Hyderabad Celebrations began at the Telangana Rashtra Samithi’s (TRS) headquarters here on Tuesday as it became clear that the party was heading for a landslide victory in the Assembly elections.

Holding pictures of TRS President and Chief Minister K. Chandrashekhar Rao, party workers gathered at the Telangana Bhavan raising slogans of “Jai Telangana” and “KCR Zindabad”.

They also burst firecrackers, distributed sweets, while some other enthusiastic workers, including women, were seen dancing.

They said the welfare and development works undertaken during the last four and a half years paid rich dividends to the party.

(IANS)

New Delhi The Congress on Tuesday appeared to be on the road to victory in BJP-ruled Chhattisgarh and possibly Rajasthan and was locked in a close fight in Madhya Pradesh while the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) was headed for a landslide win in Telangana, dealing a blow to the Congress.

The Mizo National Front (MNF) looked set to unseat the Congress in Mizoram, the only state in the northeast the Congress was ruling.

As officials counted the millions of votes polled in Assembly elections in the five states whose outcome is considered significant ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, there was good news for the Congress in the Hindi heartland.

The Congress was headed for a landslide in the 90-member Chhattisgarh Assembly, with its candidates leading over their rivals in 58 constituencies to the 24 seats of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which has ruled Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh for 15 long years.

The alliance of the Janta Congress Chhattisgarh of former Chief Minister Ajit Jogi and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) were leading in seven seats.

Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Raman Singh was leading but all his cabinet Ministers were trailing, officials said.

In Rajasthan, the Congress was ahead in 100 of the 199 seats and the BJP in 77. But Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje said she was still confident of retaining power.

And in line with exit polls, the Congress had surged past the BJP in Madhya Pradesh, its nominees ahead in 115 of the 230 constituencies. The BJP was ahead in 104 seats. Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan seemed to be on the winning track.

The Congress-led alliance in Telangana suffered a major blow as officials counting the votes predicted that the ruling TRS was poised to get a second five-year term with a landslide. TRS nominees had taken solid leads in 95 of the 119 constituencies, crushing the opposition.

Noisy celebrations erupted outside Chief Minister K. Chandrashekhar Rao’s residence and the TRS office in Hyderabad and in other towns in the state.

In Mizoram, the Mizo National Front (MNF) was leading in 25 of the 40 seats, a clear indication that the Congress was set to lose power after a decade. Congress candidates were leading in seven seats.

Mizoram Chief Minister Lal Thanhawla was trailing in both the constituencies he contested.

Congress spokesperson Abhishek Manu Singhvi told the media that he was confident of a Congress victory in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh and that he had “always been a little more pessimistic” about Telangana.

BJP spokesperson G.V.L. Narasimha Rao said the results were expected to turn in his party’s favour as more rounds of vote count get completed.

(IANS)

Adelaide India on Monday earned a hard-fought 1-0 lead in the four-match Test series after beating Australia by 31 runs in the opening cricket Test at the Adelaide Oval here.

This is the sixth Test win for India on Australian soil.

Interestingly, this is the first time India have won the first Test match of a series in Australia.

Chasing a massive 323, Australia’s lower middle order gave a tough fight in their second innings against an inspired Indian bowling attack before being eventually bundled out for 291 just before tea on the final day.For the tourists, pacers Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Shami and off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin grabbed three wickets apiece while veteran Ishant Sharma also took a wicket.

Earlier, resuming the day at 104/4, the hosts soon lost overnight batsman Travis Head (14) with the scoreboard ticking 115/5.

Head fell to a short pitched delivery from the experienced Ishant that resulted in a simple catch by Ajinkya Rahane at gully. The hosts still had a ray of hope with the other overnight batter Shaun Marsh (60) and captain Tim Paine (41) raising 41 runs for the sixth wicket before Bumrah packed away the former.

Bumrah jolted the Australians once again just at the stroke of lunch by getting Paine caught behind, leaving the hosts to the tail to achieve the target.

It was always going to be a tall ask for the tailenders to survive two full sessions but the Australians — Pat Cummins (28), Mitchell Starc (28), Nathan Lyon (38 not out) and Josh Hazlewood (13) — batted their skin out to reduce the deficit to only 31 runs.

