Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday launched road and underground sewerage system projects developed at an investment of Rs 1,100 crore in Solapur.
At a public rally there, Modi launched the four-laning of Solapur-Osmanabad section of NH-211, underground sewerage system and three sewage treatment plants.
Modi also laid the foundation stone for a Rs 1811 crore housing project of 30,000 units under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana.
Modi commissioned the four-laned 98.717 km Solapur- Tuljapur-Osmanabad section on NH-211 (New NH-52). The Rs 972.50-crore toll road project will improve connectivity between Solapur and the Marathwada region.
The housing project will benefit the homeless poor like rag pickers, rickshaw pullers, textile and beedi workers. It involves an investment of Rs 1811.33 crore, of which Rs 750 crore will be provided by the Centre and the state as assistance.
Modi laid the foundation stone for the Rs 244 crore water supply and sewerage system as part of area-based development in the Solapur smart city area.
This project, developed under the smart city mission, is expected to bring about significant improvements in service delivery.
During his last visit to Solapur in August 2014, Modi had laid the foundation stone for the four-laning of the Maharashtra-Karnataka border section of NH 9.
He had also commissioned the 765-kV Solapur-Raichur power transmission line then.
After a major blow that BJP received recently in the Hindi heartland states – Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, and Chhattisgarh during the elections in December, it runs across as Yoga Guru Baba Ramdev, who was a staunch BJP supporter is likely to shift his loyalties towards the opposition, looking at the change in the political scenario ahead of the elections this year.
The politician and the co-founder of a billion-dollar consumer products business, Baba Ramdev’s support was considered to be a crucial role for the BJP in the previous election. However, just before the 2014 elections, he made a series of public remarks backing Modi as the man to lead India. Nonetheless, it was just the beginning of a multi-pronged campaign by Ramdev in support of Modi. According to the reports, a communications firm called Social Revolution Media and Research Pvt Ltd were started by two directors from companies under the Patanjali umbrella. It held weekly meetings with the BJP’s information technology division to coordinate messages on Twitter and other social media platforms.
Apart from that, the members of Ramdev’s organisation described how hundreds of thousands of volunteers spread out to mobilise votes for Modi to win with a mandate in 2014. Narendra Shastri, a yoga teacher with a Patanjali trust and one of the volunteers had said that he worked from dawn to dark, ringing doorbells and handing out pamphlets backing Modi’s party. Two days after the election results were announced in 2014, a pair of senior BJP leaders attended a stadium event in New Delhi to thank Ramdev and his volunteers. Both had signed the pledges as shown in Ramdev’s video released earlier in that year.
BJP MP Sharad Bansode commented, “Ramdev was never anti-BJP. He is always in support of the party. Whatever statements he is giving doesn’t necessarily mean that he has gone against the saffron party. Even if he passes a statement supporting Rahul Gandhi, that does not mean he is in support of Congress.”
In June 2018, BJP President Amit Shah met Baba Ramdev as a part of his ‘Sampark Abhiyan’ to seek his help for the 2019 general election. While Shah assured his full support to Ramdev in all his Swadeshi projects and formation of the proposed Vedic Education Board, the latter by way of reciprocal gesture left no one in doubt that he and his followers would go all-out in lending support to Shah’s party at the upcoming hustings. However, a few months after the meeting, Patanjali owner Baba Ramdev said that he would not support any person or oppose any party in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. Expressing his views on this, Baba Ramdev said, “I am an apolitical person, I am not bound by political limitations, Mother India is my first priority and my work is my religion. So, my only focus is that.” However, it is believed that this shift is also in retaliation to the change in the political scenario as BJP faced a drawback in Karnataka and Gujarat elections. However, he had also said in an interview that he won’t be campaigning for the BJP for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections.
NCP spokesperson Nawab Malik stated, “There was a time when Ramdev used to claim himself to be independent and that he maintains good relations with all the parties. But now, it seems he has understood that the change of power is near at hand and changing his allegiance just as Mohan Bhagwat is doing.”
Later, Ramdev also challenged Modi government that it may prove to be costly in the next general elections if the price hike was not controlled. Former Rajya Sabha member and academician Bhalchandra Mungerkar expressed, “It’s evident that Ramdev has understood that Modi has failed to keep his promises made in 2014. Ramdev giving statements in favour of Congress can help the party in the upcoming poll.”
