Ghulam Nabi Azad (File)India Top News: Ghulam Nabi Azad’s exit from the Congress — two months after Kapil Sibal’s departure — is yet another blow to the G-23, some leaders of which are planning to force a contest in the Congress presidential elections. Sources said only a handful of his G-23 colleagues knew about his exit plan. Others were as shocked by the news as those in the Congress. Late in the evening, PTI quoted Azad as confirming that he will float a new party with a J&K-centric unit to start with. “I am in no hurry as of now to launch a national party but keeping in mind that elections are likely to be held in Jammu and Kashmir, I have decided to launch a unit there soon,” Azad told PTI.
A day after the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) wrote to Delhi Police Commissioner Sanjay Arora seeking cancellation of a show by comedian Munawar Faruqui in the national capital, scheduled for August 28, the licensing branch of the Delhi Police has rejected permission. This comes after the central district police sent the branch a report that “the show will affect communal harmony in the area”, it is learnt. When contacted, JCP (licensing branch) O P Mishra confirmed that permission had been rejected after receipt of a report by the local (central) district police.
FIFA has lifted the suspension imposed on the All India Football Federation (AIFF) earlier this month due to undue third-party influence, world soccer’s governing body said on Friday. Lifting of the suspension also means that the Under-17 women’s World Cup, which was scheduled to take place in India from Oct. 11-30, will be held in the country as planned. “The Bureau of the FIFA Council has decided to lift the suspension that was imposed on the All India Football Federation (AIFF) due to undue third-party influence,” the FIFA said in a statement.
While announcing September 15 as the last date for filing nominations/recommendations for the Padma Awards 2023, the government said the nominations will only be received online through https://awards.gov.in. In fact, the common portal has been developed to bring together all the awards of various government ministries, departments and agencies on one platform.
These include the Digital India awards, Jeevan Raksha Padak Series of Awards, the Nari Shakti Puraskar, Pandit Deendayal Upadhyaya Telecom Skill Excellence Award, Sardar Patel National Unity Award, Subhash Chandra Bose Aapda Prabandhan Puraskar and the National Awards for Institutions engaged in empowering persons with disabilities. (Read more)
Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Saturday said the Narendra Modi government took all efforts to strengthen probe agencies such as the NIA and anti-terror laws in line with its policy of zero tolerance towards terrorism.
The National Investigation Agency will have branches in all the states by May 2024, he said.
The home minister was speaking at the inauguration of the office building of the NIA’s Raipur branch in Atal Nagar area of Nava Raipur.
“The Modi government has adopted zero tolerance policy against Left Wing Extremism, terrorism and other related crimes including fake currency and narcotics, and therefore we left no stone unturned to strengthen the NIA,” he said. (Read more)
Amid speculation that Jharkhand’s ruling coalition’s 49 MLAs maybe moved to neighbouring states, three buses with the legislators were en-route to Khunti district as the suspense continued over the Election Commission of India’s order on Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren’s disqualification.
The move comes as an attempt to deflect poaching by the Opposition. Three Congress MLAs were recently arrested in West Bengal for allegedly planning to topple the government. (Read more)
Rahul Gandhi would be pursued to return as Congress President as there is none in the party other than him who has a pan-India appeal, veteran leader M Mallikarjun Kharge has said.
The Leader of Opposition in the Rajya Sabha said anyone aspiring to lead the party should be known throughout the country and enjoy support from Kanyakumari to Kashmir and West Bengal to Gujarat.
“He should be well-recognised, accepted man to the entire Congress party”, Kharge told PTI here on Friday. “So, no body is there (in the party with such a stature). (Read more)
Justice U U Lalit took oath as the 49th Chief Justice of India (CJI) on Saturday. President Droupadi Murmu administered the oath of office to Justice Lalit at the swearing-in ceremony held in the Durbar Hall of Rashtrapati Bhavan. The new CJI has a short tenure and will hold office till November 8, 2022. He succeeds Chief Justice N V Ramana who retired Friday.