Needing three wickets for an outright win, the Indian attack seemed to be on a mission as Shami started the post-lunch session with the wicket of Starc after the Aussie quick put on 59 runs for the eighth wicket with fellow pacer Cummins.

Starc’s departure brought in Lyon, who doubled his effort of getting six wickets in India’s second innings, with a solid 47-ball unbeaten 38 and more importantly being involved in two crucial stands.

Lyon first raised 31 runs for the 9th wicket with Cummins before adding another 32 runs for the final wicket with Hazlewood to leave the Indians frustrating before Ashwin managed to get Hazlewood caught by Lokesh Rahul to guide India to a fabulous victory.

Brief Scores: India 250, 307 (Cheteshwar Pujara 71, Ajinkya Rahane 70; Nathan Lyon 6/1 22) beat Australia 235 and 291 (Shaun Marsh 60, Tim Paine 41; Mohammed Shami 3/65, Jasprit Bumrah 3/68, Ravichandran Ashwin 3/92) by 31 runs.

(IANS)

New Delhi It was a cold Saturday morning in the national capital with the minimum temperature recorded at 7.6 degrees Celsius, a notch below the season’s average, while the air quality remained in the ‘very poor’ category, the weather office said.

The average PM2.5 readings at 9 a.m. was recorded at 191 micrograms per cubic metre while the average PM10 readings at the time were 346 micrograms per cubic metre.

The humidity at 8.30 a.m. was 95 per cent, while visibility was 1,000 metres.

“The sky will remain clear throughout the day, with mist or shallow fog in the morning and haze or smog thereafter,” an India Meteorological Department (IMD) official said.

The maximum temperature was likely to hover around 24 degrees Celsius.

On Friday, the maximum temperature settled at 24 degrees Celsius while the minimum temperature was recorded at 8.8 degree Celsius, both were the season’s average.

(IANS)

Noida The construction of the Noida International Airport at Jewar will be done on a public-private-partnership (PPP) mode, Uttar Pradesh authorities said on Saturday.

A government order has been issued by the Civil Aviation Department after a nod from the state cabinet.

At a cabinet meeting held earlier this week, it was decided that acquired land will be given on a 90-year lease to the Noida International Airport Limited (NAIL) and that it be vested the powers of selecting the developer.

Six villages — Bajauta Rajawaha, Rajwaha, Dayanatpur Rajawah, Kishrepur Alpika and Pathvaya Nala — are likely to be shifted for the purpose. The irrigation department will oversee and facilitate the shifting process, an official told IANS.

The state government has also ratified the financial and administrative clearance of Rs 4,500 crore required for acquisition of 1,239.14 hectares of land at a price of Rs 2,300 per square metres.

The government land that comes in the ambit of the airport will, however, be transferred free of cost to the airport.

The state government has also asked the officials to construct new primary, secondary schools for children who will be shifted to new places after the land where they live and study would be acquired for the project.

Chief Secretary Anoop Chandra Pandey has also directed officials of the Women and Child Welfare Department to build a new ‘aanganwadi’ centre.

Officials have also be instructed to get the barren lands converted into cultivable land for use of agriculture purposes against all the agriculture land that is set to be acquired for the purpose of construction of the airport.

(IANS)

The Congress deserves two cheers for recovering from being down in the dumps in 2014 to a position where it is believed to be posing a credible challenge to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh.

Earlier, the Congress had won several by-elections in Karnataka, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh to show that it has been able to pick itself up from the floor. Its success in forming a coalition government in Karnataka, although the BJP emerged as the single-largest party, is also a feather in its cap.

What is intriguing about these outcomes is that there has been no evidence that the Congress has succeeded in rejuvenating its customarily lethargic organisational structure or that its leaders have been able to present themselves as genuine hopes for the future.

Neither Rahul Gandhi nor the party’s leaders in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Karnataka are seen by the average voter as being capable of ushering in a new era of progress and prosperity.

All that they have been able to do is to present themselves as alternatives to the present ruling dispensation in Karnataka and the three northern states. Yet, that achievement has been enough to make the Congress more confident than before.

The apparent reason for the self-assurance probably has less to do with wide popular approval for the Congress than with the affliction of the anti-incumbency factor for the BJP.

