With one year complete of Modi Government the “Acche din Ayange” slogan yet remains to be a dream. The rural people opened bank accounts in huge numbers hoping that the Government would give them money as promised but a year gone by not a single penny has entered their accounts.
The suicide of poor farmers has not reduced in fact increased. The land bill to be passed by the Govt has been a big fiasco as it is blamed that it is completely in the favour of rich industrialist.

Modi in his latest foreign tour to all the countries has insulted India and Indians giving an impression that he carries a magic wand to wipe out the mess created by the past governments. Whatever India is today as it stands is a known fact is because of the previous governments.

All necessary commodities has seen a sharp rise of price, making the common the man difficult to manage his/ her household.

The business sector might look healthy but the businessmen have still crossed their fingers to see where it leads. Corruption to a certain extent has been controlled but petty bribes the police and government departments still exists.

The health sector has not witnessed any change and medical treatment for the common man seems to out of reach with expensive hospitals and nursing homes mushrooming all over India.

The education sector has not seen any developments with the education minister always being trapped in controversies with very less development. Her time seems to spent on protecting her statements on the media which she does so tactically.

The arrogance and attitude of the ministers are all out the media with violating rules to say that it is not applicable to V VIPs. The attitude shown during interviews of ministers exhibits their boisterous behavior.

Govind Ghimire
Editor

Bhubaneswar, May 21 (PTI) With the IMD forecasting heat wave-like situation across Odisha for a week, the state Special Relief Commissioner (SRC) today put all the district collectors on alert and asked them to monitor the situation on a daily basis.

“The SRC in urgent letters to all the 30 district collectors has asked to ensure that the existing guidelines to beat heat are followed sincerely,” Deputy SRC Pravat Ranjan Mohapatra said.

As per the instruction given to the district collectors, the SRC has asked them to ensure that no labourer is subjected to any kind of hard work between 11 am to 3.30 pm during the scorching heat.

The SRC also reminded the district collectors that all arrangements need to be readied in hospitals to treat heat wave affected. Besides, the SRC also told the district administration to ensure that the passenger buses plying during the day time need to carry drinking water.

“This apart, the SRC has also said in the letters that the district administration will ensure repair of all defunct tubewells and ensure smooth supply of drinking water through pipelines,” Mohapatra, said adding that charitable water distribution centres need to be opened in all the urban pockets.

Meanwhile, the IMD reiterated its forecast and issued a fresh release saying that heat wave conditions may prevail over some parts of interior Odisha and north coastal areas of the stare in the next 48 hours.

“The high temperature and heat wave conditions are due to dry and hot winds from north-west parts of India towards Odisha coast in addition to clear sky conditions here,” said Sarat Chandra Sahu, the Director of IMD, Bhubaneswar.

Cyclonic circulation over east-central Bay of Bengal and subsequent formation of low pressure there in 48 hours favoured the continuation of flow of dry and hot north-westerly winds through the Odisha coast, Sahu pointed out.

Meanwhile, normal life continued to remain affected as mercury level rose across the state. While two places of the state recorded 44 degrees Celsius yesterday, a total of 12 places experienced temperature above 40 degrees Celsius.

Patna, May 16 (PTI) Over 10,000 Home Guard personnel courted arrest across Bihar today as their indefinite strike continued for the seventh day, while the state government acted tough by registering an FIR against those who had blocked the bridge over the Ganga leading to the death of two patients.

Vaishali Superintendent of Police (SP) Chandrika Prasad said, “We have lodged an FIR at the Ganga Bridge police station against 150 Home Guards in connection with the blockade of Mahatma Gandhi Setu yesterday.”

Seventeen of the accused have been named while the rest are unnamed. The police said no family member of the patients, who died in yesterday’s ‘chakka jam’ while on their way to hospital, has come forward so far to lodge a complaint.

In today’s ‘jail bharo’ agitation the home guards on strike squatted on the main thoroughfares in district headquarters, blocking vehicular movement. In Patna over 3,000 of them demonstrated at R-Block roundabout before 450 of them courted arrest. In rest of the districts the number of those who courted arrest varied between 150 and 550.

The agitators in several districts marched on the roads and raised slogans regarding fulfilment of their demands including post-service benefits, a hike in their daily allowances and retirement age.

Home Guard Director General (DG) P N Rai said, “Altogether 10,213 Home Guards courted arrest across the state today as part of their on going strike. So far they have not approached us for talks.”

Rai added that additional men from various forces like Bihar Military Police, District Armed Police and Special Auxiliary Police have been roped in to discharge duties in place of the Home Guard personnel. .

Mumbai, May 21 (PTI) The US dollar ended cheaper against the rupee at 63.64/65 per dollar but the pound sterling finished higher at Rs 99.76/78 per pound at the close of the Interbank Foreign Exchange market today.

