Mumbai: Opposition Congress on Wednesday demanded the resignation of Maharashtra Agriculture Minister Eknath Khadse for submitting “false information” to Centre on the number of farmers having killed themselves owing to unseasonal rains and hailstorm in the state.
“Between January and March, 622 farmers had committed suicide including 448 in Vidarbha region, which is the highest. The state government has not provided any relief to the farmers who have suffered crop loss due to unseasonal rains and hailstorm but provided false information to the Centre that only three farmers had committed suicide,” said the Leader of Opposition in the Legislative Assembly Radhakrishna Vikhe Patil.
Khadse had earlier this week said there were only three cases of suicides by farmers due to the natural disasters while the total number of farmers who committed suicide was 601 this year.
Demanding resignation of Khadse, who also holds portfolio of Relief and Rehabilitation, Vikhe Patil said the government only created a public perception that it is with farmers in their time of despair.
The BJP-led NDA government in Maharashtra has been facing flak for stating in a report to the Centre that only three farmers committed suicide in the state following the hailstorm and unseasonal rains in the last few weeks, with Congress and NCP slamming the government for being “insensitive” and “under-reporting” facts.
“Eleven days have passed since the Budget session of the state Legislature ended. However, there is no clarity yet on the promises made by government on floor of the House like bonus for paddy and cotton growers and FRP (fair and remunerative price) for sugarcane growers,” Vikhe Patil told reporters at a press conference here.
PTI
Chennai: Slamming the land acquisition bill as “draconian”, NDA constituent PMK Wednesday called for opposition unity to defeat it in the Rajya Sabha.
Party founder S Ramadoss said the amendments proposed by the central government were in “no way advantageous to the farmers”, and claimed that it would further add to their woes.
“The government is determined to pass this draconian bill in the face of stiff opposition. This is testimony to the central government’s anti-farmer position,” he said.
Ramadoss, who has been critical of the Centre on various issues, alleged that Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Finance Minister Arun Jaitley “with the intention to deceive the nation, are doing a false propaganda that it will help improve the lives of farmers”.
While Modi had stated that industries would come up in rural areas aimed at improving lives of the locals, “Jaitley is claiming” that it will usher in 30 crore jobs, he said.
“How can this be possible? The Prime Minister and Finance Minister who assure that the bill will bring spring in farmers’ lives have not given a roadmap to achieve this. This proves that they are hollow promises,” he said in a statement.
Ramadoss said that if Modi can assure that families of farmers parting with land would be given “jobs and shares” of the company, “then we can welcome his intentions”.
The government had recently stated that over 40 per cent of land acquired for Special Economic Zones had remained untilised for over five years, he said, adding these tracts of land could be used for building new industries.
If further land was acquired for industries they also may remain unutilised and the new bill would only help to acquire lands of farmers at very low costs and transfer them to corporates, “who will use them for real estate purposes and make crores of money,” he said.
“This seems to be the wish of the central government and corporates. They appear to achieve this purpose only,” he said, adding farmers would be severely affected if the bill was passed.
“Since the passing of the bill in Lok Sabha appears certain, the opposition should unite and ensure that the bill is defeated in the Rajya Sabha.
“Particularly the MPs of Tamil Nadu from AIADMK, DMK, Congress, Left and the nominated members should vote against the bill in Rajya Sabha,” he said.
All democratic efforts should be made to defeat the land bill if the NDA tried to pass it through a Joint Session of Parliament, he added.
PTI
New Delhi: International news channel Al Jazeera was today forced to go off air in India for five days as the government penalised it for repeatedly showing wrong maps of the country.
Al Jazeera today only showed a blank screen with a message saying that “as instructed by the ministry of Information and Broadcasting, this channel will not be available from 00.01 hours on 22nd April till 00.01 hours on 27th April 2015.”
Earlier in an order, the Information and Broadcasting Ministry had said that it had come to its notice that Al Jazeera had shown a wrong map of India in some of its broadcasts in 2013 and 2014, after which the matter was referred to Surveyor General of India (SGI).
