BJP on Tuesday asked Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal to stay within his “limits” taking strong exception to the latter”s repeated barbs at the Prime Minister even as it accused the AAP chief of playing “politics over corpses”.
Describing Kejriwal as a “marketing and packaging expert”, BJP said he was using Modi as a shield to hide his shortcomings and failures as Chief Minister and that he did not have the status to advice the Prime Minister.
“He (Kejriwal) has stooped to the lowest level of politics by repeatedly dragging the Prime Minister in every other issue. He clearly cannot function within constitutional norms and have nothing substantial to show to people except presenting old initiatives as new,” Delhi BJP unit president Satish Upadhyay told reporters
Selfie’ couple Satish Apte and Lisa Kapadiya’s marriage made news, in January this year, for their 39-year age difference.
Recently, the 59-year-old Apte filed a missing complaint of his wife, who left his home on March 31 but never returned. As Apte manages to make into news yet again, iamin tries to find out the other side of the story.
In an exclusive interview, Lisa’s sister Monica reveals that she was physically harassed by Apte. “Lisa was blackmailed into marrying Apte. As soon as they got married, he started to assault her physically. Looking at her apathy, I decided to take her to my home. It all started when she was only 8-year-old. She was molested by Apte then and we had filed a complaint with the Ramnagar Police Station in Dombivali. She is presently very disturbed,” Monica said.
Monica is set to take her sister Lisa to the Naupada police station and file a complaint against Apte. “Apte had helped our family when we were financially unstable. He is just taking advantage of that fact. We will fight against this torture,” said Monica.
Meanwhile, Apte rubbished all these allegations.
New Delhi, Jul 22 (PTI) Gujarat police has opposed in the Supreme Court the anticipatory bail plea of Teesta Setalvad, saying the social activist and her husband “misappropriated” funds meant for charity for personal expenses ranging from wine, earbuds to expensive mobile phone besides tampering with evidence.
The state police in its affidavit said Setalvad and her husband Javed Anand as trustees of two trusts — Sabrang Trust and Citizen for Justice and Peace (CJP) — have by “diverse methods” allegedly “misappropriated the funds of charity and converted to their own use funds meant for the rehabilitation and welfare of the unfortunate victims of riots in Gujarat in Feb-March 2002,” including construction of “dream museum”.
It said the probe into the case of alleged embezzlement of funds for a museum at Gulbarg society, devastated in the 2002 riots, revealed that expenses of “very personal nature” have been debited by them under the head “Secular Education” or “Legal Aid Expenses”.
It said the probe is supported by evidence like vouchers having dates and amounts incurred on consumption of wine, whiskey and rum, purchase of movie CDs of Singham, Jodha Akbar and PAA, payment for several pairs of spectacles, wining and dining at some of the best restaurants and fast food outlets of Mumbai.
The crime branch said under the heading of “secular education” and “legal aid expenses”, the investigation revealed that Setalvad claimed reimbursment towards purchase of sanitary napkins in the name of medical expense and “surprisingly” her husband too claimed reimbursment for it.
Further, purchases of purely personal items like ear buds, wet wipes, nail clippers, ladies personal items, several books including romantic novels like Mills and Boons and Thrillers like Total Control, Blackberry phone and clothes were made from the funds of Sabrang Trust.
The affidavit said, interestingly the investigation which is based on “limited documents” submitted by the couple recently to the investigating officer, also throws light
New Delhi, Jul 22 (PTI) Digging in its heels, Government today rejected demand for a probe into charges against Union minister Sushma Swaraj and and two BJP chief ministers, contending they had not violated any law and sharpened its attack on Opposition for stalling Parliament.
As the issue rocked Parliament for the second day, Finance Minister Arun Jailey lashed out at the opposition saying it is “weak on arguments and strong on disturbance”.
He told reporters that External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj, whose resignation has been sought by the Congress-led opposition parties, had given her “elaborate reasoning” at the BJP parliamentary party meeting today and the party wanted her to give it before the country.
“But obviously opposition is weak on arguments and strong on disturbance,” he said, accusing Congress and other parties of not being interested in debate.
Swaraj and Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje are under attack for their links with Lalit Modi, the controversial former IPL Chairman who is being investigated by the Enforcement Directorate for alleged money laundering.
Madhya Prdesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan is facing the heat over Vyapam scam and death of nearly 40 persons linked to it.
Jaitley said that the opposition after demanding resignations of Swaraj and others today sought an investigation into the charges against them.
“Investigation is held when some provision of law is violated. Nobody has been able to point out despite our repeated requests as to which provision of law, as they allege, has been violated,” he said, hitting out at the opposition.
Reiterating the government’s wish for a debate on the issues being raised by the opposition, he said the whole country should get to know the facts of the case.
Calling on parties to allow Parliament to function, he said, “There are many important issues of public welfare. Some laws have to be passed. There should be debate over them.
New Delhi, Jul 22 (PTI) Ruling out any ’emergency or urgency’ in getting back USD 6.5 billion oil import dues from India, Iran today proposed that a part of this corpus can be invested in Indian projects there — assuaging concerns that an immediate payment outgo might hit India’s forex reserves.
Hopeful that a “settlement” can be reached on how to clear these dues, Iran has also proposed delegation-level visits and discussions to iron out the issues in this regard.
The assurance by Iranian Ambassador to India, Gholamreza Ansari, assumes significance as there were concerns that India might have to make immediate payments to clear these dues after lifting of the Western sanctions on Iran. The dues have been pending largely because of curbs on the banking and payment channels connecting Iran.