Following are the Interbank Forex and RBI rates:

(In Rs Per Unit) Unit Interbank RBI Reference US Dollar 63.64/65 US Dollar Rs. 63.7000 Pound Sterling 99.76/78 Euro Rs. 70.6688 Euro 70.93/95 Japanese Yen(100) 52.

New Delhi, May 21 (PTI) Amid a row over hardline Hurriyat leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani’s plea for passport, the Union Home Ministry today said the request will be processed on “merit” as the travel document is the “right of every Indian citizen”.

Sources said the Ministries of Home Affairs and External Affairs will take a decision on the issue in consultation with the Jammu and Kashmir only after Geelani visits the nearest passport office for biometrics.

Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar, meanwhile, said Geelani will have to write ‘Indian’ in the nationality column to apply for the passport.

“Passport is the right of every Indian citizen and is issued by the Ministry of External Affairs after following due process. In case any applicant applies for the passport, he should fulfill all the formalities before his case is processed. As and when the matter is referred to the Ministry of Home Affairs, we will process the case on merit,” a Home Ministry spokesperson said.

Jammu and Kashmir’s ruling coalition partners PDP and BJP are sharply divided over the Geelani passport issue.

PDP has said it would approach the Centre for giving passport to Geelani on “humanitarian” grounds while BJP has said he should not be given the travel document till he “apologises” for his anti-national activities.

Sources said Geelani and his family members want to travel to Jeddah and have applied for passports online.

But he has not yet visited the regional passport office in Srinagar to give his biometric data and clicking the photograph. As per the new rules, an applicant must visit the passport office in person to give biometric details and click the photograph.

Sources said after Geelani visits the passport office to complete the formalities, his application will be sent to the Ministries of Home and External Affairs for their comments as he falls in ‘prior security clearance’ category for issuing of a passport.

The Ministries, then, in consultation with the Jammu and Kashmir government, would take a final decision on granting the passport to him. .

Mumbai, May 21 (PTI) In a case smacking of religious discrimination, a young MBA graduate was declined employment in a diamond export company for being a Muslim, prompting the National Commission for Minorities to seek an explanation from the business house.

The alleged incident also drew criticism from the Centre’s BJP-led government, which said religious discrimination cannot be allowed.

Management graduate Zeshan Ali Khan had applied for an opening in the company on May 19 and, according to him, he received a response within 15 minutes which said they hired only non-Muslim candidates.

“Thanks for your application. We regret to inform you that we hire only non-Muslim candidates,” the company said in response to his application.

“I was looking for a job, I came to know about a recruitment drive taking place at Hare Krishna Exports Pvt LTD, one of the leading exports houses of the country. I thought it would be a wonderful opportunity to start my career with them.

“I applied for a job day before yesterday in the evening at 5:45 PM and within 15 minutes I get a reply from them that we regret to inform you, we don’t hire Muslims. We only hire non-Muslim candidates. I was quite shocked when I read about this, I took a screen shot of it and posted it on Facebook,” he said.

“At a time when Prime Minister Narendra Modi is visiting foreign countries and inviting them for investment and pushing ahead the ‘Make in India’ campaign, the leading export houses are rejecting candidates for their religion,” he said.

Even as his social media posts triggered an outrage against the company, it sent a regret mail to Khan, blaming a trainee in its HR team with no decision-making powers for the “blunder”.

“It was a blunder and personal mess created by one of our trainees who has no decision making power. We have 61 employees in our office here including one Muslim in the HR team,” Hari Krishna Exports Private Ltd said in the mail.

NCM chairperson Naseem Ahmed said, “We just received a petition this morning and as per our set procedure we will call for the comments of the respondent company and based on their response we will decide our course of action.

“If there is any truth in this, it is unfortunate. An inquiry should be conducted,” he said.

Reacting to the controversy, Minister of state for Minority Affairs Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi said, “A person’s caste, region or religion cannot be a demerit.

“Discrimination on the basis of religion is neither allowed by our system nor the Constitution. If there has been case in which he (Zeeshan) was denied or fired from the job only on the basis of his religion, then I feel its not right,” Naqvi said.

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Mumbai, May 20 (PTI) Veteran actress Shabana Azmi has expressed her disapproval over the Cannes Film Festival’s practice of only allowing women in heels at the gala.

The 64-year-old actress, who has attended the festival in the past and also served as a jury member, said she was shocked to read reports that women in flats were denied entry at the festival.

“Shocking report that Cannes bans flats on red carpet! Director of ‘Amy’, Asif Kapadia says his wife was given rough time too. Unacceptable surely,” Azmi posted on twitter.