The SGI had observed that in some of the maps displayed by Al Jazeera, “a portion of Indian territory of Jammu and Kashmir (i.e. PoK and Aksai Chin) has not been shown as a part of Indian territory.” The channel also did not show Lakshadweep and Andaman Islands in some of the maps, the SGI said.
The SGI also said that the maps were not in accordance with the Survey of India copyright map and is also against the National Map policy, 2005 and map restriction policy issued by Ministry of Defence from time to time. The Ministry of External Affairs also pointed out similar airing of a wrong map by the channel.
In their reply to a Show Cause Notice, Al Jazeera said that all maps that are displayed by them are generated by an internationally known software used by Global News Providers.
The channel also added that it takes Indian government’s concerns about maps very seriously and accordingly reviews all its India and Pakistan maps to ensure compatibility with recent official UN map.
As per the order of the Information and Broadcasting Ministry, the Inter Ministerial Committee which was also attended by representatives of the Ministry of External Affairs, after deliberations, held that the channel had clearly violated the provisions of the programme code and recommended to prohibit transmission or re-transmission of the channel throughout India for five days.
In a gruesome incident, a man allegedly hacked his wife to death today and walked to the police station at nearby Pollachi with the severed head, police said.
The accused, Chinnapparaj (49), was an agricultural labourer and he had frequent quarrels with his 40-year-old wife over her illicit relationship with a local man since the last few months, police said.
Despite her husband’s warning, the woman continued her relationship.
Chinnapparaj found his wife missing from the house last night and surmising that she was with her paramour, waited with a sickle, chased and killed her as she was returning home about 8.30 AM today, police said.
Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Wednesday accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of running a government for the “super rich” and slammed his government for the “inordinate urgency” for bringing the Land Acquisition Ordinance hurting the farmers.
Mr. Kejriwal launched a major political attack on Mr. Modi, the first after his landslide victory in the Delhi Assembly polls in February, at a farmers rally here, but the event was marred by the suicide of a farmer from Rajasthan, who hanged himself from a tree in front of the chief minister.
He alleged that the central government has “betrayed” the trust of the farmers on whose votes the BJP came to power.
“The farmers had reposed trust in Narendra Modi and voted him to power. Now they have lost their trust (in the government) within a year. They are coming out in thousands protesting against the land bill,” he said, addressing a modest gathering.
“Narendra Modi government is anti-farmer. It is a government of the super rich. The bill has been brought to favour the super rich who move 24 hours around Modi,” Mr. Kejriwal alleged.
He sought to know what was the urgency behind bringing the Ordinance which is an emergency power. “The whole country wants to know why was it brought — was there a project that was stalled? If there was no such thing, then what was the hurry?” the chief minister asked.
The Bihar Legislative Assembly today witnessed an unseemly fight between two women MLAs of rival JD(U) and BJP leaving everybody befuddled.
The fight broke out between Annu Shukla of ruling Janata Dal (United) and Bharatiya Janata Party’s Bhagirathi Devi during the Zero Hour.
Devi, third term MLA from Ramnagar (SC) got angry with Shukla, MLA from Lalganj in Vaishali district, for pointing her hand towards the former while she was raising the issue of non-payment of wage under MGNREGA scheme.
The BJP Legislator took objection to Shukla’s gesture and told her “haath is taraf kar lenge (I will bring your hand this side).”
This infuriated Shukla, who yelled at Devi in English “I will not accept this” and rushed into the well shouting at her. Devi also got agitated and tried to move towards Shukla in the well but Leader of Opposition Nand Kishore Yadav stopped her and asked her to be seated.
Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, who made a suo motu statement on payment of compensation to farmers who have suffered due to hailstorm in March, had left Assembly just minutes before the fight broke out.
He was in his Assembly chamber and inquired from colleagues as to what happened.
Taken by surprise at the duel, Speaker Uday Narayan Choudhary tried to pacify the agitated women but to no avail. Later, he adjourned the house till 2 PM.
The quarrel continued even after the House was adjourned.
While Shukla was walking towards the Speaker’s chamber, Devi stopped her and asked why she was behaving like that. Shukla after showing an unkind gesture went to the Speaker’s chamber to register her complaint.
