministerial group consisting of representatives from the Ministry of Home Affairs, Women and Child Development and Law and IT to arrive at a technology-based solution to the problems of Digital Child Abuse.

1. To immediately initiate extensive consultations, awareness programmes. with all stakeholders and draft well-crafted roles for each group — including ISPs, the police, parents, schools etc.

1. Review and amend the IT Act, 2000 to provide strict penalties to intermediaries who facilitate such content and strengthen legal framework including Commissions for Protection of Child Rights Act.

1. Ban such mobile applications which do not curate the inappropriate content involving children.

1. Direct intermediaries such as Google and Apple to take strict measures for removing/banning such apps from GooglePlay and AppStore which allow exchange of child pornographic images/videos and enable paedophiles to “groom” the children.

1. Formulate a dedicated legal framework where specific guidelines regulate mobile applications which makes viewing and sharing of sexually explicit images/videos of children a punishable offence.

1. Review and amend POCSO Act ,2012 to make Digital Child Abuse and Online Child Grooming a punishable offence.

“Children constitute 44.4% of India’s current population and are the future of our nation. It is our responsibility to ensure that they get a safe and happy childhood that they deserve. This issue requires serious attention. Regrettably, your ministry has done very little so far on this issue. I hope you and your ministry will take strict action to prevent Digital Child Abuse in India.” MP Rajeev Chandrasekhar wrote in his letter.

The internet, if not regulated and monitored can make it a biggest threat to parents who are deeply concerned about the safety of their Children. The Government must involve with parents and schools in mission mode to ensure that Digital India is also an India free of sexual exploitation” Chandrasekhar concluded.

Nasheman News :  Ahead of the general elections in Bangladesh on December 30, the Border Security Force (BSF) has heightened patrolling and vigil along the India-Bangladesh frontiers, a top BSF officer said here on Monday.

“Keeping in mind the general elections to the Bangladesh Parliament, we have further increased the security along the India-Bangladesh borders. 

“BSF troopers are always ready to deal with any kind of situation,” BSF Tripura Frontier officiating Inspector General (IG) Ashok Kumar Yadav told the media.

“We have asked the BSF commanders and the troopers to keep a close watch on the borders. Patrolling has also been increased,” he added.

He also ruled out any possibility of mass infiltration.

Bangladesh media reports, monitored here, said that about 400-450 platoons of army troopers were deployed in 389 areas in 270 constituencies across Bangladesh on Monday to assist with the December 30 poll process.

“The Election Commission earlier announced that the army would be deployed as a striking force across the poll-bound country. The soldiers would remain in the field until January 2 or till the 11th Parliamentary elections ends,” the media reports added.

Quoting the poll official the reports said that the forces have been deployed to build up confidence among the people and political parties.

Two militants of the banned National Liberation Front of Tripura, who were hiding in Bangladesh, surrendered before the BSF officials on Monday.

The BSF’s acting IG said that around 50-60 cadres of Tripura militant outfits were still hiding in their temporary camps in Bangladesh, mostly in the Chittagong Hill Tracts. “However, majority of these rebels are keen to return to mainstream.”

According to the official, 13 extremists surrendered to the BSF in Tripura in 2018.

Bangladesh and India share a 4,096-km long international border, the fifth-longest land border in the world.

A large portion of the border along Tripura and West Bengal is already fenced and work was underway for fencing the remaining part of the border.

 A total of 28,523 Indian workers died in the six Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries from 2014 to 2018, the government said on Wednesday.

In a written reply to a question in the Lok Sabha, Minister of State for External Affairs V.K. Singh said that while the highest number of 12,828 Indian workers died in Saudi Arabia during the period, 7,877 such workers died in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), 2,932 in Kuwait, 2,564 in Oman, 1,301 in Qatar and 1,021 in Bahrain.

The Gulf nations are home to a large expatriate Indian population and many of them are blue-collar workers in the infrastructure sector.

Singh stated that Indian missions and posts have specialised community welfare wings and labour wings in these countries with large numbers of Indian workers.

“In addition, the government has launched an online portal called MADAD for addressing the grievances of Indian nationals abroad,” he said. 

“The MADAD portal is regularly monitored in our missions and posts at various levels, thus giving high priority to grievances of Indian workers,” he added.

