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Siddaramaiah creates history: First Karnataka CM in 40 years to complete term

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Chief minister Siddaramaiah is all set to become the first Karnataka chief minister in 40 years of state politics to complete his full term in office.

Siddaramaiah who hails from Mysuru assumed charge as the chief minister in May 2013. Karnataka Assembly polls will be held on May 12, before Siddaramaiah-led government completes its full five-year term on May 28 as announced by the Election Commission.

After D Devraj Urs who ruled as chief minister between 1972-77, no other CM was able to complete a full five-year term. However, Urs during his next term had to resign after which he was succeeded by R Gundu Rao in the year 1980.

Though S M Krishna had provided a stable government between 1999 and 2004, he did not complete the full term as he decided to go to polls five months in advance.

Since 1978, Karnataka has seen 19 governments and had President’s rule imposed four times.

However, Siddaramaiah has proved to be a seasoned politician. Though he was known to be a ‘new convert to the Congress’ with a section of party loyalists becoming upset on his elevation, he ensured that they don’t gang up against him. He has wriggled out of difficult situations and carefully got rid of his adversaries or kept them in good terms.

His adversaries such as former ministers V Srinivas Prasad and A H Vishwanath quit the Congress, while party veterans such as B Janardhan Poojary and C K Jaffer Sharief who used to openly criticise his style of functioning were pacified. He managed to keep Dalit leader and Congress leader in Lok Sabha Mallikharjun Kharge in good terms by inducting his son Priyank Kharge into the Cabinet.

According to political analyst Harish Ramaswamy, Siddaramaiah had many challenges and despite that he managed to give good governance as well as keep it stable. Siddaramaiah has intelligently taken advantage of the lack of clarity in the Congress high command and emerged as a strong leader, he added.

Even in the Congress circles, leaders admit that Siddaramaiah was initially considered as a ‘liability’ for the party but has now turned a ‘saviour’.

Siddaramiah who was earlier in Janata Dal (Secular) was dismissed as deputy chief minister by the former Prime Minister HD Deve Gowda in mid-2005. He joined the Congress, which came as a shock to many. He won a very difficult by-election from Chamundeshwari in Mysuru and within three years was the leader of the opposition in the state Assembly in 2009.

He was selected to be the Karnataka CM in 2013, over party stalwart M Mallikarjuna Kharge in 2013. His rise in the party even though being an ‘outsider’ has not only raised eyebrows but also proves he is an astute politician.

Siddaramaiah in his first three years of governance earned the title of a ‘chief minister of bhagyas’ (gifts or rewards), as he launched a series of populist schemes. His populist schemes have been a major game-changer, and as revealed by data collected by C fore, schemes like Anna Bhagya and Ksheera Bhagya are some of the reasons why Congress is likely to regain power in the state. Indira Canteen, aimed at making Karnataka hunger-free, is another initiative that has won the hearts of the masses.

After the sudden death of his 38-year-old son Rakesh in Belgium in July 2016, many expected the CM to retire after the personal tragedy.

But, he proved people wrong. Once inaccessible to the media, Siddarmaiah suddenly became media savvy in the past two years. Opening accounts in Twitter and Facebook, he used social media to connect to people. Today, he has emerged as the most active chief minister on social media.

With bold decisions such as demanding primacy of Kannada and also separate religion tag for Lingayats, he has put BJP in a tough spot.

A tall leader among the masses, Siddaramaiah is seen as among the very few challengers in the Congress to BJP’s campaign of ‘Congress-mukt’ India. In south India, he is the lone Congress face standing guard against BJP’s efforts to make inroads into the southern belt.

Siddaramaiah is aware that the upcoming single-phase election which will be held on May 12 will be one of the toughest. However, in spite he wins or loses, he has already created history.

Cambridge Analytica scam: Whistleblower says group worked with Indian politicians

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Christopher Wylie, who blew the lid off the Facebook user personal data being illegally used for political purposes, on Wednesday said his former employer Cambridge Analytica had an Indian arm and conducted election research on behalf of some parties including the Janata Dal-United (JD-U), now a BJP ally, for “desired outcome”.

