Former chief ministers Omar Abdullah and Mehbooba Mufti on Wednesday wondered why the Centre was not initiating a dialogue with the separatists in Jammu and Kashmir if Army chief General Bipin Rawat could bat for holding talks with the Taliban in Afghanistan.

“We bat for talks with taliban, autonomy for Tibet & Tamil areas of Sri Lanka yet we are unwilling to look at engagement or political initiatives in J&K. Why is our policy all about “do as we say, don’t do as we do”? Engagement for Taliban, Operation All-Out for Kashmir,” Abdullah tweeted.

Earlier in the day, Rawat said there should be talks with the Taliban to bring peace in Afghanistan, but asserted that the engagement must be without any preconditions. He was speaking at the Raisina Dialogue — India’s flagship conference on geopolitics — in Delhi.

“If the Army Chief can advocate for talks with (the) Taliban then why different standards when it comes to our own people?” Mehbooba asked in a tweet.

The Peoples Democratic Party president said the Centre should accept the offer of talks by Pakistan and also start a dialogue process with the Hurriyat Conference to end the cycle of violence in the state.

“Accept peace offer from Pakistan, initiate dialogue with (the) Hurriyat and other stakeholders put an end to the vicious cycle of violence in J&K,” she added.

PTI

Chief Minister HD Kumaraswamy cleared four more names for board appointments. He had on Sunday cleared a list of 14 persons to be appointed as chairpersons to boards and corporations as per a list given by the Congress. According to reports, several members of the Congress party were not content with the appointments, and several showed resentment over the CM’s choices. Following this, on Wednesday, the chief minister appointed four Congress legislators for posts which had yet to be filled.

Easing tensions to some extent, Kumaraswamy’s new appointees are reportedly thought to pacify Congress members who are upset with the coalition head’s previous decisions.

NA Haris, MLA of Shantinagar, has been appointed the chairman of the Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Corporation (BMTC), ST Somashekar, MLA from Yeshwanthpur, has been made the chairman of the Bangalore Development Authority (BDA). The other two appointed members are SN Subba Reddy, Bagepalli MLA, as chairman of Karnataka Silk Industries Corporation, and Abbaya Prasad, the Hubballi-Dharwad West MLA as the head of the Dr Babu Jagjivan Ram Leather Industries Development Corporation.

It has also been reported that the CM has yet to decide on an appointee for the position of chairman of the Karnataka State Pollution Control Board, though the Congress wanted the title to go to Chikaballapur MLA K Sudhakar. Along with him, Doddaballapur MLA Venkataramanaiah, too was not allocated a post.

“The party high command has cleared my name and it is now up to the Congress to give me the post,” Sudhakar told media.

Earlier on Sunday, the Chief Minister had cleared 14 names out of a list of 19 total, given by the Congress, who would now hold cabinet-rank positions in the coalition government.

Nasheman News : Days after the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) extended support to Kannada actor Prakash Raj for deciding to contest the Lok Sabha election as an independent candidate, he met AAP leader and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal here on Thursday.

At the meeting held at Kejriwal’s residence, the two discussed a number of issues.

“Met Kejriwal, thanked him and AAP for the support in my political journey. Discussed and requested to share various ways to address issues which his team has commendably done,” tweeted the actor, who has been critical of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his government.

Prakash Raj has been meeting politicians since he announced his decision to contest from Bengaluru.

The AAP extended support to the multi-lingual actor last week.

Nasheman News :  “I have been running the government like a tight rope walk. I am compelled to follow the wishes of Congress party. I alone can feel the pain I am going through. Still, I have been tolerating everything and moving ahead,” lamented chief minister (CM), H D Kumaraswamy speaking at the JD(S) legislature party meeting held here on Tuesday.

He laid bare the day-to-day pressure he has been handling in running the government. At the same time, he expressed his resolve to remain silent on all issues till the Lok Sabha election, and asked the party functionaries to cooperate with him. He also turned emotional when speaking, at which he was consoled by his father and JD(S) national president, H D Deve Gowda.

Deve Gowda has barred party leaders from airing their grievances openly relating to the coalition government. He reiterated this at the said meeting too, sources said. Speaking to media persons after holding a preparatory meeting relating to Lok Sabha election at the party office on Wednesday January 9, Deve Gowda said that he has asked party leaders not to behave or talk in a way that adversely affects the standing of the coalition government. He also said that a decision about entering into understanding for Lok Sabha election with other parties will be taken at the national executive being convened on January 20 and 30. “We have joined hands with the Left Front in Kerala and Congress in Karnataka. Therefore a decision on electoral understanding will be taken at the executive. As of now, the coalition government does not face any major issue. There are minor issues which would be sorted out in normal course. Leaders of both the parties will sit together and settle these issues,” he explained.

Nasheman News : Two Kerala government employees were arrested here on Thursday for vandalizing the cabin of a State Bank of India (SBI) manager here on the second day of a 48-hour nationwide trade union strike.

Ashokan and Harilal appeared before a court which remanded them in judicial custody till January 24.

On Wednesday, a group of 15 people stormed into the cabin of the SBI manager and vandalized it.

Santosh Karunakaran, the manager whose cabin was attacked, told the media on Thursday that the police had started their probe.

“A computer, two phones and a glass table top were damaged by the protesters. From now on the seniors in our bank will deal with this case,” he said.

The police are on the lookout for 13 more people, including those attached to Left unions.

The SBI branch is located near Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan’s office.

Nasheman News : Human Resource Development Minister Prakash Javadekar on Thursday countered media reports on government’s intention of making Hindi compulsory, saying that no language is being given a compulsory status in the new National Education Policy (NEP).