IANS

 With three major states in the Hindi heartland slipping out of its hands, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is worried in Uttar Pradesh where even party insiders complain about poor governance and growing lawlessness.

“What if this repeats here too?” is a question that is haunting many in the BJP. For a party that stormed to power after 16 years of political exile, the stunning 2017 Assembly victory is beginning to look like history.

Barely a year-and-a-half later, the popularity ratings of the state government, specially Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, are worryingly down. 

Many of his decisions, like renaming Faizabad to Ayodhya and Allahabad to Prayagraj and his use of acidic language, have soured his appeal, even among BJP supporters. BJP’s allies too are openly speaking against the way the state is run.

“There is a lot of corruption all round. Officials are not even listening to the Chief Minister’s directives,” said Om Prakash Rajbhar, who heads BJP ally Suheldev Bharatiya Samaj Party (SBSP) and is a cabinet Minister. 

A perpetual rebel who has often broken ranks with the ruling party, Rajbhar’s disillusionment, unlike that of others, is out in the open.

There are, however, many senior Ministers in the ruling party who complain in private over what they feel is the poor and lacklustre performance of the BJP government. 

“The government is directionless and has failed to inspire confidence,” says a party veteran who taunts the party leadership for not meeting the people’s aspirations.

“We are bogged down by a haughty bureaucracy which refuses to fall in line. As a result, our party workers and supporters are disgruntled,” he added. 

A BJP General Secretary is accused by a Minister of trying to corner major tenders in irrigation and PWD departments. The Minister moaned that party leaders failed to understand the public mood.

Samajwadi Party spokesperson Abdul Hafiz Gandhi for once agrees with the BJP leaders’ assessment and points out that except for “hatred and rumour mongering”, the BJP government has failed to achieve anything in one-and-a-half years. 

Lawlessness, he adds, continues in the state. And despite lofty claims and reckless police “encounters”, in which critics say many innocents have died, criminals continue to have a free run. 

An Apple executive was shot dead by a policeman in cold blood. And now a police officer too was shot dead during mob violence in Bulandshahr. Many children have died in poorly-managed state-run hospitals.

“So what has changed?” asks a senior BJP leader, speaking on the condition of anonymity.

Former Minister and Pragatisheel Samajwadi Party (PSP) President Shivpal Yadav says the government was not only anti-farmer but was also fanning communal passions which he says was not in the interest of the state. 

The BJP’s defeats in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh show that the time for the BJP and Prime Minister Narendra Modi was “fast running out”, he added. 

Another Minister, also not wishing to be named, told IANS that after initial bravado Adityanath had failed to control the bureaucracy and was dependent on a small coterie of officers. 

He pointed out how while the previous Samajwadi Party regime made giant strides in infrastructure, the present one had not been able to deliver results.

“The 308-km Agra-Lucknow Expressway was built from scratch in 18 months flat. We have not been able to even start the Poorvanchal Expressway,” he rued.

The coming together of bitter rivals Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) for the 2019 Lok Sabha polls is also sending the saffron camp into jitters. 

IANS

Opposition Congress party’s impressive gains in regional polls put it back in the race for the 2019 general elections.

India’s ruling party lost power in three key states on Tuesday, dealing Prime Minister Narendra Modi his biggest defeat since he took office in 2014 and boosting the opposition ahead of general elections next year.

The results in the northern states of Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh could force the federal government run by Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to raise spending in the countryside, where more than two-thirds of India’s 1.3 billion people live.

Political analysts said the BJP’s defeat underscores rural dismay with the government and could help unite the opposition led by the Congress party.

Sanjay Jha, a spokesman of the Congress party, said that farmers’ distress, joblessness of the youth and rising inequalities in the society were the main agenda during the elections.

He told Al Jazeera that the attacks on the Dalits and the minorities under the BJP governments also made electorate turn away from the right-wing party.

Activists and opposition parties have accused the BJP of running a divisive campaign and allowing Hindu far-right groups to run amok on the issue of cow slaughter, which is a crime in most Indian states.