In 2012, Baba Ramdev called an indefinite fast against corruption and black money in the capital. While calling off the strike, Baba launched an all-out attack on Congress stating them responsible for the corruption taking place in the nation and had said that it is the most corrupt party in India. Baba Ramdev sprang in a surprise to all, in a yoga event organised in 2018, when he said that he is “on friendly terms” with Congress President Rahul Gandhi.
Shiv Sena MP Vinayak Raut asserted, “It’s a fact that Ramdev’s anti-BJP stance might affect the party. There was a time when he was backing Modi, but the government’s decisions of Demonetisation and GST seem to have affected his business as well.”
Ramdev Baba has always managed to grab the limelight for all the wrong reasons. Now, before the elections, Baba has taken a midway to jump over the side of the winning party for his benefit.
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Before 2014, Baba Ramdev was venomous about the UPA; he did protest and gave glossy pictures to people about how everything would be prosperous and fine if they are voted out of power. He convinced voters about how common public would benefit with lakhs of rupees in their account, how the black money will flow back to India from foreign banks. However, after 2014, the situation for the common man has worsened. Baba became a successful businessman overnight and then preferred sitting on a wall divided between Congress and BJP so that he can jump any side after the election. Now, he is a corporate executive. Why would he align with BJP which helped him set up billion dollar business! While warning the Modi government that rising fuel prices would cost the government dearly, Baba Ramdev said that he would not campaign for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the upcoming Lok Sabha polls. Ramdev made these remarks while he was speaking on the importance of yoga at an event organised by a media house. While emphasising the importance of yoga, he gave special mention to Rahul and Sonia Gandhi who practiced yoga regularly. Yoga guru Baba Ramdev, known for his close association with the BJP, sprang a surprise on when he said that “he is on friendly terms” with Congress President Rahul Gandhi. Ramdev with time has matured as a politician/businessman. He knew nothing could be achieved by siding one politician or a political party. He had ambitions to become the Finance Minister of the country; Modi did not care about Baba’s sentiments. He is no longer that old baba who used to teach yoga. Now he knows that united opposition might come in power in 2019; so, now he has changed his tone and Gandhis, who were corrupt, as per him in 2014, are on friendly terms with him now.
He took a dig at PM Narendra Modi by terming him as a man in a hurry to be PM and by expressing disappointment over party nominations going to “tainted” candidates. The distrust appears to be mutual, with the yoga entrepreneur’s remarks completing the collapse of what was once seen as coming together of two forces united as much by their commitment to saffron issues as the intense antipathy towards Sonia Gandhi-led Congress. Baba Ramdev’s remarks came months after BJP president Amit Shah met him and sought his support for the next general elections. The BJP president’s meeting was a part of the saffron party’s contact for support campaign. Recently, Yoga Guru Baba Ramdev cleared the air on whether he will campaign for any political party in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections in 2019. In a clear indication that he may not back any political party in 2019 general elections, Ramdev said that he was not bound by political limitations and Mother India is his first priority. If Mother India is his priority and every politician and political party is close to him, then what he did before 2014, what was that? Had anybody paid him to agitate and create anger against the UPA? If the UPA is very friendly to him and Rahul Gandhi is his buddy, then why did he accused Congress of trying to eliminate him on Ramleela ground? Is he speaking the truth now or he was speaking the truth then?