As per the estimates, more than half of the crude oil bill has remained uncleared in the past two years and has grown to more than USD 6.5 billion (over Rs 41,000 crore).
“We are neither in emergency or urgent situation. It depends on discussions between the two sides. We should exchange delegations between the two countries and discuss arrangements which they want to do business with each other,” Ansari told PTI in an interview here.
“Anyway, it will take a long time between Iran and India (to settle the dues) because we are good partners and may be part of this money can go to different projects, different purposes,” he said.
However, the envoy did not give the exact figure of the payments to be made by India and only said it was a “substantial” amount.
“In future…we will have some sort of settlement on what we want to do with the dues… We should find mechanism to settle it. How we want to use it, sell it or transfer it. It can be discussed between the two sides,” the envoy further said, indicating that there were many investment opportunities in Iran and part of the dues could be used there.
India has maintained a trade relation with Iran despite the sanctions, especially in terms of crude oil imports.
As per the industry estimates, India has been Iran’s second biggest oil customer after China. .
New Delhi, Jul 22 (PTI) Government has decided to update the National Population Register (NPR) and seed the Aadhaar number in the NPR database.
Minister of State for Home Haribhai Parathibhai Chaudhary told Rajya Sabha that the initiative would cost Rs 951.35 crore and the field work would be completed by March 2016.
“This updated NPR database along with Aadhaar number would become the mother database and can be used by various government departments for selection of beneficiaries under their respective schemes,” he said in reply to a written question.
There is no duplication of efforts as all the agencies namely Registrar General of Citizen Registration India, Ministry of Home Affairs, Unique Identification Authority of India, NITI Aayog, Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) Mission, Ministry of Finance and State/Union Territories Governments are working in close coordination for completion of the above exercise.
The National Population Register is a Register of usual residents of the country. The project is being implemented by the Registrar General and Census Commissioner of India.
The Unique Identification Authority of India is responsible for collecting the biometric and demographic data of residents, store them in a centralised database, and issue a 12-digit unique identify number called Aadhaar to each resident. It is considered the world’s largest national identification number project.
New Delhi, July 22 (PTI) Lok Sabha was repeatedly disrupted over Lalit Modi controversy on the first working day of the Monsoon session today with opposition members storming the Well with placards, ignoring Speaker Sumitra Mahajan’s warning of action.
Members of Congress and Left protested vociferously demanding ouster of External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje in connection with the row involving Lalit Modi, former IPL chairman.
Members of the RJD and NCP were also seen supporting the opposition demand.
The placards, carried by Congress members, read ‘Bade Modi meherban, to chhote Modi pehelwan’ (a Hindi idiom meaning that a small person is strong if supported by a powerful person) and ‘PM chuppi todo’ (PM, break your silence), Modi ji 56 inch dikhao, Sushma, Raje ko turant hatao (Show your 56 inch chest by removing Swaraj and Raje).
While Prime Minister Narendra Modi was not present in the House, Swaraj was sitting in the front row along with Home Minister Rajnath Singh and Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari.
Congress members were also sporting black badges on their arms to register their protests and continued wearing them and carrying placards despite Speaker’s warning against doing so.
Due to the uproar, the House was repeatedly adjourned.
MUMBAI: Heavy rain which lashed several parts of Mumbai city and suburbs since Tuesday morning came to a halt by early evening. The rainfall recorded between 8am to 2pm in Mumbai city area was 32.78mm, eastern Suburbs 62.61mm and western suburbs 65.39mm.
The rain led to waterlogging in several areas. Local train services and flights were also hit.
Siliguri, July 20: A Siliguri-based tea auction company today launched a catalogue with details of brew that would go under the hammer at the Siliguri Tea Auction Centre scheduled for July 22.
“This is the first time that we have come up with a printed catalogue containing details of tea that would be auctioned off by us. At the sale scheduled for July 22, we will auction off 1.71 lakh kg of tea from 64 gardens of the region (north Bengal). Details would be sent by each garden,” Rajiv Jain, a representative of Good Point Tea Private Limited, said. “Now, buyers will get catalogues before every auction.”
He said: “Most of the hard copies would be distributed among buyers. We will also put up the catalogue on our website. Prospective buyers can see tasting reports along with photographs of tea. We are putting scores on the basis of quality of dry leaf sample.”
Representatives of the auction company said tea brokers used to distribute samples and other details earlier.
The catalogue, which would be published every week, would have details like name of the gardens, total number of tea packages and type of brew from each estate. “We also have a feedback form at the end of the catalogue and we would urge buyers to share their opinion with us about the catalogue,” an official said.
P.O. Desai, chairman and managing director of Gujarat-based Wagh Bakri Group, a tea blending and packaging firm, said: “We appreciate the manner in which the company has planned to come out with a catalogue. It is good for buyers to have a clear idea of the quality of the tea.
ndslides prepared by the district administration, which had pegged the losses at Rs 27 crore. This, however, did not include the damage caused to infrastructure like roads and bridges.
“I held a meeting with BDOs (block development officers) and others and requested them to visit the areas where they had not gone and carry out a fresh survey and prepare an accurate report. It will be better if we (GTA and district administration) can co-ordinate…I will request them (the district administration) to prepare the report in co-operation with us,” he told journalists here.
In the July 1 landslides and rain, 33 people had died across the Darjeeling hills.
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