As the government increased the price of non-subsidised cooking gas by Rs 35.50 per cylinder in Delhi, the Congress on Tuesday said the Narendra Modi government is looting the people in the name of fuel by launching another assault on them.

“Modi government’s greed is making everyone’s budget bleed. LPG customers are suffering under the greedy Modi government. Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is cruel, they loot in the name of fuel,” said Congress spokesperson Randeep Singh Surjewala.

“Even as high petrol and diesel prices were singeing the budgets of common people, farmers and middle class, the Modi government again launched a midnight assault on the people by hiking the price of LPG cylinders.

“BJP government has already earned a humongous Rs 10 lakh crore in taxes on fuel prices,” the Congress leader said.

Surjewala said: “People are distressed due to price rise and their hard earned savings are being evapourated due to the greed of the Modi government. Why is BJP government profiteering from their savings and inflicting unbearable burden on their incomes?”

“The promise of ‘Acche Din’ has turned out to be the biggest hoax which Prime Minister Narendra Modi has played on the people of India. We demand that fuel prices must be brought under the GST ambit,” he added.

The price of non-subsidised LPG cooking gas will be hiked by Rs 35.50 per cylinder in New Delhi, and that of the subsidised one by a marginal Rs 1.76, effective August 1.

According to Indian Oil Corporation, the increase in prices of non-subsidised LPG cylinder is mainly due to changes in international prices and foreign exchange fluctuations.

Effectively, the price of subsidised cylinder will increase to Rs 498.02 per in August 2018 from Rs 496.26 per in July 2018.

A.K. Bose, a legislator from Tamil Nadu’s ruling AIADMK, died here on Thursday following a cardiac arrest, said party officials.

A three-time MLA, Bose, 69, has been unwell for the past couple of years. He had been elected from Thiruparankundram Assembly constituency.

Bose was admitted to a private hospital in Madurai on Wednesday evening and died early on Thursday. He is survived by his wife, two sons and two daughters.

The Thiruparankundram constituency will see a second by-election in two years.

In the 2016 elections, S.M. Seenivelu won the seat but he died before taking oath as a lawmaker. Bose then won the by-election.

Chief Minister K. Palaniswami and Deputy Chief Minister O. Panneerselvam have expressed their condolences to Bose’s family.

Following the death of Bose, AIADMK’s strength including the Speaker came down to 116 in the 234-member assembly. The DMK has 89 members.

After receiving assurance from the state government that an all-round development of the region will be taken in next 15 days, the Uttara Karnataka Pratyeka Rajya Horata Samiti (PRHS) and its affiliate organizations in 13 districts of the region has been withdrawn on Thursday.

Somashekhar Kottambri, president of the separate North Karnataka statehood agitation committee, informed that the bundh has been called off following the assurance received from the state government regarding the decision making several development projects for the betterment of this region.

Shankar Bidari, former DGP Karnataka Police, who hails from North Karnataka region, requested people not to get influenced by the caste, religion or talk of any political leader.

Bidari tweeted, “North Karnataka People of North Karnataka should not get influenced by the caste, religion or talk of any political leader. They should judge and support him, only if he has done something tangible for North Karnataka and believe the words of politicians with only One tongue.”

Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Thursday said a Bill to amend the SC/ST Atrocities Prevention Act, cleared by the Cabinet on Wednesday, will be introduced in Parliament in the ongoing session for consideration and passage.

“I don’t know why the members are raising this issue now. I think they are aware and they have the knowledge that the Union Cabinet under the chairmanship of Prime Minister Narendra Modi approved The Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Amendment Bill,” Rajnath Singh said in the Lok Sabha during Zero Hour.

He said the entire country knew that the Supreme Court had diluted the SC/ST Act through its ruling that a preliminary enquiry was required to arrest any person even under the SC/ST Act meant for preventing atrocities against those covered under the Act.

“The Prime Minister has said then if there is any dilution in the Act, we will bring a bill. And there is no if and but in it, he (Modi) had promised,” he said.

“We will introduce the Bill in this session of Parliament to make it a law.”

The Home Minister’s remarks come a day after the Union Cabinet decided to restore a provision of the SC/ST Act allowing the arrest of accused persons without a preliminary enquiry or prior approval that was recently struck down by the Supreme Court.