Earlier Hollywood actress Emily Blunt had also criticised the Festival’s reported practice though festival director Thierry Fr?maux had denied that there was any such rule.

Mumbai, May 20 (PTI) State Bank of India today signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with e-commerce player Amazon to develop payment and commerce solutions for customers and small businesses.

“Amazon is a very large company in the digital commerce space. We have a very large group of customers who could benefit by getting connected with this platform. The idea of the MoU is that we can try and give customers a good experience in both buying and selling,” SBI Chairman Arundhati Bhattacharya told reporters here today.

She said the bank is working on ways to enrich customers’ payment experience and opening up the windows of e-commerce to its SME customers through this tie-up.

Amazon India Vice President and Country Manager Amit Agarwal said, “In SBI, we have a fantastic partner whom customers and businesses trust through long-standing relationships, sometimes over generations. Moreover, SBI shares Amazon’s philosophy of building customer trust and investing for the long term.”

The SBI, country’s largest lender, will also provide loans to SME customers who supply products to Amazon to help them increase their operations.

“Amazon has lot of SMEs who sell products on Amazon.

Their products are very good but they are not able to scale because they don’t have that kind of financing. Can we look at something like that to see how they can scale as we are into the business of financing,” Bhattacharya said.

The bank may also look at selling its financial products on Amazon in near future, she said, without giving further details.

She said the bank is open for similar kinds of tie-ups with other e-commerce players.

When asked about his views on media report about big retailers demanding level playing field in FDI norms as given to e-commerce players, Agarwal said, “There are many sellers on our platform which are offline players and are of different sizes. Our focus is how do we offer massive selection and great prices to consumers all over India and give them fast and reliable delivery.

“These kinds of innovations are only possible because of partnerships. So, I don’t even understand that question because I am giving ideas where offline sellers are thriving on our platforms.”

Bhattacharya said when a sector is growing there is a need for investment to help it grow.

“Therefore, that investment has to come from somewhere, whether it comes from outside or within India. But the fact of the matter is that investment has to be there,” she said.

Colombo, May 20 (PTI) Sri Lanka will begin next month its domestic probe into the alleged human rights violations during the final stages of decades-long war with the LTTE to meet the UN deadline, President Maithripala Sirisena said today.

“We will start the work of the local mechanism by next month,” he said.

The probe would be conducted in line with the local laws, Sirisena told reporters.

Sirisena said that his government would welcome UN Human Rights Council guidance on its own mechanism.

“The guilty would be dealt with local laws,” he said.

The Sirisena government, which unseated long-time strongman Mahinda Rajapaksa in the January polls, pledged a credible domestic mechanism rather than the UN rights body dictated international mechanism to investigate alleged war crimes committed by both government troops and the LTTE during the military conflict in 2009.

The new government is of the view that since Sri Lanka is not a signatory to the Rome statute on international jurisdiction to war crimes, the island would execute justice through its national independent judicial mechanism.

The former Rajapaksa regime was subjected to three successive UNHRC resolutions which called for an international investigation into rights violations.

Rajapaksa drew international condemnation over his refusal to investigate alleged military abuses. His government had refused to cooperate citing it as an attack on Sri Lanka’s sovereignty.

The UN, backed by the US, has been investigating possible war crimes during the conflict for more than a year. In February however, the UN postponed its resolution at the government’s request to allow more time for Sri Lanka to complete its own investigation.

Sirisena said it was mandatory for Sri Lanka to show progress by Septembe

New Delhi, May 20 (PTI) Many mountaineers have served with great distinction during Kargil conflict and they continue to defend country’s highest frontiers with courage and fortitude, President Pranab Mukherjee said here today.

Addressing golden jubilee celebrations of India’s first historic climb of Mt Everest in 1965, he hoped that Indian mountaineers will help in rebuilding lives of those affected by earthquake in Nepal.

“Over the years our mountaineers have distinguished themselves not only by scaling the highest peaks but also as brave soldiers of the gallant armed forces which have included the Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP).

“Many of them have served with great distinction during the Kargil conflict and continue to defend our highest frontiers with courage and with fortitude,” the President said.

In May 1999, India and Pakistan, in their most serious military engagement since 1971, clashed in Kargil area of Ladakh in Jammu and Kashmir after militants backed by Pakistan’s Northern Light Infantry occupied the mountain peaks of the region.

He said the majesty and the mystique of the mighty Himalayas have always had a special place in the hearts of the people of India.

“Only a few weeks back the Himalayan nation of Nepal was rocked by one of the most devastating earthquakes in the history of the region causing large scale damage to life and property of the people.

“I am certain that Indian mountaineers who have been enthusiastically going to the Himalayas for climbing, will use the same enthusiasm in the rebuilding of the lives of those affected by this great tragedy,” Mukherjee said.