Speaking at a farewell event organised by the Supreme Court Bar Association for Chief Justice Ramana, Justice Lalit laid out his priorities, saying he “will strive hard to make the process of listing cases as simple as transparent as possible”, make mentioning – where lawyers bring urgent matters to the notice of the court – easier, and strive to ensure that there is at least one Constitution bench functioning throughout the year. (Read more)
Chhattisgarh Chief Minister and senior Congress leader, Bhupesh Baghel, has apologised to the people over the “nuisance” and “disruption” caused by the Opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)’s protest in Raipur.
Thousands of BJP workers and leaders held a rally in Raipur last Wednesday to gherao CM Baghel’s residence in protest against the Congress government’s policies and “failures”, especially on the employment front. The protest was called by the state Bharatiya Janta Yuva Morcha (BJYM), the BJP’s youth wing, with BJYM national president Tejasvi Surya leading it. (Read More)
Twitter stonewalled queries Friday from the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Information Technology on the company’s data security practices, The Indian Express has learnt. In its deposition before the panel, Twitter was said to have been questioned on the allegations of its former senior executive. It is learnt to have said it did not have information on hiring of government agents.
The company was said to have been questioned by the panel — headed by Congress MP Shashi Tharoor — on the number of its employees with direct access to user data, and whether it had employed people who were previously associated with the Indian government. The panel had summoned Twitter for a hearing on the subject of “Citizens’ Data Security and Privacy” after Peiter ‘Mudge’ Zatko, former head of safety at the company who is said to have been personally hired by former CEO Jack Dorsey, alleged that the government forced the social media company to hire one or more individuals who were government agents and had unsupervised access to vast amounts of the platform’s user data. (Read More)
The Goa Police on Saturday detained a suspected peddler who had allegedly supplied drugs to the two accused arrested in the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Sonali Phogat murder case, a senior officer said.
The suspected drug peddler, Dattaprasad Gaonkar, was detained from Anjuna after the accused duo "confessed" in their statement that they had procured drugs from him, the officer said.
Goa Police had arrested Sudhir Sagwan and Sukhwinder Singh accompanying Phogat, a popular TikTok star who hailed from Haryana, to Goa. (PTI)
Amid criticism that he has become a puppet of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), Karnataka chief minister Basavaraj Bommai on Friday said that he was proud to associate with the RSS on account of the value system associated with the organisation.
“I proudly associate myself with the RSS on account of its principles and patriotism. There is no doubt about it,” Bommai said on the sidelines of a government event in the Tumakuru region of the state on Friday. He was reacting to criticism by the Opposition Congress that he had become a puppet of the RSS in his role as the chief minister of Karnataka.
The Karnataka CM does not have origins in the RSS and joined the BJP only in 2008 after being associated with socialist movements and the Janata Dal party like his father, the former chief minister of Karnataka S R Bommai. (Read More)
Three men were apprehended from Delhi's Rohini early on Saturday after they allegedly slaughtered a bull and opened fire at a police team at Prem Nagar, police said.
The arrested have been identified as Aman ur Rehman (22), Usman (22), and Aeti Alam Shah (19).
Police with the North Rohini station said that they had received information that a few people would come to Bhagya Vihar in Rohini's Prem Nagar, and slaughter a cow after sedating it. A team was then sent to the area and found three people slaughtering a bull around 2.30 am near the Chhath Puja Park in Bhagya Vihar. By then the animal had already been partially butchered, with the limbs and head removed, police said. (Read More)
With 9,520 new COVID-19 cases being reported in a day, India's tally of infections has gone up to 4,43,98,696, while the count of active cases has declined to 87,311, according to Union Health Ministry data updated on Saturday.
The death toll due to the disease has climbed to 5,27,597, with 41 new fatalities being reported, including four deaths reconciled by Kerala, the data updated at 8 am showed.
The tally of active cases now comprises 0.20 per cent of the total infections, while the national COVID-19 recovery rate has increased to 98.62 per cent, the health ministry said. (PTI)
Sadiqa Shirazi knew what the Taliban thought about her journalism well before their takeover of Afghanistan. From 2008, as Shirazi, then running a TV and radio station in Kunduz, focussed on stories about domestic violence, women’s rights and their education, she and her husband started getting death threats. In 2015, during the five brief days that Taliban entered Kunduz, her television and radio station was destroyed, and stripped of all equipment.
