Kolkata, Dec 22: Senior BJP leader and party MP Saumitra Khan on Tuesday sent a divorce notice to his wife Sujata Mondal Khan, a day after she joined the Trinamool Congress.

Khan’s lawyer sent the mutual divorce notice, where several marital issues were cited for seeking the separation.

Sujata Mondol Khan, the wife of BJP MP from West Bengal’s Bishnupur on Monday found her marriage on the rocks when her husband of 10 years threatened to divorce her after she joined the ruling TMC.

Claiming that “misfit and corrupt leaders” were getting more importance in the BJP than those loyal to the party, she shifted allegiance to Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress.

A furious Khan hurriedly called a press conference on Monday evening where he announced his decision to “sever the 10-year relationship”.

“You (Sujata) have come this far as you had chanted Jai Shree Ram, chanted in favour of (Narendra) Modiji, as you were the wife of Saumitra Khan,” a livid Khan said.

“Please refrain from using the ‘Khan’ surname hereafter, please don’t refer to yourself as Saumitra Khan’s wife. I am giving you all the freedom to chart your political destiny. But please don’t forget you are siding with those who had attacked your parents’ residence in 2019 after I joined the BJP,” Khan had said.

Washington, Dec 22: A Democratic American lawmaker on Tuesday urged the Indian government to provide safety to the protesting farmers as he hailed the recent offers of dialogue and a proposal from India’s Supreme Court to set up mediation.

India has called the remarks by foreign leaders and politicians on protests by farmers as “ill-informed” and “unwarranted”, asserting that the matter pertains to the internal affairs of a democratic country.

“We have seen some ill-informed comments relating to farmers in India. Such comments are unwarranted, especially when pertaining to the internal affairs of a democratic country,” External Affairs Ministry Spokesperson Anurag Srivastava said early this month.

“I call on India’s government to demonstrate its commitment to democratic norms by guaranteeing protesters’ safety and by treating them with respect. Democracy demands this much,” Congressman David Trone said.

Trone, who represents the sixth Congressional District of Maryland, also expressed concern over reports of violence used against the protesters. He was first elected to the House of Representatives in 2018.

“I further welcome the government’s engagement with the protestors, including recent offers of dialogue and a proposal from India’s Supreme Court to set up mediation,” he said in a statement.

“As we continue to watch the democratic process unfold in India, where stakeholders from all sides are included, I’m hopeful to see a path forward that respects the rights of all Indians,” said Trone, who previously was owner of a major American wine retailer.

Thousands of farmers from Punjab, Haryana and several other states have been protesting on various borders of Delhi since November 26, seeking repeal of three farm laws enacted in September.

Dubbing these laws as “anti-farmer”, these farmers claim that the newly enacted legislations would pave the way for the dismantling of the minimum support price system, leaving them at the “mercy” of big corporations.

However, the government has maintained that the new laws will bring farmers better opportunities and usher in new technologies in agriculture. There have been multiple rounds of talks between representatives of the protestors and the Indian government but the logjam continues.

“The partnership between the United States and India has grown exponentially over the course of the past several years based on shared interest in a variety of areas: from security and trade to climate change and human rights,” he said.

“Our relationship with India not only helps anchor US policy in the Indo-Pacific, but it serves to set an example for cooperation that extends far beyond our two countries. As President-elect (Joe) Biden takes office in January, I look forward to working with the new Administration to strengthen this partnership based on the democratic values President-elect Biden has espoused throughout his career,” he said.

Trone said India’s citizens, like those of the US, have a longstanding tradition of engaging in a civic debate that aims to hold the government accountable to its people.

“We are reminded of this as thousands of Indians have taken to the streets in recent weeks to peacefully protest implementation of new laws. Their demonstration is an exercise of the democratic process, one that grants civic rights and freedom of expression, he said.

New Delhi, Dec 22: Kanta Prasad, the owner of the small eatery ‘Baba ka Dhaba’ that was recently in the limelight on social media, on Monday opened a new restaurant in south Delhi’s Malviya Nagar area.