Devi followed her to the Speaker’s chamber but was stopped by his staff requesting her to enter only after Shukla leaves.
Devi told reporters she would urge the Speaker to discipline Shukla or she would drag her to court
Defence PSU Garden Reach Shipbuilders and Engineers Ltd has bagged its biggest order of building three advanced stealth frigates for Rs 20,000 crore from the Indian Navy.
“This is the highest-ever order which GRSE has got. This shows how much trust the government and the Navy has on us. It is a big shot in the arm for us,” GRSE’s Chairman and Managing Director Rear Admiral A K Verma told reporters here today.
Under project P-17A, Mazagon Dock Ltd (MDL), Mumbai, will make four stealth frigates while the Kolkata shipyard will make three such frigates, all of which will be of the same design.
“Frigates are one-man army which can attack under water, surface level and also at air. It can also carry helicopters and has detection abilities as well. It will become the most potent weapon of the Indian Navy,” Verma said.
Once the final design is ready, the construction at GRSE will begin after three years and the first ship will be ready by 2023.
“The rest will come at one-year intervals and within ten years all the ships would be ready. We would be working in close collaboration with both the Navy as well as MDL,” the official said.
Commodore Ratnakar Ghosh, Director (shipbuilding), GRSE, said they are building a new modernised integrated modular construction unit which would be used for manufacturing the frigates.
“It is because of the modular construction that we can bring down the time of construction to five years. Traditional shipbuilding method takes much more time,” he said.
GRSE already has Goliath cranes and workshops with sliding roofs from where 200-tonne blocks can be lifted out.
Today’s match highlights
Toss: Kolkata Knight Riders won the toss and elected to field against Sunrisers Hyderabad.
It hasn’t been a happy homecoming for Hyderabad as the side has lost both its matches at Visakhapatnam, and would be looking to turn things around when they take on Kolkata in Wednesday’s first game. Another let-up at home could see them sliding further down in the points table and with majority of the teams having settled in on their combinations already, David Warner’s outfit is yet to figure out its best eleven with some overseas players not firing.
Hyderabad and Kolkata have had distinctly contrasting outings in the 2015 IPL so far. Both teams have played four games each with Hyderabad winning one and losing three, while following back-to-back victories, Kolkata have jumped to the third spot in the standings with three wins and a defeat.
Searing conditions in Visakhapatnam have meant sparsely filled stands and a pitch that has offered inconsistent turn and bounce, and after two defeats, Hyderabad would be hoping to break their duck in their home territory. For Kolkata though, things have begun falling in place after Andre Russell saw them home in a tense contest in Pune followed by a comfortable victory in Delhi.
Sunrisers Hyderabad:
The team has benefited in the bowling department upon the arrival of Dale Steyn, who was overlooked for the first two games for new arrival Trent Boult, and the form of Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Praveen Kumar has been encouraging, although they would want their premier spin bowler, Karn Sharma, to tidy up. Karn’s less-than-impressive displays thus far should have prompted a change, but his lower-order hitting against Delhi got his team to within five runs of their target.
The other worrying point has been Hyderabad’ fourth overseas player, with Eoin Morgan not being able to shrug off his poor form with the bat, and he had replaced Kane Williamson after the New Zealander’s twin failures. The management may opt for a swap yet again on Wednesday.
Kolkata Knight Riders:
After registering a comfortable win in the 2015 IPL opener, Kolkata were sluggish against Bangalore but returned to winning ways after Andre Russell’s heroics saved them from defeat against Punjab. The defending champions reeled off another victory in Delhi on Monday thanks to a clinical performance with the ball and there is no real reason for a change when they play Hyderabad.
Stat-Attack:
After enduring a horror start to last year’s IPL campaign where he scored 0, 0, 0 and 1 in his first four innings, Kolkata captain Gautam Gambhir has scored 57, 58, 11 and 60 in his first four innings this year.
Dale Steyn, Sunil Narine and Morne Morkel have the best economy rates in the tournament so far.