If the Congress is benefitting from the BJP’s discomfiture, it means that the party has been largely able to overcome the damaging taint on its reputation as a result of the multiple scams and the government’s policy paralysis which brought it crashing down four years ago.

It is not that public memory is short, but the experience of some of the government’s present inadequacies are stronger. Among them is the continuing joblessness, whose impact is perhaps all the greater because it was the promise of a buoyant economy fostering employment which was behind the BJP’s success in the last general election.

Along with unemployment, it is possible that the dismay among the middle-class caused by the troubles affecting well-regarded institutions like the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has been damaging for the BJP.

The realisation that the BJP is no longer on as strong a wicket as before appears to have made the Hindutva camp led by the Rashtriya Swayamsevek Sangh (RSS) revive the temple movement and even assert that it will not hesitate to start the kind of agitation which marked the movement in 1992-93 if construction work does not immediately begin on the temple.

The BJP so far has been reticent on its intentions — the party is probably waiting for the results from the three BJP-ruled states, as also of Telangana, before revealing its hand — but how the Congress will respond if a bill on the temple’s construction is brought before parliament is unknown.

The uncertainty is due to the fact that the Congress’s recovery has been accompanied by instances of back-sliding such as playing the “soft” Hindutva card which has brought the party close to the BJP, as in the Sabarimala episode in Kerala.

Like the somewhat hazy stance on secularism, the Congress’s economic outlook is also unclear with Rahul Gandhi’s emphasis on loan waivers for farmers suggesting that the party remains stuck in the old populist mode which was the hallmark of the Sonia Gandhi-led National Advisory Council (NAC) which hobbled Manmohan Singh’s economic reforms.

It was Narendra Modi’s promise to continue the reforms which was behind his victory. And it is his backtracking, presumably under pressure from protectionist saffron outfits like the Swadeshi Jagran Manch and to counter Rahul Gandhi’s “suit-boot ki sarkar” jibe, which is one of the reasons why the BJP is now on the back foot.

But if the Congress wants to re-establish its image of the immediate post-independence years as a modern, secular party, it will have to stop playing footsie with Hindutva or don the NAC’s crypto-communist cap.

Any gains it is making at the moment is almost entirely due to the BJP’s failings on the economic and social fronts, where the misery caused by the lack of jobs and agricultural distress has been compounded by the violent antics of the gau rakshaks and targeting of minorities via the erasure of the Muslim names of towns.

But except for the Congress’s diehard supporters, a return to the NAC’s “socialism” minus secularism will not be a welcome development. To gain wider support, the Congress will have to reiterate its commitment to both economic reforms and secularism.

The party’s leaders and spokespersons will also have to display sobriety and grace while referring to their opponents — attributes which are singularly absent in the latter, who appear to revel in vitriol.

Unless the Congress marks itself out as completely different from the BJP, it will be difficult for the party to project a clear alternative to the BJP’s quasi-religious politics with is focus on widening the Hindu-Muslim divide and the erosion of institutional autonomy.

[IANS]

New Delhi The Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana (PMUY), a pet project of Prime Minister Narendra Modi that aims to provide every household Liquid Petroleum Gas (LPG) replacing wood or coal fuel, has been found useful in tackling household air pollution, a new report said.

The study, “The India State-Level Disease Burden Initiative”, released by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), Public Health Foundation of India (PHFI), Ministry of Health and Family Welfare and The Lancet, stated that in 2017 in India 12.4 lakh deaths were caused due to air pollution, of which 4.8 lakh were due to household air pollution.

“There is increasing political momentum in India to address air pollution. Household air pollution is reducing in India faciliated by the Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana. The findings systematically document the variations among states, which would serve as a useful guide for making further progress in reducing the adverse impact of air pollution in the country,” Proffesor Balram Bhargava, Secretary, Health Research, Ministry of Health, and Director General, ICMR, said.

According to the report, reasons for the household air pollution are mainly residential burning of solid fuels for cooking and to some extent heating. The major types of such fuel are wood, dung, agricultural residues, coal and charcoal.

The study found that states like Bihar, Jharkhand, Odisha, Chhattisgarh, Assam, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Meghalaya, who stood low in Semi Demographic Index (SDI – a composite measure based on per capita income, average educational attainment and fertility rate), were using more solid fuels.