The new restaurant has also been named Baba ka Dhaba’.

“We have opened a restaurant today which is near my small eatery. We will serve Indian and Chinese cuisines and have hired two chefs for the same. I will keep running my old eatery also,” Prasad said.

The 80-year-old said he has opened the restaurant at a rented accommodation.

Tushant Adlakha, a social worker who also works with Prasad, said the restaurant will start functioning from Wednesday.

“Today, it was the opening of the restaurant. Prasad will take two days to set up the kitchen and from Wednesday, they will start serving food to customers. They have both dine-in and take away options. They have hired two chefs and the rest of their family members are helping in the restaurant,” Adlakha said.

Prasad had shot to fame after a video of him tearfully talking about the financial distress he faced in the months since the lockdown was shot by a man and shared widely across social media platforms.

Nearly a month after his video went viral, Prasad had filed a complaint against the YouTuber for alleged misappropriation of funds.

In his complaint to police, Prasad had alleged that the man who shot and published the video “intentionally and deliberately shared only his and his family/friends bank details and mobile numbers with the donors and collected huge amount of donation… without providing any information to the complainant”.

Absence of Rajib Banerjee, the minister for forest affairs, was said to be politically significant as there are strong speculations that he might quit the Trinamool Congress.

KOLKATA: Four ministers of West Bengal government skipped cabinet meeting convened by chief minister Mamata Banerjee on Tuesday at Nabanna, the State secretariat.

Though three of them cited seemingly genuine reasons, absence of Rajib Banerjee, the minister for forest affairs, was said to be politically significant as there are strong speculations that he might quit the Trinamool Congress.

The three others in Mamata’s cabinet, who did not turn up to attend the meeting, were Rabindranath Ghosh, the north Bengal development minister, tourism minister Gautam Deb and Chandranath Sinha, the minister for fisheries.

Sources in the TMC said Ghosh was tested positive for Covid-19 recently and presently, he is not taking part in any administrative activities.

He said besides his health issue, he decided not to leave his constituency because Mamata’s latest initiative ‘Duare Sarkar’ (government at your door-step) is being carried out there.

“Deb is based in north Bengal and travelling to Kolkata was not safe in the wake of Covid-19 pandemic,’’ said a TMC leader. Deb is known as one of the most trusted lieutenant of Mamata. Sinha from Bolpur said he was busy to oversee the preparedness ahead of the chief minister’s Bolpur visit on December 28 and 29.

“I am very much with the Trinamool Congress and I will be with the party. There is no question of shifting my political alignment,’’ he said.

Banerjee, however, could not be contacted for his comment explaining the reason behind his absence in the cabinet meeting.

In the recent past, Banerjee expressed his discontent on several occasions on the issue of the functioning of a section of party functionaries.

The mega event that saw participation by CM Kejriwal and his cabinet colleagues along with their spouses at Akshardham Temple here was telecast live.

NEW DELHI: An activist on Tuesday cited an RTI reply claiming that the AAP government in Delhi spent Rs 6 crore on its Laxmi Puja event and live telecast on Diwali this year.

No reaction was immediately available from the Delhi government or Aam Aadmi Party (AAP).

The activist, Saket Gokhale, tweeted the purported RTI reply to his query from Delhi Tourism and Transportation Development Corporation.

He said, “Delhi AAP Govt. spent 6 crores (approx $0.8 million) of taxpayer money for the Laxmi Puja event & its live telecast done by @ArvindKejriwal on 14 November, 2020. This whopping cost of 6 crores public money was for a 30-minute puja. Thats 20 lakh rupees per minute.”

The Arvind Kejriwal-led Delhi government had appealed Delhiites to refrain from bursting crackers on Diwali in view of high pollution levels and instead urged them to participate in Laxmi Puja on the festival day.

The mega event that saw participation by Chief Minister Kejriwal and his cabinet colleagues along with their spouses at Akshardham Temple here was telecast live.