The preamble of the amendment says that the decision to arrest or not to arrest cannot be taken away from the investigating officer, a power given under the Criminal Procedure Code in which there is no provision for a preliminary enquiry.

Under the new provision, no preliminary enquiry will be required for registering FIRs against the accused and arrest of persons accused under the SC/ST Act and this will not require any approval. The provision of anticipatory bail shall not be available to the accused notwithstanding any court judgment.

External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj on Friday said that her ministry is framing a new law to tackle the problem in NRI marriages and providing for deterrent measures like confiscating the property of NRIs who have abandoned their wives.

At a seminar on “NRI marriages and trafficking of women and children”, she said that a new bill is likely to be taken up in the next session of Parliament.

“We are also developing a separate website where summons and warrants against NRI men who have abandoned their wives and have illegally married abroad will be uploaded. Those responding to it will be declared a proclaimed offender and his properties would be seized,” she added.

Sushma Swaraj said that under the new law the passport of the person will be canceled and the property will also be confiscated.

“And if he doesn’t return, his property could be sold to give financial aid to his aggrieved wife. We will have to make some amendments in the Code of Criminal Procedure. We are already in talks with Law and Home ministry and all efforts are being made to ensure that a law is in place by the end of this year,” she said.

In last three years, the MEA has received 3,328 complaints from Indian women who have been deserted by their NRI husbands.

“We are acting tough on such cases. For a start, the passports of eight NRI men accused of abandoning their wives have been canceled. The accused whose passports were revoked have surrendered,” Sushma Swaraj added.

Kolkata Police on Wednesday said it has already allowed Bharatiya Janata Party President Amit Shah’s rally to be held in the city on August 11, refuting the saffron outfit’s allegation that the permission process was being deliberately delayed.

“Some unwarranted speculation in social media about denial of permission to a political party on 11 August has come to our notice. It is to clarify that on request permission for a meeting has already been granted,” the city police department wrote on Twitter.

Shah’s rally will be held in a central Kolkata’s Mayo road on that day. A

Earlier in the day, Yuba Morcha (youth wing) of BJP’s Bengal unit, alleged that they have not received any official permission for Shah’s rally despite a formal application days ago.

Amid speculation over his proposed Kolkata rally, Shah has said he does not need the Bengal government’s permission to come to Kolkata and dared the state administration to arrest him.

“It does not matter whether I get permission or not, I will definitely go to Kolkata. If the state government wants, it can arrest me,” Shah said in Delhi.

This would be Shah’s second visit to Bengal within 45 days after he came here on a two-day visit on June 27 and met the families of BJP activists allegedly killed in post panchayat poll violence in the state’s Purulia district.

After meeting a host of opposition leaders during the day, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee met Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Wednesday evening.

Banerjee invited Kejriwal for the January 19 mega rally she has planned in Kolkata.

Earlier, Mamata Banerjee met UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi and leaders of several other parties and declared that her priority is to defeat BJP in the Lok Sabha elections next year and that the issue of prime ministership would be settled collectively later.

Banerjee met leaders of various parties including Shiv Sena, AIADMK, Samajwadi Party, TDP, YSCRP, DMK, RJD, Kerala Congress-Mani. She also called on JD-S leader and former Prime Minister H.D. Deve Gowda in Karnataka Bhavan and senior BJP leader L. K. Advani in his chamber in Parliament.

While Shiv Sena is a constituent of the BJP-led NDA, AIADMK is considered friendly towards it.

Banerjee met Congress leaders Ahmed Patel and Ghulam Nabi Azad, Samajwadi Party leader Ram Gopal Yadav, AIADMK leader M. Thambidurai, Kerala Congress-Mani leader Jose K. Mani, suspended BJP MP Kirti Azad, Shiv Sena member Sanjay Raut,’DMK’s Tiruchi Siva, Vijay Sai Reddy of YSRC Party, Misa Bharti and Jay Prakash Narayan Yadav of RJD. She also met TDP MPs and Jaya Bachchan.

Former Law Minister and Congress leader Ashwani Kumar also met Banerjee.