Wylie said SCL Group, the parent organisation of Cambridge Analytica, has its office headquartered in Indirapuram in Ghaziabad and its regional offices in Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Cuttack, Guwahati, Hyderabad, Indore, Kolkata, Patna and Pune.

“I’ve been getting a lot of requests from Indian journalists. So here are some of SCL’s past projects in India. To the most frequently asked question – yes, SCL/CA works in India and has offices there. This is what modern colonialism looks like,” Wylie tweeted.

He posted two pictures of what looks like slides of a pitch presentation of SCL India explaining its national experience in the country.

It said the company has a database of over 600 districts and seven lakh villages. But it didn’t identify the source of the database or whether it was collected from any social media sites.

“Our micro-level information includes household level demographics, specifically focussing on caste data, linked to online mapping applications.”

The SCL India, according to the tweeted document, helped clients to identify and target key groups within the population “to effectively influence their behaviour to realize a desired outcome”.

It explained that SCL provided its clients the research to develop and “disseminate the right messages from the right sources using the right communication channels”.

It said in 2011, SCL India undertook a state-wide research campaign to identify voter caste by household.

“This booth level polling data formed the basis of further research into swing voter motivation and supporter mobilization strategies which were presented to individual candidates and tailored to their constituencies.”

During the 2009 Lok Sabha elections, SCL India managed the campaign of a number of Lok Sabha candidates.

“The research and campaign teams employed SCL India’s proprietary data collection methodologies to form strategies that gave the clients successful election campaigns.”

In the 2010 Bihar electons, SCL India was asked to provide electoral research and strategy for the JD-U of Chief Minister Nitish Kumar.

“SCL undertook a behavioural research programme targeting over 75 per cent of households to assist the client in not only identifying the correct battlegrounds but also the right audiences, messages and, most importantly, the right castes to target with their campaigns.”

In the 2007 Uttar Pradesh polls, SCL India carried out a full political survey on behalf of a “major party” which the document didn’t name.

“The research included a party audit and a state-wide census of politically active individuals using in-depth interviews to assess the satisfaction levels of party workers at booth level.”

It said SCL India also carried out a psephological study and opinion polling for a “national party to identify swing voters”.

“This was followed by more in-depth analysis of the behavioural dynamics at work in key seats which in turn informed the party’s efforts to ensure a local structure and communication strategy that matched the caste make-up and attitudinal positions of the pre-identified swing population.”

The SCL India carried out research for a “major state party” in Rajasthan in 2003. Its other projects included psephological studies and behavioural polling in Delhi and Chhattisgarh.

The document also said the company undertook research communication campaign to support a trans-national programme four countering the non-desired behaviour of recruitment into and support of “violent jihadism”.

The project was conducted in Kerala, West Bengal, Assam, Bihar, Jharkhand and Uttar Pradesh in 2007. However, it didn’t say for whom the project was conducted.

Wylie, 28, was the Director of Research at Cambridge Analytica. He accused the data analytics firm having influenced the result of the United Kingdom’s 2016 Brexit referendum and of the 2016 American presidential election that brought Donald Trump to the White House.

Speaking to the British MPs on Tuesday, Wylie said Cambridge Analytica worked extensively in India and that he believed the Congress was its one of the clients.

Palestinian forces arrest dozens of Hamas supporters in West Bank

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At least 55 Hamas supporters arrested in aftermath of explosion that targeted PM convoy in Gaza Strip.

Dozens of Hamas supporters and activists have been detained in the West Bank over the past two weeks following an attack on the Palestinian Authority prime minister’s convoy in Gaza on March 13.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas accused Hamas for being behind the attack on Rami Hamdallah’s motorcade, calling it an “assassination attempt”.

Hamas denied the allegations and said it was launching an investigation to uncover who was behind the blast.

Almost two weeks after the attack, two suspects were killed in an operation carried out by Hamas security forces. They were identified as Anas Abu Khousa and Abdul Hadi al-Ashab, unaffiliated with any Palestinian political faction.

