Anantapur (Andhra Pradesh) Expanding its network in Andhra Pradesh, Isuzu Motors India on Wednesday opened a new authorised outlet here.

The car major’s new dealer ‘Sasya Automotives’ inaugurated the 3S (Sales, Service and Spares) outlet.

The facility becomes the 6th authorised outlet of Isuzu in the state, with others in Nellore, Rajahmundry, Tirupati, Vijayawada and Vishakhapatnam.

Customers purchasing Isuzu vehicles from this outlet are eligible for availing Motor Vehicle Tax exemption, applicable for Isuzu vehicles purchased in Andhra Pradesh, the company said in a statement.

Isuzu Motors India launched the range of Isuzu D-MAX Pick-ups and Isuzu Amu-X, a 7-seater full-size SUV, in the presence of officials from Isuzu, Sasya Automotives and early-bird customers to mark the start of sale from the new outlet.

“Isuzu vehicles are the pride of Andhra Pradesh, making significant inroads across the country, and more importantly in Andhra Pradesh. With over 12,000 vehicles already delivering value to many customers in the country, we are keen to expand our reach to Tier-II and Tier-III cities, where we see a huge potential for the D-MAX range of Pick-ups,” said Takeshi Hirano, Vice President, Sales and Marketing, Isuzu Motors India.

Isuzu Motors India recently announced its association with Jonty Rhodes, an internationally known cricketing legend, to promote the lifestyle and adventure Pick-up Isuzu D-MAX V-Cross in India.

The company manufactures the range of D-MAX and mu-X vehicles at its plant located in SriCity, Andhra Pradesh, operational since April 2016.

[IANS]

Jammu The army on Wednesday said it has killed an infiltrator on the Line of Control (LoC) in Jammu and Kashmir’s Rajouri district.

“One intruder on being challenged, opened fire and the army retaliated. The intruder was killed and the body was handed over to the Jammu and Kashmir Police,” Defence Ministry sources said, adding that the incident occurred in the Kairi area of the LoC.

There was, however, no confirmation whether any weapon was recovered from the slain militant.

[IANS]

Thiruvananthapuram The Kerala government on Wednesday decided that despite the Congress-led opposition’s opinion about KPMG, an international professional service company, selected as consultant partner for rebuilding the flood-ravaged state, it will stick with them, a minister said.

Industries Minister E.P. Jayarajan, deputising for Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan who is presently in the US for treatment, told the media here that KPMG has already started its work in the state.

“They (KPMG) are known for their expertise. They are presently conducting a study to help us rebuild after the floods devastated the state.

“They are doing it for free, so what’s the issue. When such an organisation is helping us for free, what we should now do is, wait for their report. Once they submit it, then we will take a call,” said Jayarajan.

Earlier this week the Congress party expressed strong reservation about selecting KPMG as the consultant partner even as they faced cases in a few countries where they were involved in various programmes.

Vijayan said on August 31, the KPMG has agreed to provide free consultancy service and would be the consultant partner for rebuilding Kerala.

[IANS]

An Indian man has received a suspended jail term along with a deportation order for forging a parking ticket in Dubai.

The Court of First Instance heard that the 25-year-old Indian made a fake copy of a ticket using Photoshop to avoid paying for the parking lot. He was caught in Al Rafaa following the incident in March, the Khaleej Times reported on Sunday.

He received a suspended jail term along with a deportation order. The man admitted to the police that he copied an original Roads and Transport Authority ticket and placed the forged one on his car.

Mumbai The key Indian equity indices traded on a flat-to-positive note during the afternoon session on Monday, after opening sharply higher on the back of healthy April-June GDP figures released last week.

The indices trimmed major gains made earlier in the day, due to weak Asian markets. Globally, Asian markets traded in the negative territory on concerns of escalations in the US-China trade war.

According to analysts, healthy buying was witnessed in consumer durables, healthcare and IT stocks.

At 1.08 p.m., the wider Nifty50 on the National Stock Exchange traded at 11,684.75 points, higher by 4.25 points or 0.04 per cent from its previous close of 11,680.50 points.