Shirazi, who had fled to the Afghanistan capital at the time, decided to fight back. With funding help from donors, and a mostly women team of 15, she restarted Roshani radio, broadcasting programmes from 6 am to 2 am, including live Q&As with listeners. (Read More)
FIFA has lifted the suspension imposed on the All India Football Federation (AIFF) earlier this month due to undue third-party influence, world soccer’s governing body said on Friday.
Lifting of the suspension also means that the Under-17 women’s World Cup, which was scheduled to take place in India from Oct. 11-30, will be held in the country as planned.
“The Bureau of the FIFA Council has decided to lift the suspension that was imposed on the All India Football Federation (AIFF) due to undue third-party influence,” the FIFA said in a statement. (Read More)
Experts at the country’s first Air Sensors International Conference (ASIC-India), organised as part of the India Clean Air Summit 2022 (ICAS 2022) on Friday, looked at how low-cost sensor technology could augment India’s critically low air quality monitoring systems.
Inaugurating ASIC-India, Dr Pratima Singh, who leads the Centre for Air Pollution Studies (CAPS) at the Centre for Study of Science, Technology and Policy (CSTEP), highlighted the critical shortage of air quality monitoring stations in India, which, in turn, has resulted in a dearth of information on air pollution levels in the country. (Read more)
AIDS Society of India (ASI) has urged National AIDS Control Organisation (NACO) that comes under the Union Health Ministry and Family Welfare to resume the supply of HIV medicines at every centre and ensure a minimum of one-month dispensation of medicines to those stable on the therapy.
The plea has been made in the wake of the indefinite protest being staged by a group of HIV-positive persons outside NACO offices for the past 36 days (as on August 25) demanding to replenish the acute shortage of certain life-saving drugs.
Ever since the first HIV clinic was opened by ASI co-founder and president Dr Ishwar Gilada when the first case was diagnosed in India in 1986, India has come a long way in reducing the number of new HIV infections, as well as scaling up lifesaving (and lifelong) antiretroviral therapy to almost 16 lakh people. (Read more)
Early on Friday morning, the road outside the Supertech twin towers was empty save for guards and barricades. Soon, workers began to arrive to carry out the final preparations before the buildings are brought down on Sunday afternoon. As the morning wore on, curious onlookers arrived to see the towers while residents of the adjoining Supertech Emerald, who will temporarily evacuate on the day of the demolition, walked their pets.
The towers will be demolished at 2.30 pm via a controlled “implosion” by Mumbai-based Edifice Engineering and South-African company Jet Demolitions. Some workers said they have worked on large demolitions previously, but none on the scale of Supertech one.
Samshad Khan, an electrician, said he has worked on large-scale demolitions in Hyderabad and Kerala. “I handle electrical supply for board cutters, lifts, winches and other such equipment.” He added that Supertech was not very different from projects he had handled in the past. (Read more)
Stating that the pendency of cases is a challenge before the judiciary, outgoing Chief Justice of India N V Ramana on Friday rued that he “could not pay requisite attention to” the vexed issue of the listing of cases.
“I must admit that listing of issues and posting is one of the areas on which I could not pay requisite attention. I am sorry for that”, the CJI, who is set to retire Friday, said presiding over a ceremonial bench in his court.
Explaining the reasons, he said, “We are busy in fire fighting on all the days. On a day-to-day basis, we work. All sides are equally contributors to this problem”. (Read more)
Calling the CBI FIR filed against him completely “fake and fabricated”, Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia said on Friday that the “BJP is acting like a serial killer to topple state governments”.
Sisodia made the remarks at the one-day special session of the Delhi Assembly called by the ruling Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on Friday amid a political slugfest between the AAP and BJP, with the former accusing the latter of trying to lure its MLAs to switch sides and the latter questioning the Arvind Kejriwal government’s excise policy. (Read more)
Goa Police on Friday arrested Sudhir Sangvan and Sukhwinder Singh on charges of allegedly committing the murder of Haryana BJP leader and actor Sonali Phogat (42) and said that the accused “intentionally gave the victim an obnoxious chemical substance in a liquid” hours before she died on the morning of August 23. While Sangvan was Phogat’s personal assistant, Singh is his aide.