The attack and the subsequent recriminations marked a serious deterioration in relations between Hamas and the PA.

So far, at least 55 Palestinians have been arrested as part of crackdown by the Palestinian Authority on Hamas supporters.

‘Arrests must stop’
Hasan Khreisheh, a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council in the West Bank, told Al Jazeera that the arrest campaign by PA security forces is “incomprehensible and unjustified”.

“These arrests must be stopped in favour for a Palestinian united front to take a stance against the bigger issues at hand, such as US President Donald Trump’s decision to move his country’s embassy to Jerusalem,” Khreisheh said.

“If the PA is serious about confronting these real issues, then they should stop the arrests,” he continued. “In light of what the Palestinian cause is going through, political detention deepens unreasonable disputes.”

The MP said the PA leadership and other factions must intervene to stop the political arrests.

Strained relations
Fatah, the ruling party within the PA, and Hamas signed a reconciliation agreement in October 2017, ending a decade of division that saw two parallel governments operating in Gaza and the West Bank, respectively.

But the deal was never fully implemented due to differences within the two political factions, which are the largest in Palestinian politics.

Analysts said the attack on Hamdallah’s convoy was intended to put a strain on reconciliation efforts.

Abdelsattar Qassam, a Palestinian analyst and professor of political science at the an-Najah University in Nablus, accused the PA of practicing tyranny.

“Political arrests in the West Bank represents an assault on people’s freedom of expression and in the formation of public opinion,” he told Al Jazeera.

Qassem pointed out that the Palestinian reconciliation cannot take place under the Oslo agreement, which he considers the source of civil infighting and rivalry among the Palestinians.

“The reconciliation is a theatre play whose objective is to entertain and waste time,” he said.

“As Palestinians, the solution right now is to hold elections, as it is the only option capable of bringing in a new leadership that will deal with the Palestinian people in a new way.”

AL JAZEERA

Rahul Gandhi takes dig at BJP over media sting, says can’t hate those who hate him

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After a Cobrapost expose revealed that many media outlets were willing to run content showing opposition leaders like Rahul Gandhi in a negative light in exchange for money, the Congress chief, in an apparent dig at the BJP, on Wednesday said he could never hate those who hated him. Gandhi said for people peddling fake news was just business, asserting that hate is sold for a price. The Congress chief’s remarks come at a time when the Congress and BJP are engaged in a war of words over allegations that their respective apps were compromising personal user data to a third party without the users’ consent.

“I can never hate those who try to stir up hate against me, with fake stories and their cunning twisting of fact. For them it’s just business; hate sold for a price, as the Cobrapost expose shows,” Gandhi tweeted, tagging an Indian Express report with the headline “Sting: 17 media firms ready to push communal reports for cash”.

The Congress chief further said he was honoured in knowing the fact that some people made their livelihoods spinning lies about him. “I’m blessed and honoured that they make their livelihoods spinning lies about me,” he said. On Monday, Cobrapost released a series of sting operations and claimed that senior employees of 17 media outlets in the country had agreed to push polarising stories for money when they were approached by an undercover journalist.

The video of the sting operations purportedly showed that representatives of many of these media companies were willing to accept cash, and not raise a bill for that amount. Some of the major media outlets named in the sting operation include DNA, Dainik Jagran, Amar Ujala, India TV and ScoopWhoop. Journalist Pushp Sharma posed as Acharya Atal, who introduced himself in some of the meetings as belonging to an Ashram in Ujjain and in others as representing some Shrimad Bhagvad Gita Prachar Samiti.

In the videos of the sting operation, employees of the 17 media companies seem to agree to push a pitch “Acharya Atal’s soft Hindutva” agenda, and closer to the upcoming general elections, many of them are seen willing to run content that would have shown Opposition leaders Rahul Gandhi, Akhilesh Yadav, Mayawati in a negative light. Most of the media representatives the undercover journalist met were either owners of regional news outlets or worked as senior executives on the business-side of the media companies.