Quotes:
Kolkata captain Gautam Gambhir chooses to lead by example: “It’s very easy to get complacent but I assure you that till I am there (at the crease), I will not let them (his team) become complacent.”
Hyderabad batsman Shikhar Dhawan and his opening partner David Warner are not going to back off from any challenge: “We both look to go out in the middle with an attacking mindset. We are naturally aggressive and enjoy playing our shots. We complement each other and that has worked well for our team so far.”
Teams(from):
Kolkata Knight Riders: Gautam Gambhir(c), Robin Uthappa(wk), Manish Pandey, Suryakumar Yadav, Yusuf Pathan, Andre Russell, Johan Botha, Piyush Chawla, Sunil Narine, Morne Morkel, Kishan Cariappa, Vaibhav Rawal, Aditya Garhwal, Sheldon Jackson, Sumit Narwal, Brad Hogg, Azhar Mahmood, Kuldeep Yadav, Veer Pratap Singh, Ryan ten Doeschate, Pat Cummins, Umesh Yadav
Sunrisers Hyderabad: Shikhar Dhawan, David Warner(c), Kane Williamson, Lokesh Rahul, Naman Ojha(wk), Ravi Bopara, Ashish Reddy, Karn Sharma, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Praveen Kumar, Dale Steyn, Eoin Morgan, Ishant Sharma, Moises Henriques, Parvez Rasool, Ricky Bhui, Chama Milind, Kevin Pietersen, Bipul Sharma, Trent Boult, Hanuma Vihari, Prasanth Padmanabhan, Siddarth Kaul
Read more at: http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/ipl-8-sunrisers-hyderabad-vs-kolkata-knight-riders-live-score-match-19/1/431537.html
Ahmedabad: After edging out Rajasthan Royals in a nail-biting IPL game, Kings XI Punjab captain Virender Sehwag credited local boy Axar Patel and Australian allrounder Mitchell Johnson for the victory.
“It was a good game for us. Mitchell Johnson bowled and batted well, credit of the victory should go to Mitchell and Axar,” Sehwag told reporters after Kings XI Punjab defeated Rajasthan Royals in a pulsating ‘Super Over’ contest.
Chasing 192, Punjab spinner Axar Patel blasted a four of the last ball to take the game into a tie.
Shaun Marsh then cracked three boundaries to amass 15-2 in the Super Over, before Mitchell Johnson dismissed Shane Watson and later James Faulkner was run out as Rajasthan suffered to their first defeat following five straight wins.
“Today, luck favoured us but in next games, we will focus on good cricket rather than depending upon luck,” Sehwag said.
“Glenn Maxwell was in good form in previous IPL, but this time his form is concern for the team,” Sehwag said adding that he will soon come back to form.
Rajasthan’s Chris Morris, who bowled the super over, said the score of 192 was not easy to chase.
Morris said he was bowling in a Super over for the first time but he did not feel any pressure.
The South African pacer also praised Ajinkya Rahane, describing him as one of India’s best player, whose good form will help Rajasthan.
When asked whether they will try the bench-strength of the team, Morris said the decision will be finally taken by the team management, but all the players are doing pretty well in the nets and they can take the players, who have not played yet in next games.
PTI
Burdwan (WB): A Trinamool Congress worker was on Wednesday gunned down allegedly by a party member at Ketugram in West Bengal’s Burdwan district on the penultimate day of campaigning for the state-wide civic polls.
Police said the incident occurred this morning when the TMC worker Apel Sheikh, known to be close to the party’s Bibrhum district unit president Anubrata Mondal, was sitting in his shop at Kumorpur village.
A gang of about 10, including TMC member Zahid Sheikh, barged into the shop and sprayed bullets at him killing him on the spot.
District Superintendent of Police Kunal Agarwal said a large police contingent rushed to the spot but none was arrested as yet.
The killing is suspected to be a result of intra-party feud, he said, adding that investigation was on.
Civic polls in the state, seen as ‘semi finals’ to the Assembly polls scheduled next year, would be held on Saturday. The results, along with that of Kolkata civic board, would be announced on April 28.
PTI
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