Inspector General of Police Omvir Singh Bishnoi said Friday, “Based on witness statements, CCTV footage from the club, it was seen that Sudhir and Sukhwinder partied with the deceased, and videos show that a substance was forcefully given to the victim by one of the accused. When confronted with this, Singh and Sangvan confessed to the police that they intentionally gave the victim an obnoxious chemical in a liquid and made her drink it. Then she lost control and she was looked after (by the accused). Another shot shows she was given something in a liquid.” (Read more)
The Supreme Court Friday dismissed an appeal challenging the Allahabad High Court judgment that had upheld the Uttar Pradesh government’s refusal to allow sanction to prosecute Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath in a 2007 inflammatory speech case. The Court, however, left open the legal question arising out of the denial of sanction to be decided in the appropriate case.
It was two months after Adityanath became CM for the first time in 2017 that the UP government informed the High Court that it had refused sanction for prosecuting him and others booked in the case.
The High Court bench was hearing a petition filed by Parvez Parvaz and Asad Hayat, challenging the government’s refusal of sanction and seeking that the probe be handed over to an independent agency like the CBI. They said that the state police’s CB-CID was “deliberately delaying and impeding the investigation”. (Read more)
A shocked Congress questioned the timing of veteran leader Ghulam Nabi Azad’s resignation on Friday but did not comment on the contents of the letter.
“We have read the letter of very senior, veteran Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad that has been released to the media. It is most unfortunate, and most regrettable that this has happened when Congress President Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi and the entire Congress party organisation across the country is engaged in confronting, combating and fighting the BJP on public issues of price rise, unemployment and polarisation,” All India Congress Committee (AICC) General Secretary in charge of communication Jairam Ramesh said. (Read More)
The Supreme Court on Friday directed that its 2013 judgment by a two-judge bench in the case S Subramaniam Balaji vs State of TN that held that the “state distributing largesse in the form of distribution of colour TVs, laptops, etc. to eligible and deserving persons is directly related to the directive principles of the State policy” be listed before a three-judge bench for a relook.
Taking up petitions demanding a ban on freebies, a three-judge bench presided by Chief Justice of India N V Ramana said “looking at the complexity of the issues involved, and the prayer to overrule the judgement rendered by two-judge bench of this court in S Subramaniam Balaji, we direct listing of this set of petitions before a three-judge bench after obtaining the order from the Hon’ble Chief Justice”.
The court had earlier hinted at setting up a committee to go into the issue and make recommendations. (Read More)
Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) MLA Awadh Bihari Choudhary from Siwan is all set to become the new Bihar Assembly Speaker on Friday. The 75-year-old former minister, who has had a stint in the Janata Dal (United) too, is one of the most experienced legislators in the House. He succeeds Vijay Kumar Sinha who stepped down from the post on Wednesday and is now the Leader of the Opposition in the Assembly.
Choudhary was chosen not just because of his experience but also because he belongs to the Yadav community, which is categorised as an Other Backward Class (OBC). At the time of the chief ministerships of Lalu Prasad and Rabri Devi, Choudhary was the face of the “Y (Yadav)” component of the RJD’s Muslim-Yadav, or MY, core constituency in Siwan while the late MP Mohammed Shahabuddin was the party’s biggest Muslim face in the region. Choudhary served as the public health and engineering department minister from 1995 to 2000 and was the rural development minister between 2000 and 2005.
A science graduate, Choudhary started his electoral innings from Siwan in 1985 as a Janata Party candidate. He retained the seat in the 1990 and 1995 polls for the Janata Dal and as an RJD candidate in the 2000 and 2005 February polls. He, however, lost to the BJP’s Vyas Deo Prasad in the October 2005 election. Prasad retained the seat in 2010 too while Choudhary switched over to the JD(U). With the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) dominating state politics, Prasad retained Siwan in the 2015 elections too. After 2015, Choudhary returned to the RJD fold and five years later he won again from Siwan. (Read More)
Ghulam Nabi Azad resigned from all positions in Congress, and he said he does so with a heavy heart. (PTI)
The prison administration on Thursday night shifted alleged conman Sukesh Chandrashekhar and his wife Leena Poulose from Tihar jail to Mandoli jail, DG (prisons) Sandeep Goel said. Hours later, the prison administration decided to reshuffle the staffers at Mandoli jail and are sending around 20 staffers from Tihar jail to replace them, sources said.