“The Committee on New Education Policy in its draft report has not recommended making any language compulsory. This clarification is necessitated in the wake of mischievous and misleading report in a section of the media,” Javadekar tweeted.

An article in The Indian Express had reported that the government will be making Hindi compulsory for students till Class 8 in the upcoming education policy.

Nasheman News  : Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday hit out at opposition leaders accusing them of “insulting” Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, the first woman to occupy the post, and said the opposition parties will have to pay a price for it.

Addressing a public meeting in Agra, he said that the country has seen how the opposition leaders tried to disrespect Nirmala Sitharaman in the Lok Sabha when she was exposing their bundles of lies bit by bit, referring to the debate in the Lok Sabha on the Rafale deal.

“For the first time a woman has become Defence Minister of the country and for the first time the security of 115 crore countrymen is in the hands of a woman. That woman Defence Minister brought the opposition to its knees. Their lies were exposed. 

“They were left so baffled that they are now bent on insulting a woman Defence Minister. This is not just an insult to the Defence Minister but an insult to women and women power in the country. Such irresponsible leaders will have to pay a price for it,” Modi said.

Modi’s attack came in the context of Rahul Gandhi’s remarks at a public meeting in Jaipur where he took a dig at the Prime Minister saying he got a woman to defend him in Parliament on the matter of the Rafale deal while he ran away from it.

“We raised the questions on Rafale deal in the court of the public. We demanded Narendra Modi Ji to come forward to explain his stand on the Rafale deal and the Congress Party would give its viewpoint on the issue but you have seen that the Prime Minister, who claims to have a 56-inch chest, did not show courage to enter the Parliament on the day,” he said.

He said Sitharaman delivered a speech of two-and-a-half hours but all her arguments were thrown to the winds since she could not give a satisfactory reply to even a single question. 

Gandhi said the Prime Minister ran away from the court of the people and asked “Sitharamanji defend me, I will not be able to defend myself. You defend me. But she could not defend him in her two-and-a-half hour debate”.

BJP President Amit Shah too slammed Rahul Gandhi for his remarks and accused him of resorting to “misogyny”.

“Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s outstanding speech in Parliament has silenced the opposition. Unable to counter her on facts, they are resorting to misogyny. They owe an apology to India’s Nari Shakti,” he said in a tweet posting a video clip of Modi’s speech in Agra.

Nasheman News : Department of Revenue Intelligence sleuths seized 11.66 kg smuggled gold valued at about Rs 3.77 crore and arrested two persons at the Majhdia Railway Station in West Bengal near the Indo-Bangladesh border, a release said on Wednesday.

The seizures were made on January 7, after the DRI personnel received a specific information that a syndicate was active in smuggling huge quantity of foreign origin gold from Bangladesh into India and then sending it to different parts of India.

Accordingly, DRI sleuths laid out an elaborate plan and boarded the Gede-Ranaghat local train in the guise of ordinary people, scanned the passengers and successfully identified the two persons as carriers of the contraband.

The two were intercepted as they were deboarding the train at Majhdia, and a thorough search resulted in recovery and seizure of 100 biscuits of foreign-origin gold of 116.64 gm each, totally weighing 11.66 kgs valued at Rs. 3.77 crore concealed in specially tailored waist belts.

The arrested were produced before the judicial magistrate who remanded them in judicial custody.

With this seizure, in the current financial year, the DRI has seized about 395 kgs gold and gold jewellery valued close to Rs 123 crore in the region spread over West Bengal and the north-eastern states.

The seized gold is believed to have been smuggled from India’s land borders with Bangladesh, Myanmar, Nepal, Bhutan and China.

Nasheman News : Hours after re-joining office after nearly two-and-half months, CBI Director Alok Verma on Wednesday revoked most of the transfer orders issued by agency’s interim chief M. Nageswara Rao.

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) Director’s order came a day after the Supreme Court reinstated him as the agency’s head, though with limited powers.

On Tuesday, the Supreme Court reinstated Verma as the agency chief, setting aside the Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) and the Centre’s decision to divest him of his powers to function as its head but with a caveat that he will not take any policy decision till a high-level committee goes into the issue afresh.

While reinstating Verma, the top court also junked the Centre’s order appointing Rao as the interim Director.

According to a senior official, Verma can still file FIRs and sign on the transfer orders as Rao also discharged these duties after being orderd by the apex court not to take any major policy decision.

On October 24, Rao, after being appointed as the interim Director, transferred transferred 13 officials, including the agency’s Joint Director (Policy) A.K. Sharma, Deputy Inspectors General M.K. Sinha, Anish Prasad, K.R. Chaurasia, Tarun Gauba, Additional Superintendent of Police S.S. Gurm and Deputy Superintendents of Police A.K. Bassi and Ashwani Kumar.

Bassi and Sinha were investigating Verma’s deputy Rakesh Asthana, who the agency has accused of corruption. The Centre had relieved Asthana too of his duties on October 23.

According to an agency source, earlier in the day, Bassi and Ashwani Kumar met Verma at his office.

Verma was asked to proceed on leave on the night of October 23-24.

Verma after re-joining the office met several officials of the agency at its headquarters at south Delhi’s Lodhi Road and also reviewed the progress of various high profile cases.

The judgement was culmination of a six-month-long battle between Verma and Special Director Rakesh Asthana. Both levelled corruption allegations against each other. In October, matters came to a head when Verma lodged an FIR against Asthana on a complaint by Satish Sana Babu, the alleged middleman in meat exporter Moin Qureshi’s case.