Minister Pramod Madhwaraj’s campaign vehicle seized for running without permit

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The district officials on Wednesday, March 28 seized district in-charge minister Pramod Madhwaraj’s campaign vehicle.
The team led by probationary IAS officer Poovitha seized the vehicle for using it for campaigning without permission.
The campaign vehicle has a party symbol and minister’s picture on it. It is alleged that the vehicle was used for campaigning ahead of Assembly polls without getting prior permission.

Confirming the news IAS officer Poovitha said, “Licence was issued until March 31. Since the model code of conduct came into effect soon after the Election Commission declared Karnataka election dates on March 27, they were supposed to renew the vehicle licence, which they did not. As per IPC section, for violation of model of conduct by exposing the vehicle to the public, the officials seized it. The driver and the party are at fault. Under Media Certification Monitoring Commitee, action has been taken by the officials and court will decide the further course of action.”
FIR registering process against Block Congress president and the committee is under process, she added.
The campaign vehicle had run into controversy over absence of Congress symbol and pictures of party leaders on the vehicle, stirring speculations of Madhwaraj joining the BJP. A picture of Pramod Madhwaraj was displayed prominently on it with the message: ‘The leader who walked the talk’. ‘My step towards development, let your step be with mine’ was also inscribed on the campaign vehicle. He was criticized for not reflecting any achievements of the government on the vehicle. However, Madhwaraj dismissed all speculations saying the video played inside the vehicle was all about Congress, and that his fans had arranged the vehicle.
Later, the Congress symbol was appeared alongside Madhwaraj’s picture.

Pakistan TV gets first transgender newscaster

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A Pakistani news channel has hired the country’s first transgender TV newsreader.

Marvia Malik, a journalism graduate who has also worked as a model, told the BBC Urdu she was moved to tears when she was offered the job.

She anchored her first show on private broadcaster Kohenoor TV on Friday, after three months of training. Transgenders face discrimination in Pakistan and many struggle to find work. Some are forced into begging, dancing or prostitution to earn money.

Malik told the BBC she had to stop herself from screaming with joy when she learnt she had got the job. “The dream that I saw for myself, I was able to climb on the first stair to achieving it,” she said.

Malik said she hoped her work would help improve the lives of Pakistan’s transgender community.

“Our community should be treated equally and there must not be any gender discrimination. We should be given equal rights and be considered ordinary citizens, (not as) third gender.”

The owner of Kohenoor, Junaid Ansari, told Voice Of America that Malik was selected on merit, not on gender issues.

Earlier this month, Pakistan’s Senate voted to support a bill protecting the rights of transgender people and allowing them to determine their own gender identity.

(Ians)

A mere Rs 1 cr for tribal scheme in 2016-17, Congress-ruled states ignored

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The allocation for a Centre-sponsored tribal welfare scheme launched in 2014 has come down to a mere Rs 1 crore ($154,000) in 2016-17 from Rs 200 crore in 2015-16 and Rs 100 crore in 2014-15, according to an RTI reply that also indicates that the lion’s share of the allocations went to BJP-ruled tribal states while Congress-ruled states were ignored.

The Vanbandhu Kalyan Yojana (VKY) was launched in 2014 by the Union Ministry of Tribal Affairs for the overall development of the country’s estimated 60 million tribal population, the indigenous people.

It was included as a Central Sector Scheme in the ministry’s annual plan with an initial allocation of Rs 100 crore for 2014-15.

However, the then Congress-ruled states of Meghalaya, Manipur (both predominantly tribal states), Congress-ruled Karnataka and Uttarakhand (which then had a Congress-led government) don’t feature in the list provided by the ministry.

Among the National Democratic Alliance (NDA)-ruled states that did not feature in the list are Goa, Haryana and Punjab (then ruled by SAD-BJP alliance). The last two don’t have any tribal population.

Andhra Pradesh received Rs 10 crore in 2014-15 and Rs 5 crore in 2015-16. Arunachal Pradesh got not even a penny in 2014-15 while in 2015-16 it got Rs 6 crore.

Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal received no funds under the scheme in 2014-15. However, in 2015-16, Tamil Nadu received Rs 7 crore, Uttar Pradesh Rs 2 crore and West Bengal Rs 2.45 crore.

Assam and Bihar too did not receive any amount in 2014-15, while in 2015-16, they got Rs 8.52 crore and Rs. 7.6 crore, respectively.

BJP-ruled states got the lion’s share under the Vanbandhu Kalyan Yojana. Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Rajasthan were allocated Rs 10 crore each in 2014-15.

In 2015-16, Chhattisgarh received Rs 13.84 crore, Gujarat got Rs 17.23 crore, Jharkhand Rs 13.44 crore, Madhya Pradesh Rs 19.09 crore, Maharashtra’s share was Rs 14 crore and Rajasthan got Rs 10.46 crore.

On the other hand, Himachal Pradesh was allocated Rs 10 crore in 2014-15 while it received a zero sum in 2015-16.

Jammu and Kashmir and Kerala too did not receive any amount in 2014-15. In 2015-16, J&K and Kerala got Rs 5 crore and Rs 3 crore lakh , respectively.

Odisha got Rs 10 crore in 2014-15 and Rs 16.50 crore in 2015-16.

Other northeastern states like Mizoram, Nagaland, Sikkim and Tripura — all of which have substantial tribal populations — received no funds in 2014-15. However, in 2015-16, Mizoram got Rs 4.95 crore, Nagaland received Rs 7.66 crore, Sikkim Rs 3.82 crore and Tripura Rs 6.13 crore.

Telangana, meanwhile, got Rs 10 crore in 2014-15 and in 2015-16, it was allocated Rs 42.7 crore.

Stressing that the Adivasis were in bad shape, Congress President Rahul Gandhi had attacked Prime Minister Narendra Modi before the Gujarat election last year and asked: “Where did the Rs 55,000 crore meant for the Vanbandhu scheme go?”

This was Gandhi’s 10th question as part of a Congress strategy wherein he would put one question daily to Modi ahead of the Gujarat Assembly polls. He had apparently got his figures wrong.

“Neglect left Adivasi society in tatters, Modiji, where did Rs 55,000 crore for the Vanbandhu scheme go?” Gandhi had asked.

(Ians)

Kerala Assembly adopts bill to hike salaries of MLAs

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The Kerala Assembly has passed a bill proposing to nearly double the salaries and allowances of ministers, MLAs, the Speaker, Deputy Speaker, Leader of Opposition, and chief whip with effect from April 1.

With the revision, the salaries and allowances of ministers and others would increase to Rs 90,500 from Rs 55,000 and that of MLAs from Rs 39,500 to Rs 70,000.

The bill suggesting revision of salaries and allowances was based on the recommendation of Justice (retd) J M James Commission.

The last revision was made in 2012.

“During the last five years, prices of all commodities, including petrol, diesel, electricity have increased manifold,” the bill, which was adopted yesterday, stated in its statement of Objects and Reasons.

As per the revision, the constituency allowances of ministers will go up from Rs 12,000 to Rs 40,000 per month and that of legislators, from Rs 12,000 per month to Rs 25,000.

The bill introduced a new provision for air travel allowance to MLAs for travel inside and outside the state, with a cap of Rs 50,000 per year for attending assembly committee meetings.

With regard to the financial implication of the revision, the bill stated that Kerala would incur an additional recurring expenditure of approximately Rs 5.25 crore per year.

A separate bill to increase the pension amount of former MLAs by Rs 1,000 was also adopted.

The maximum pension to which a member is eligible in the aggregate was fixed at Rs 50,000 per month from the existing Rs 35,000

US government installations receive suspicious packages

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Several US government installations near Washington, including three military sites, received suspicious packages in the mail, the FBI reported on Tuesday.

Besides the military installations at Fort McNair and the Anacostia-Bolling naval base, both in Washington, the headquarters of the CIA, Fort Belvoir and the Naval Surface Warfare Center — the latter three in Virginia — also received suspicious packages, Efe reported.