The jail administration shifted the duo days after the Supreme Court’s direction in this regard. A bench of Justices S Ravindra Bhat and Sudhanshu Dhulia had ordered the same on a plea by Chandrashekhar who had approached the court citing a threat to life. The court, however, refused to accede to his request to be transferred to a prison outside Delhi. The bench took into consideration an affidavit filed by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) which opposed his request saying that it was “only to carry out his nefarious activities from there as he was finding it difficult to carry out the same from Tihar”.
Sources said Chandrashekhar has been lodged in cell no. 1 of jail no. 14 in Mandoli and the jail administration has removed all the inmates from his cell to another. His wife Leena has been lodged in jail no. 16. “Cell no. 1 is covered by CCTV cameras with a 360-degree view and we have also removed all dreaded criminals from his cell, so no one creates any problem for him. We are also deploying the jail staff, those who have a commendable track record, to monitor him,” jail sources said, adding that all the jail staffers have been directed to maintain distance from Chandrashekhar and not to fall into his trap if he lures them with offers. (Read More)
Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Friday told his Assam counterpart Himanta Biswa Sarma that they both should learn from each and as “only then will India become number one country.” Kejriwal’s response came after Sarma lashed out at him over the amalgamation of schools, asking him to “do his homework” before commenting.
Sharing a news item claiming that the Assam government closed 34 schools due to poor results, Kejriwal had tweeted, “Instead of closing schools there was a need for improvement in their conditions and studies.”
Upset with this, Sarma tweeted, “Dear @ArvindKejriwal Ji-as usual you commented on something without any homework! Since my days as Education Minister till now, please note, the Assam government has established/taken over 8,610 new schools.” (Read More)
The Delhi government’s Food Safety Department on Thursday visited the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) campus and issued show cause notice to 5 hostel messes after an inspection.
According to an official, a team of six food safety officers collected samples of food items from various hostel messes and sent it for inspection.
Ranjit Singh, Designated Officer with the Food Safety department, said that during the inspection it was found that a number of hostel messes did not have a license and hostel mess no. 7 showed the license of hostel mess no. 12. (Read More)
Police in Texas on Thursday arrested a person after a video of her assaulting a group of four Indian-American women surfaced and went viral in which she is abusing them and asking them to go back to India.
The incident took place on Wednesday night in a parking lot of Dallas, Texas. The woman, who has now been arrested, is seen in the video identifying herself as a Mexican-American and assaulting a group of Indian Americans.
“I hate you Indian. All these Indians come to America because they want a better life,” the woman is seen saying in the video, while repeatedly dropping the f-bomb. (PTI)
On his final day as Chief Justice of India before retirement, N V Ramana on Friday is set to deliver judgments in five cases — the PIL seeking a ban on ‘election freebies’, the 2007 Gorakhpur riots case, the Karnataka mining case, the Rajasthan mining lease issue and the liquidation regulations under the bankruptcy law. For the first time in the Supreme Court, the proceedings of the ceremonial bench in Ramana’s court will be live streamed. On the last working day, CJI Ramana will share the bench with CJI-designate Justice UU Lalit & Justice Hima Kohli at 10.30 am, ANI reported.
The Southwest monsoon is likely to enter its withdrawal phase in the first week of September, nearly a fortnight ahead of the normal date, the weather office said on Thursday.
The normal date for withdrawal of the southwest monsoon is September 17. However, the actual withdrawal of the southwest monsoon usually happens either earlier or later given the dynamic nature of the weather systems.
“Conditions are likely to become favourable for the commencement of withdrawal of southwest monsoon from some parts of northwest India during the week beginning September 1,” the India Meteorological Department (IMD) said in the extended range forecast released on Thursday. (PTI)
In view of the demolition of the Supertech twin towers located in Noida Sector 93A on August 28, Noida Traffic Police Thursday issued a traffic advisory/diversion plan to ensure smooth movement of traffic and for the safety of the general public.
A press statement issued by Noida police states, “… During the demolition of the above two towers, for the safety of the general public and smooth traffic arrangements, the Traffic Police Commissionerate Gautam Budh Nagar will arrange for contingency road with parking for reporting/reporting restrictions on some routes. (Read More)