The benchmark S&P BSE Sensex, which had opened at 38,915.91 points, traded at 38,666.18 points, higher by 21.11 points or 0.05 per cent from its previous close of 38,645.07 points.

So far, it has touched an intra-day high 38,934.35 points and a low of 38,655.66 points.

The BSE market breadth, however, remained bullish with 1,576 advances and 919 declines.

The top gainers on the Sensex were, Wipro, Sun Pharma, Adani Ports, Reliance Industries, Infosys while Hindustan Unilever, Maruti Suzuki, Kotak Mahindra Bank, NTPC and ICICI Bank were the major losers so far.

[IANS]

New Delhi Sixty-five members of the Lok Sabha and 29 of the Rajya Sabha are yet to declare their assets and liabilities, a reply to a query under the RTI Act has revealed.

Out of the MPs belonging to the lower house, 61 have not furnished their details since 2014, while four recently came to the house through by-elections, the Lok Sabha secretariat said in a reply to activist Rachna Kalra, who had put a query under the Right to Information Act.

“As on August 14, 61 Members of 16th Lok Sabha have not yet furnished declarations of their ‘Assets and Liabilities as per the Members of Lok Sabha (Declaration of Assets and Liabilities) Rules, 2004’.

“Further, four new Member of Lok Sabha who had recently been elected to Lok Sabha in bye-elections are also to furnish the declarations of Assets and Liabilities. They have 90 days time to furnish the same from the date of their taking oath/Affirmation,” the reply reads.

Among those who have not filed their details in the Lower House of the Parliament are nine members from Indian National Congress (INC) and seven from Telugu Desam Party (TDP).

Four members each from All India Trinamool Congress (AITC), Biju Janata Dal (BJD), Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Samajwadi Party (SP), Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) and Lok Jan Shakti Party (LJSP) are also yet to declare their assets.

The list also includes three members from Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and two members each from Shiv Sena, Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD), Janata Dal (United) and Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM).

All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK), YSR Congress Party, Indian National Lok Dal (INLD), National People’s Party (NPP), Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), Nationalist Democratic Progressive Party (NDPP), Jammu and Kashmir Peoples Democratic Party (JKPDP), All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM), All India NR Congress (AINRC) and the Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) account for one member each who have not given the details of their assets and liabilities.

In the Upper House, under the Members of Rajya Sabha (Declaration of Assets and Liabilities) Rules, 2004, “current elected members are required to furnish the details of assets and liabilities, within 90 days from the date of taking oath or making affirmation in the Council of States”.

As on August 9, “the requisite declaration of Assets and Liabilities is awaited from 29 members of Rajya Sabha”, another RTI query revealed.

Six members each from BJP and INC were among the members who are yet to declare the assets.

Three members each from RJD, AITC and TRS are also on the list along with two members each from BJD and JD(U).

[IANS]

Alappuzha (Kerala) Flood -battered Kerala needs Rs 30,000 crore to rebuild, Finance Minister Thomas Isaac said on Monday.

“We require Rs 20,000 for capital expenditure and Rs 10,000 for revenue expenditure,” Isaac told IANS, adding it would be raised through various means, including cash and kind.

The capital expenditure would go into rebuilding roads, bridges, buildings, while the revenue expenditure would meet the compensation towards agriculture crops besides damage caused to homes and the Rs 10,000 to every family who were devastated by the floods.

“Rs 6,000 crore is expected in cash to come through the various public contribution, besides another Rs 4,000 crore will be in kind through various centrally sponsored schemes like the The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act 2005 and National Rural Livelihood Mission, programmes,” Isaac said.

For raising the other Rs 20,000 crores, Isaac said the state would approach the Centre and pressurise them to give the nod for borrowings and such modes.

On Monday, Isaac launched a special lottery, with each ticket costing Rs 250. The draw would be held on October 3. It is expected to raise around Rs 100 crore.

[IANS]

Bengaluru The counting of votes for 105 Urban Local Bodies (ULBs) across Karnataka began at 8 a.m. on Monday.