Sharing Gokhale’s tweet, Delhi Congress president Anil Kumar trained his guns at Kejriwal accusing the CM of seeking publicity by spending the money at a time when doctors, nurses and health workers were sitting on hunger strike due to non-payment of their salaries.

English Press Release and Photograph of Union Minister, S Jaishankar, launches veteran journalist Prem Prakash’s book “Reporting India: My Seventy-Year Journey as a Journalist” at Kitaab event.

Sending you a Press Release and Photograph of Union Minister, S Jaishankar, launches veteran journalist Prem Prakash’s book “Reporting India: My Seventy-Year Journey as a Journalist” at Kitaab event.
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Union External Affairs Minister, Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, releasing veteran journalist Prem Prakash’s book “Reporting India” at Kitaab with author Prem Prakash, Aakriti Periwal of PKF and panelists Sushant Sareen, Sheela Bhatt, Venkat Narayan.

Union Minister, S Jaishankar, launches veteran journalist Prem Prakash’s book “Reporting India: My Seventy-Year Journey as a Journalist” at Kitaab event

21 December 2020, Kolkata/New Delhi: Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, Minister of External Affairs, Government of India, launched veteran journalist and media entrepreneur Prem Prakash’s book “Reporting India: My Seventy-Year Journey as a Journalist” at Kitaab online book launch event organized by Prabha Khaitan Foundation of Kolkata in association with Penguin India. Eminent litterateurs, scholars, book lovers, students and journalists from across the country joined the virtual event for an engaging hour-long session with the author Prem Prakash; panelists Sheela Bhatt and Sushant Sareen and Ms Aakriti Periwal of PKF introducing the session and Venkat Narayan made the concluding remarks.

Reflecting on seven decades of journalistic work by Prem Prakash, Minister of External Affairs, Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, said, “Prem Prakash’s book in reality is a celebration of his life. He has been there and done that and shaped our recollection of events and the image of India. He has always been at his detached best. Prem, a great recorder of events and history, has always been at the right place at the right time. His book is an engrossing flow which the young generation of today, less conversant of that past era, must read. India has gained enormously from his work.”

“The Chini Hindi bhai bhai slogan was nonsense. India’s views towards the Chinese in the past can be described as a kind of romanticism. We gave up everything on Tibet while the Chinese asserted its sovereignty and went on to capture Tibet,” said Prem Prakash who set up Indian news agency Asian News Network (ANI) in 1971 to provide syndicated multi-media newsfeed to Indian and foreign media houses. ANI was also the first news agency to syndicate video news.

The author, who, as a journalist, had first hand witnessed the pitiable condition of ill-equipped Indian Army mauled by the Chinese during the 1962 China-India border war, says in his recent book that Nehru felt personally responsible for the debacle as he had ignored the modernisation of India’s armed forces at the outset of his term in office. Nehru, who believed that war could never be a tool for furthering diplomatic ends, found his peacenik worldview torn asunder by an aggressive China. He did try to make amends to revive and re-equip the Indian armed forces during the 20 months he lived after the India-China war.

Reminiscing on what Afghanistan used to be and its future, Prem Prakash said, “Afghanistan is a tragic case. In many respects Afghanistan used to be ahead of India before it became a victim of the Cold War. The bogey of “Islam in danger” was used to create Islamic fundamentalism in Afghanistan. India is a big country and Afghanistan needs our help and we must make sure we do help them. We must ask – Why Chabahar port is taking so long to become functional? It is in India’s interest to bring Afghanistan back to what it used to be in the happy days. The Taliban took them back to the stone age.”

On the quality of today’s journalism Mr Prakash said, “There are many huge organizations now. For heaven’s sake tell your reporters to go to the field and report. Another fact is that the reporters are opinionated which isn’t good. Young journalists should read a lot, go to the locations and report facts.”

Prem Prakash is among the few journalists who interviewed all the prime ministers of India in his illustrious career spanning over seven decades. He had reported the Bangladesh Liberation War of 1971 from inside Bangladesh risking his life. He has been at the frontline reporting some of the historic events like liberation of Goa, India-China border war, Indo-Pak wars, Bhopal gas tragedy, attack on Rajiv Gandhi in Colombo and so on as a photographer, reporter and cameraman. He has witnessed natural calamities and insurgencies which he has penned in his book.