This is the second time when yoga guru has reiterated that he would not campaign for the BJP. Sometime back, Ramdev had categorically said that he would not campaign for the BJP. He told media that he has withdrawn politically. In 2014, Ramdev had openly supported the BJP and its then prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi. While the BJP has not gone public with its fresh view about Ramdev, the leadership, according to the sources, is exasperated with him for what is being referred to as a stubborn pitch for tickets for his nominees. Ramdev wants about a score of his nominees to be fielded by the party. These include an influential officer of an investigating agency, which is supposed to be probing the yoga guru’s flourishing business. Ramdev wanted the officer to be fielded from Amroha in UP. BJP’s central election committee instead allotted the seat to former cricketer Chetan Chauhan. The party also turned down his pitch for Nawal Kishore Yadav for Pataliputra seat. Although Nawal Kishore had appeared a shoo-in for the key seat, the party eventually settled for Ram Kripal Yadav when he crossed over from Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD). However, other candidates of Ramdev remain hopeful. One of those, Chand Maharaj, also a guru, has even started his campaign for Alwar. Ramdev has recommended other gurus as well — Sumedhanand who was seeking the ticket for Sikar and Debvrat Maharaj who has shown interest in Haryana’s Hisar constituency. Ramdev also recommended Karan Singh, who contested the last LS poll on a BSP ticket, for Kairana in western UP. He has staked his claim by impressing upon the party his contribution to saffron causes. Whereas BJP lauded his role in popularising yoga and his drive against black money but said that they can’t sacrifice the party’s interests to appease “someone’s outsize ego”. To which, Ramdev had described BJP ministers as “arrogant” while lauding Rahul for “giving a lifeline to a virtually dead Congress”. The sudden praise for Rahul Gandhi comes two weeks after Ramdev’s company, Patanjali announced to shift its proposed food park outside Uttar Pradesh after not getting the required clearances despite getting a nod from the Centre. Patanjali MD Acharya Balkrishna had then lashed out at the Yogi Adityanath-led government over its indifferent and negative attitude in granting clearance to the Rs 6,000 crore food park, which would be spread over 455 acres of land along the Yamuna Expressway. However, Adityanath went into damage-control mode and directed officials to expedite its opening. While Patanjali’s growth in the FMCG sector has been fast, it has also come under the spotlight for sub-standard products. Brushing aside such allegations, Ramdev said that each product went through thorough checks by more than 300 scientists before being launched in the market. Last year, nearly 40 per cent of Ayurveda products, including items from Patanjali, were found to be of substandard quality by Haridwar’s Ayurveda and Unani Office, a Right to Information (RTI) reply revealed. To cover up all these and to seek some sort of revenge, he further attacked BJP stating people who are making the cow a religious animal are wrong. The cow has no religion. Petrol to people and Congress to Cow, he spoke about all those issues which are either on the hit list or the list of BJP. Let’s see how he deals with his shifting loyalties in 2019.
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The NCP on Tuesday dubbed a “slap” in the face of Narendra Modi government the supreme court order reinstating CBI Director Alok Verma, who was sent on administrative leave by the Centre last year.
The apex court has set aside the Centre’s October 23 order to divest Verma of his powers following a feud between him and his deputy Rakesh Asthana.
NCP national spokesperson Nawab Malik said people are now hoping that Verma will act on major cases, including the Rafale deal, before his tenure as the CBI director ends on January 31.
“The SC’s decision to reinstate Alok Verma is a slap in the face of the Modi government. Policy decision is a different issue, but he does have the powers to arrest,” Malik said.
While reinstating Verma, the top court has restrained him from taking any major policy decision till completion of a CVC (Central Vigilance Commission) probe into corruption charges against him.
“People are now hoping he will act on major cases he was handling, including Rafale,” Malik added.
Policemen here found themselves in a strange situation when a youth approached them with a complaint to find his “stolen” heart.
The incident took place recently in one of the police stations in Nagpur, a senior official said.
The youth wanted to file a complaint stating that a girl has “stolen” his heart and the policemen should get it back.
Police personnel often get complaints about stolen goods, but this bizarre case put the police station in-charge in a fix and he contacted his superiors for advice in dealing with the matter.
His superiors informally discussed the issue and came to the conclusion that there is no section under Indian laws that deals with such a complaint.
Finally, the policemen told the youth they don’t have a solution to his problem and turned him away.
This unusual incident was shared by Nagpur Police Commissioner Bhushan Kumar Upadhyay last week during a programme where the police department returned stolen articles worth Rs 82 lakh to their respective owners.
Interacting with the media, Upadhyay, in a lighter vein, said, “We can return stolen articles, but sometimes we also get such complaints which even we cannot solve.
The 116th passing out parade of police sub-inspectors was held Tuesday at the Maharashtra Police Academy (MPA) in Nashik.
A total of 177 cadets, including 145 men officers, 7 women officers and 25 jawans of Marine Police, passed out in the 116th batch after completing the nine-month training.
Speaking at the occasion, Maharashtra DGP Datta Padsalgikar appealed to the fresher police sub-inspectors to work for the society, a government release stated.
“Police should provide good service and secure the country and work as servants of the people,” the Director General of Police said after taking the salute.