The results of the civic polls, which took place on August 31, are expected later in the day or early Tuesday, a poll official said.

Polling took place across the 2,633 wards of the state, spread over 29 city municipalities, 53 town municipalities and 23 town panchayats and in 135 wards of the three city corporations.

A record average of 67.5 per cent voter turnout was registered across the state for the civic polls.

Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) were used for polling in all the wards.

A total of 36 lakh voters were registered in the ULB wards and 13.33 lakh in the three towns of Mysuru, Shivamogga and Tumakuru.

In all, 8,340 candidates, including 2,306 from the Congress, 2,203 from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and 1,397 from the Janata Dal-Secular (JD-S) are in the fray for the ULBs, while 814 contested from the city corporations, including 135 from Congress, 130 from BJP and 129 from JD-S.

In the event of a party not getting majority on its own in the election, the Congress and JD-S have decided to forge a post-poll alliance to keep BJP out of power, similar to the May 12 state assembly elections which threw up a hung verdict.

In the 2013 ULB elections held in 4,976 seats, the Congress had won 1,960 seats, while BJP and JD-S had won 905 seats each, while Independents bagged the remaining 1,206 seats.

[IANS]

Mumbai The Shiv Sena on Monday targeted the Maharashtra Police for the arrests of five left activists last week claiming they were reportedly “hatching a conspiracy to overthrow the central and state governments” besides allegedly “plotting a Rajiv Gandhi-style assassination of Prime Minister Narendra Modi”, among others.

“The police contentions behind the arrests are ridiculous… The erstwhile government of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was voted out and removed by the people — not by the Maoists.

“As of now… at least, it is still possible to change the government through the democratic processes,” the Sena said.

“The (Pune) police must not shoot off their mouths like this and the government must bar them from such statements… It’s sheer stupidity,” the Sena said in sharp edits in the party mouthpieces, “Saamana” and “Dopahar Ka Saamana”.

While the practice of “using the police” for different aims is nothing new for the politicians and government, in the present instance, “the faster the truth emerges, the better,” (remove the ‘mukhota’) for the police, demanded the Sena.

The second argument of the Pune police was that Modi was allegedly being targeted in a “Rajiv Gandhi-style assassination”, at which the Sena clawed at the Pune police.

“The former PMs, Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi were fearless and courageous leaders… It was their boldness which claimed their lives… But Modi will never indulge in such adventures.

“He is already provided the best security in the world and not even a bird can overfly him,” the Sena pointed out.

Dismissing the police contentions, the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party ally in Maharashtra and the Centre, the Sena said that “if these handful of Maoists had so much political strength”, they would never have lost their (Communist) governments in West Bengal, Tripura, Manipur, etc.

Urging the government to rein in the police, it said the action last week was one of the biggest attack on Maoism by the Pune police culminating in the arrests of five “urban-naxals” in simultaneous nationwide raids.

The Maoist movement is spread across Chhattisgarh, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, West Bengal, Karnataka, Odisha and Maharashtra’s Gadchiroli and Chandrapur areas.

In many of these areas they run parallel governments, killing many security personnel and even top politicians like Congress leader V.C. Shukla and others.

The edit said the Pune police arrested P. Varavara Rao, Sudha Bharadwaj, Gautam Navlakha, Arun Fereira and Vernon Gonsalves — intellectuals in different fields of life, rights activists, considered extremely influential persons moving about in high society circles.

“There are some doubts that something is wrong somewhere with these arrests… The facts must come out before the BJP becomes the butt of new jokes,” the Sena concluded.

[IANS]

If Rahul Gandhi participates in the meeting called by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) to discuss the country’s future, he can take the opportunity to seek clarifications on the organisation’s worldview. The replies by the RSS chief, Mohan Bhagwat, to the Congress president’s questions cannot but have an impact on the outfit’s future in case a clear picture emerges about its attitude towards the various communities.