“We still see the world and India from a western correspondent’s view. I fail to understand why Indian media houses, which make huge profits, fail to depute correspondents in foreign countries and present news from an Indian perspective.

Kitaab is an initiative of Kolkata-based organization Prabha Khaitan Foundation which provides a forum for book launches by connecting intellectuals, book lovers and litterateurs with authors. Eminent authors like Shashi Tharoor, Vikram Sampath, Salman Khurshid, Kunal Basu, Vir Sanghvi, Vikas Jha, Luke Coutinho and others have earlier had book launching sessions at Kitaab.

NEW DELHI: The sudden lockdown imposition resulted in unprecedented disruptions, including stoppage of intra and inter-state movement of people, goods, the shutdown of factories, hotels, eateries, tourism etc and other economic activities with severe social and economic fallouts, a Parliamentary standing committee on Home Affairs has said in a report on Covid-19 situation.

The committee has recommended the formation of a national plan under the NDMA, 2005 and Epidemic Diseases Act, 1897 for co-ordination between the Centre, states & UTs for quick response to such a crisis in future.  

The panel noted that the NDMA is meant for handling disasters and not for handling the pandemic/epidemic which happens in decades and even once in a century.

“The Epidemic Diseases Act, 1897, is outdated as it was framed in the colonial-era and needs revisiting, updation and amendment,” it said. Rajya Sabha MP Anand Sharma, who led the panel, stated that the committee “would ensure efficacious implementation of all decisions to contain pandemics and equitable/timely distribution of relief at district and sub-divisional levels to the intended beneficiaries in urban and rural areas.”

In the report submitted to Rajya Sabha Chairman M Venkaiah Naidu through video conferencing on “Management of COVID-19 pandemic and related issues”, the panel examined the various aspects of the seriousness of the situation arising out of the pandemic.

The panel recommended the government to prepare a national database of migrant workers at the earliest, observing that the migrants are the backbone of the industrial sector, but due to the lockdown many migrant workers lost their jobs. 

It appreciated the government’s efforts to extend relief measures to the vulnerable sections but added that the absence of a national database, it is difficult to extend the relief measures to the intended beneficiaries. 

KOLKATA: West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee Monday hit out at the BJP-led government at the Centre saying it is only bent on dividing the country and has cancelled public holidays on festivals like Christmas.

Inaugurating Christmas festival at Allen Park in the city’s downtown Park Street area, the TMC supremo condemned the “politics of hatred” pursued by the Narendra Modi government.

“Some people can only divide the country. The BJP government has cancelled the public holiday on Christmas after coming to power. Why did they do so? Don’t they have any regard for the sentiments of the Christian community?” Banerjee said lashing out at the saffron party.

Christmas is now a regional holiday.

Stating that Christmas is a festival for all, Banerjee said “In West Bengal we celebrate X mas, Durga Puja and Eid with equal gusto.”

Continuing her attack against BJP, she said “We all love and respect our Constitution but the government in Delhi has no respect for constitutional norms and values.”

Without naming BJP, Banerjee charged the saffron party of spreading “a garbage of lies” about the state’s development.

“Why are you speaking garbage of lies to people. Tell the truth. Acknowledge the fact that we (West Bengal) stand first in MSME sector. We are front runners in various social sectors. Our Kanyashree and Sabooj Sathi schemes have earned universal acclaim,” she said.

Kanyashree Prakalpa is an initiative taken by the West Bengal government to improve the life and status of girls by helping economically backward families with cash, while Sabooj Sathi is a scheme for providing bicycles to students.

“Some people coming from Delhi are jealous and they keep spreading falsehoods,” she said in an apparent reference to BJP national-level leaders flaying the state’s performance in several sectors including employment.

Unity is the strength of Bengal and the country, Banerjee said and gave a call for fostering bonds among communities on the occasion of Christmas.