The Hindu nationalist party deployed Yogi Adityanath, known for his vitriolic anti-Muslims rhetoric, as the chief campaigner in the state elections. Adityanath, a monk-turned politician, was appointed the chief minister of India’s most populous and politically significant state of Uttar Pradesh in 2017.

There is a feeling among people that the promises made by the prime minister … have not been fulfilled : Rahul Gandhi

A legislator for the BJP said it had erred in focusing its campaign on partisan themes, such as the building of a Hindu temple in Ayodhya at a site disputed by Muslims, instead of offering jobs and growth.

“We forgot the issue of development that Modi took up in 2014,” said Sanjay Kakade.

Jha, the Congress spokesman, said: “The BJP has collapsed on the [issue of] governance… and just tried to polarise elections by playing communal politics.”OM

Prime Minister Modi late on Tuesday congratulated the Congress and other regional parties for their victories.

“Victory and defeat are an integral part of life. Today’s results will further our resolve to serve people and work even harder for the development of India.”

Congress comes back to power

The Congress party is all set to form governments in the states of Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan after getting majority while it emerged as the single largest party in Madhya Pradesh.

In Chhattisgarh, Congress won 68 of the 90 seats at stake, with the BJP managing to get only 15, according to data from the Election Commission of India. In Rajasthan, the Congress won 101 of the 199 seats contested, against 73 for the incumbent BJP.

In Madhya Pradesh, the most important of the five states that have held assembly elections in recent weeks, Congress emerged victorious on 114 seats, while the BJP managed to hold on to 108 out of 230 seats. Two regional parties have already extended support to the Congress party boosting its chances of forming a government after 15 years of the BJP rule.

The results came as a shot in the arm for Rahul Gandhi, president of the Congress party, who is trying to forge a broad alliance with regional groups and present Modi with his most serious challenge yet in a general election due by May.

Congress has ruled India for most of its post-independence era after 1947 but was decimated by Modi’s BJP in national polls in 2014. Since then, it had struggled to make inroads into even state polls.

Gandhi, the fourth generation scion of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty, has sought to build a coalition of regional groups.

Hindutva ideology

On Tuesday, celebrations erupted outside the Congress party headquarters in New Delhi, with supporters dancing, setting off firecrackers and brandishing posters praising Gandhi.

“We are going to provide the states with a vision and a government they can be proud of,” Gandhi told reporters at a press conference in New Delhi.

“There is a feeling among people that the promises made by the prime minister … have not been fulfilled.”READ MORE

Rahul Gandhi: Rise of the Gandhi family scion

Analysts believe that the verdict is indicative that people are no more buying the Hindutva (Hindu nationalism) ideology.

“In the past five years, a vast section of people across caste, region and religion realised that they have got nothing. There are no jobs and development,” political analyst Sajjan Singh said.

Modi government’s decision to ban high denomination currency notes and botched implementation of a federal Goods and Services Tax (GST) last year, Singh said, was “a suicidal move”, which brought “unimagined difficulties upon rural and weaker sections”.

“The cash-based rural and informal sector economy which sustains a large part of the Indian society has been destroyed,” he told Al Jazeera.

Regional parties won in two smaller states that also voted – Telangana in the south and Mizoram in the northeast.

The Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) registered a thumping victory in Telangana state, while in Mizoram state, the Mizo National Front trounced the Congress party.

Congress won by a landslide in the central state of Chhattisgarh, which has been ruled by the BJP for three consecutive terms.

In the past five years, a vast section of people across caste, region and religion realised that they have got nothing. There are no jobs and development

POLITICAL ANALYST SAJJAN SINGH

Failing to deliver jobs

Maoist rebels have been running decades-long armed rebellion in the state against what they say is the exploitation of the mineral resources by the corporates.

Modi has been criticised for failing to deliver jobs for young people and better conditions for farmers – issues that opposition is likely to raise during the general elections less than six months away.

The BJP, however, said the state results would not affect its prospects in the general elections.

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley told media news agency that BJP leadership and cadres would “pause and analyse the results and take corrective steps” that may be required before the polls.

But Apoorvanand, who writes on human rights and politics, said “the election results will have a psychological impact on the voters” during the upcoming elections.

“It is a signal to many who believed that the BJP could not be defeated,” Apoorvanand, a professor at Delhi University, said.