(IANS)

Bengaluru, Dec 7 Mexico on Friday opened its honorary consulate in this tech hub for Karnataka and the neighbouring state of Telangana.

“Bengaluru-based entrepreneur Sandeep Kumar Maini is our honorary consul for the consulate, with jurisdiction in Karnataka and Telangana,” Mexican Ambassador Melba Pria told reporters on the occasion.

Mexico is geographically located between the US and Central America and is popular for its scenic beaches off the Pacific Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico.

Highlighting the diplomatic contacts between the two nations and Mexican presence in the southern region, Pria said the consulate would promote economic and cultural relations in the two states.

“The consulate will also liaison with the business community in these two states and cater to Mexicans visiting this part of south India,” she said.

Mexico has an embassy in New Delhi and three honorary consulates in Chennai, Kolkata and Mumbai.

With the opening of consulate in Bengaluru, the Chennai consulate will cater to the three other southern states of Andhra Pradesh, Kerala and Tamil Nadu.

Two Mexican firms – Softech and Cinepolis and Fun Cinemas – are based in Bengaluru, while a third one is being set up to build a Theme Park for children in the garden city.

(IANS)

Shimla Tourist destinations like Kalpa located on the high hills of Himachal Pradesh received snowfall on Friday, turning it even more picturesque.

“The higher reaches of Lahaul-Spiti, Kinnaur, Kullu, Shimla and Sirmaur districts experienced moderate snowfall.

The weather will remain dry till December 9. Thereafter there are chances of widespread rain and snowfall in the state,” the weather bureau predicted.

There is widespread snowfall expected in the state on December 10, a Met official added.

Members of the hospitality industry were waiting for tourists to arrive in Kalpa, some 250 km from here, in Kinnaur district, with news of the snowfall flashing.

Shimla and its nearby places like Kufri, Mashobra and Narkanda saw no precipitation, according to a Met official here. Manali, which saw a low of 2.2 degrees Celsius, experienced rainfall.

The minimum temperature here was 4.7 degrees Celsius, while it was minus 3.8 degrees in Kalpa and 7.2 degrees in Dharamsala.

Keylong in Lahaul and Spiti was the coldest in the state with a low minus 9.9 degrees Celsius.

(IANS)

Hyderabad Over 23 per cent polling was recorded by 11 a.m. in Telangana Assembly elections on Friday, official said.

According to information reaching the election authorities in Hyderabad, 23.17 per cent of over 2.8 crore voters have cast their votes in the first four hours.

The polling, which began on a dull note at 7 a.m. has picked up in the last two hours. Long queues of voters including women were seen especially in rural areas.

Chief Electoral Officer Rajath Kumar said the polling has so far been peaceful and smooth.

Polling was underway in all the 119 constituencies — 32,815 polling stations spread across 31 districts — in the first full-fledged elections in India’s youngest state.

In some polling centres, the process started late due to technical glitches in Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs), the poll official said.

Of the total electorate, nearly half are women eligible to exercise their franchise to decide the political fortunes of 1,821 candidates including Chief Minister K. Chandrashekhar Rao and his 14 cabinet colleagues.

Rajath Kumar said polling will continue till 5 p.m. except in 13 Left Wing Extremism affected constituencies, where it will end an hour early.

Over 50,000 security personnel, including 18,860 drafted from neighbouring states and central forces, were deployed as part of the massive security arrangements.

Over 1.50 lakh polling personnel were on duty to conduct the polling process. As many as 55,329 EVMs and 39,763 control units were arranged for the polling.

For the first time, Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) were installed across the state. The authorities have arranged 42,751 VVPATs, which are attached to the EVMs and will display for seven seconds the choice made by the voter.

The elections were expected to be a close contest between ruling Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS), which is contesting all seats on its own, and the opposition Congress-led People’s Front that includes Telugu Desam Party (TDP), Communist Party of India and Telangana Jana Samithi (TJS).

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which is contesting all seats on its own, is the third key force in some constituencies.

The Bahujan Left Front led by the Communist Party of India-Marxist and Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) are also contesting majority of the seats.

All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) is contesting eight seats in Hyderabad.

The TRS had opted for dissolution of Assembly in September, eight months before its term was to end.

(IANS)