“The FBI responded to multiple government facilities today for the reports of suspicious packages,” the FBI said in a statement. “Each package was collected for further analysis by the FBI.”

The FBI also said that the packages had been determined to contain “potential destructive devices,” adding that they were apparently mailed from Seattle and announcing that one suspect has been arrested.

The man, identified as Thanh Cong Phan, 43, “was taken into custody by FBI Seattle and the Snohomish County Sheriff’s Office at his residence in Everett, Washington,” the bureau said.

Authorities warned, however, that it is possible that the suspect sent other package bombs that may not yet have arrived at their destinations, and so it is working with the US Postal Service to either locate such packages or rule out the possibility that they are in the mail.

Despite the fact that no official details have been released about the mailings, it is known that at least one of the objects, the one received at the National Defense University at Fort McNair, contained a black powder – which could be gunpowder – a fuse and a GPS device, although authorities rendered it harmless.

As a precaution, one of the buildings at the military installation, located in southern Washington, was evacuated, ABC News reported.

The sending of these packages comes at an especially delicate time, after Mark Anthony Conditt, 23, sowed terror for several weeks in and around Austin, Texas, by sending at least five package bombs to various locations, causing the deaths of two people and injuring five others.

Last Wednesday, as authorities were closing in to arrest him, Conditt detonated a bomb he had with him, killing himself.

(Ians)

Angry Russians protest over shopping mall fire

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Thousands of angry Russians took to the streets in the Siberian city of Kemerovo demanding a full investigation into a shopping mall fire that claimed the lives of 64 people — 41 of them children.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, who flew to the city to offer his condolences to the victims’ families, declared three days of national mourning beginning on Wednesday. He blamed the blaze on “criminal negligence” and promised that those responsible would be held accountable, Sputnik news agency reported.

Deputy Emergencies Minister Vladlen Aksyonov said that rescue workers recovered the bodies of all 64 victims and they were handed over to Russia’s Investigative Committee.

However, relatives said as many as 85 people were still missing, most of them children, according to Interfax news agency.

The deadly blaze swept through the four-storey Winter Cherry shopping mall on Sunday, the first weekend of school holidays, trapping many families who had gathered at a children’s play area and cinema hall there.

Russian investigators said the mall’s fire exits were blocked and a fire safety technician at the complex “switched off the alarm system” after being alerted about the fire.

The cause of the fire was not yet known, but Russia’s Investigative Committee spoke of “serious violations” at the shopping mall.

It said a criminal investigation into the cause of the fire had begun, although reports suggested that it could have been started by a child misusing a cigarette lighter or malfunctioning electrical wires.

A video released by Putin’s press office showed him laying roses at a makeshift memorial scattered with candles and toys. “What is happening here?”, Putin said after laying a wreath at the scene. “This is no battle or an unexpected methane outburst in a mine.”

“People, children came to relax. We are talking about demography and are losing so many people because of what? Because of criminal negligence, sloppiness,” he said.

Putin did not meet with demonstrators in Kemerovo, who had gathered in front of the local administration office to call for a full probe into the fire. They also demanded that officials be sacked over the fire safety shortcomings.

Members of the distraught crowd cast doubt on the official death toll and demanded that the Forensic Examiner’s Office verify the number, TASS news agency reported.

Footage from the scene showed riot police standing between protesters and the municipal building. “A lot of children died. They died because of irresponsibility of management,” said one protester Svetlana Shestakova.

The main slogans were “Truth!” and “Resign!” — directed at local officials. Dozens of people vowed to stay on the square until Kemerovo’s Governor Aman Tuleyev resigns.

However, Putin said “it was not right to apportion blame right away.” He added that officials at every level will be closely investigated.

Out of 64 bodies, 25 were identified which included 13 children. An official in the emergency services said that another 68 people were injured and poisoned with combustion products. Putin also visited the injured in Kemerovo’s regional hospital.

Meanwhile, the head of the city’s fire department Sergei Yakovlev said that the blaze had spread via flammable thermal insulation that complicated the process of extinguishing the inferno.

(Ians)

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