“Modi’s image has been weakened. He looks frustrated and fallen. The message of these election results is that he is not infallible.”

Aljazeera

 With the ruling Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) headed for a landslide victory in the state’s Assembly elections, the Congress on Tuesday voiced the suspicion that the Electronic Voting Machines (EVM) were manipulated.

State Congress chief Uttam Kumar Reddy demanded that 100 per cent counting of Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) be taken up.

He asked all Congress candidates to submit letters to returning officers concerned for counting of paper trails.

Congress, which headed the four-party People’s Front, was leading in just 21 constituencies while the TRS was ahead in 87.

 Voting was underway on Saturday for the eighth phase of the panchayat polls across Jammu and Kashmir amid tight security.

 Nearly 60 per cent voting was recorded in Rajasthan till 3 p.m on Friday to elect a new Rajasthan Assembly, an election official said.

The polling will continue till 5 p.m and long queues were seen in different polling stations of the state.

The polling was largely peaceful barring a clash between Congress and BJP workers in Subhash school in Fatehpur where the two groups indulged in stone pelting. Two bikes were also torched during the violence. However, timely intervention by the police brought the situation under control.

The polling percentage was reported 6.42 till 9 a.m. and 22.85 till 11 a.m. But it picked up rapidly in the next two hours as long queues were seen outside the polling units, Chief Electoral Officer Anand Kumar said.

About 4.74 crore people will decide the fate of 2,274 candidates in the fray for the 200-member Assembly. Of them, 189 women are contesting in 199 constituencies. There are also 20,20,156 first time voters in the state.

Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje voted at a polling booth in her Jhalrapatan constituency in Jhalawar district, while Union Minister Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore and Congress leader Sachin Pilot voted at a polling booth in Jaipur.

“I think people have seen the kind of work that has taken place in Rajasthan and I think they will go out and vote for development,” Raje said after casting her ballot.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which is fighting anti-incumbency is contesting on all seats while the Congress has left six seats for its allies.

The Mayawati-led BSP has fielded 190 candidates, the Communist Party of India-Marxist 28 and the Communist Party of India 16 candidates. There are 830 Independent candidates.

The election in Alwar district’s Ramgarh constituency has been postponed due to the death of Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) candidate Laxman Singh.

The Congress’ key candidate, Pilot, who is fighting an assembly poll for the first time said: “There are people who never visited the state and have come only for campaigning. The state has suffered a lot under Raje.”

Polling that began at 8 a.m. will continue till 5 p.m. Counting of votes will take place on December 11 along with four other states — Mizoram, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Telangana.
Also, there were reports of technical hitch being reported in some of the polling stations.

According to BL Kothari, district collector, Jalore, around four EVM machines had technical glitch in Ahore constituency. However, with a few minutes, these machines were replaced and smooth polling started in the region. This was in early morning owing to poor connections but they were rectified immediately as we had extra machines at the centre, he confirmed.

However, in contrast of the facts promised by election commission of various facilities being made available at different poll stations for physically handicapped, there are cases being reported where people have to bring the physically challenged people on their back in the absence of any wheel chair.

One amongst such scene was seen at Kishanpura polling booth in Jaipur where a 105-year-old woman Shajha had come to cast her votes on the back of her family member.

Further, one Gajanand Sharma, who came from Pakistan after 36 years in jail, also cast his vote here in Jaipur

Sharma was found in Pakistan border by the authorities and hence was imprisoned for a lack of papers. However recently he was brought back to India with the timely intervention of external affairs ministry. “Things have changed in all these years. Earlier, the voting process was quite different,” he said.

Meanwhile, most of the leaders including Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje went along with their families to cast their votes. While Raje was seen with her son Dushyant Singh and daughter-in-law Niharika Singh, Sports minister Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore went to cast his vote in Vaishali Nagar constituency in Jaipur along with his wife Gayatri Rathore.

Speaking on the occasion, he gave a call to all voters to cast their votes. Mentioning PM Narendra Modi’s speech, he said that one vote has enormous power and can change the nation.

Similarly, Union minister of state Gajendra Singh Shekhawat also went to polling booth to cast his vote along with his wife and daughter.

DGP O.P. Galhotra went along with his wife Sunita Galhotra to cast his vote.