For instance, did K.B. Hedgewar, who founded the RSS in 1925, call the Muslims “yavan-snakes”? If so, is this still the view of the organisation or has there been a change? A related question can be on Hedgewar’s successor, M.S. Golwalkar’s categorisation of the Muslims as “Internal Enemies No.1”.

It is possible to link these uncharitable assessments of India’s largest minority community to V.D. Savarkar’s thesis that the only true sons of the soil are the Hindus since India is both their “pitribhu” (fatherland) and “punyabhu” (holy land).

In contrast, such organic and emotive connections cannot be ascribed to the minorities whose pitribhu may be India, but their punyabhu is in Makkah or Rome. It is presumably because of this reason that Golwalkar described Christians as “Internal Enemies No.2”.

At one stroke, the two Maharashtrian Brahmins had relegated the Muslims and Christians to the status of being “aliens” because of their religious affiliations to foreign lands. It goes without saying that this perception persists among the rank and file of the saffron brotherhood to whom the patriotism of these two communities are forever in doubt.

Hence, the observation of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MP, Vinay Katiyar, that Muslims have no place in India because their natural “homes” are Pakistan and Bangladesh, while another BJP MP, Roopa Ganguly, has said that West Bengal’s partition in 1947 meant that only Hindus would live in the state and that the Muslims should go to East Pakistan, which is now Bangladesh. If both these statements deny legitimacy to the Muslim citizens of India, the reason can be traced to Savarkar’s views.

It is obvious that the RSS cannot claim to be abiding by the Indian Constitution if it subscribes to such opinions. Yet, disowning the two Hindutva luminaries will cut the ground from under its feet because these beliefs constitute the core of its philosophy.

At a time, however, when the RSS is reaching out to eminent people outside its fold, it cannot be long before some among the invited guests question the basis of the organisation’s belief system. Otherwise, it will seem that they have all been taken for a ride.

Up until now, the RSS has been cautious in its outreach. The most prominent among those (apart from A.P.J. Abdul Kalam who was the BJP’s choice for the President) who have been called to deliver a lecture to the RSS cadres is former President Pranab Mukherjee. Ratan Tata was next, but he chose not to speak.

Reports that the RSS is now thinking of inviting Rahul Gandhi and the communist leader, Sitaram Yechury, suggest that it is gaining in confidence about the exposure to diverse and contrary views. It is also considering holding “vaicharik kumbh” sessions with intellectuals in various cities with non-RSS individuals.

Perhaps the interaction with Pranab Mukherjee has told the RSS that it can successfully conduct its programme of interactions. There is little doubt that the former President hedged his bets while speaking in Nagpur lest his hosts be offended.

For instance, while ranging over Indian history, he made no mention of the Indus Valley Civilisation, presumably because it would have raised questions about whether it was Aryan, as the Hindutva group claims, or pre-Aryan which is the generally accepted view.

Similarly, he skipped over the entire Muslim period after referring to the Muslims as “invaders”, which would have gladdened saffron hearts, and made no mention of Akbar, whose title of “the Great” given by “secular” historians is contested by the present dispensation.

It will not serve any purpose, either for the RSS or its opponents, if everyone plays safe to keep the hosts in good humour. Instead, a reference will be perfectly in order by a guest to Hedgewar, who warned “others” not to “infringe on the rights of Hindus” since they must remember that “they are living in Hindusthan of Hindus”, and to Golwalkar and Savarkar.

The latest initiatives of the RSS are obviously intended to secure acceptance among a wider section of hoi polloi by demonstrating that it is not quite the ogre that its critics allege. But as in Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s case, the flaunting of a gentler, kinder face may be construed as a mask unless the RSS formally dissociates itself from the anti-minority observations of its guiding lights like Hedgewar, Golwalkar and Savarkar.

There have been several occasions in history where a party has initiated major changes in its outlook. One of these was the British Labour Party’s decision to drop Clause IV of its constitution calling for the “common ownership” of the means of production. The communists, too, have done away with the concept of a dictatorship of the proletariat. Will the RSS follow suit by amending its basic ideology ?

[IANS]