Chaitali Gapat was adjudged the best cadet and given the sword of honour and other awards by the top cop.
Pursuing a vigorous economical diplomacy Bangladesh would cultivate more effective relationship with India and China said the newly appointed Foreign Minister AbulKalam Abdul Momen on Tuesday. Momen who is 71 years old also said that he is directed by the Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to intensify cooperation with the neighbours on the basis of “solid partnership” and to ensure that the foreign office works as a partner of the other ministries to draw more foreign investments in the country.
“My main focus will be to pursue a vigorous economic diplomacy with all major countries and particularly with the neighbours,” Momen told PTI in an interview a day after assuming the office, indicating that the new government wants to reap the benefit of the friendships with both India and China. An economist by background, Momen said his office would effectively do its part to elevate the country’s status as a higher middle income by 2021 as envisaged by the premier and draw the required foreign assistance in implementing the government’s ambitious development plans.
Momen said that the intense relationship with neighbours like India and China would remain as a major policy while he would try his best to cultivate more effective ties with all major foreign nations like the US, the UK and France keeping Bangladesh’s integrity intact. Also added that, in no time in the recent history, our relations with India was so good. We will maintain it and rather take it to another level.
Bangladesh’s ties with India grew steadily last year, with level of visits from both the sides. Prime Minister Hasina visited India in May last during which she held talks with Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The last few years have been a “golden chapter” in India-Bangladesh relationship when complicated issues of land and coastal boundaries were resolved, Modi said at the time. During 2018, the two countries launched many development cooperation projects, including the construction of the Akhaura-Agartala rail line and the restoration of Kulaura-Shahbazpur section of railway line.
Asked about major challenges, Momen referred to the Rohingya crisis and preferred to call it “an economic issue” but feared it could affect the regional stability unless addressed through a consorted effort involving nations in the neighbourhood. The issue needs to be solved as soon as possible otherwise it would affect stability of the entire region.
Prisoners of the Nagpur Central Jail in Maharashtra who have taken up academic courses will now get their queries answered by teachers through a new inclusive radio counselling facility started for them.
The ‘mediated phone-in radio counselling’, launched by the Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) here on Tuesday, will help prisoners in their academic studies without compromising the jail’s security, IGNOU’s regional director P Sivaswaroop said.
The ‘virtual classroom’ facility was inaugurated by Deputy Inspector General, Prisons (eastern region), Yogesh Desai and Sivaswaroop at IGNOU’s Gyan Vani radio channel studio here.
Prisoners’ education is a universally accepted principle to bring a change in their behaviour, make them academically strong, and to help them stand on their feet after release from jail, Sivaswaroop said.
While IGNOU has been offering various academic courses, this student-teacher interactive call back facility was not available for prisoners as they do not have access to phones in jail, he said.
“To circumvent this difficulty, an innovative method has been adopted by IGNOU here. Prisoners will now listen to lessons imparted by teachers on the FM radio channel. They will write their doubts/queries on a paper and give it to the IGNOU’s jail coordinator,” he said.
The coordinator will immediately call the Gyan Vani studio from the jail office phone and read out the prisoner’s queries. The teacher in the studio will then provide answers on the radio channel, Sivaswaroop said.
Desai claimed that the ‘phone-in education’ programme was being started for the first time in the Nagpur Central Jail where several prisoners were pursuing academic courses offered by IGNOU.
With this facility, there will be a “two-way communication” which will be quite beneficial to prisoners who want to study, he said.
“The initiative will also be helpful in correcting and rehabilitating them,” he said.
Shyam Koreti, IGNOU’s coordinator and associate professor of history at the Nagpur University, who was part of the phone-in counselling session launched on Tuesday, said they received six to seven queries from prisoners.
He appreciated their interest in pursuing education despite being in jail.
Most of the central government offices, banks, port trusts and other state government departments wore a deserted look on Tuesday as employees launched a two-day nationwide trade strike, a top organiser said.
The strike call by 10 central trade unions and industry-wide independent federations covers banks, insurance, post, BSNL, state transport, railways, port trust, defence and other PSUs, central-state government undertakings, municipal workers, aanganwadi staffers, hawkers and others comprising 25 crore people, said Trade Unions Joint Action Committee (TUJAC) (Maharashtra) Convenor Vishwas Utagi.
“In Mumbai, even the public bus service, BEST, has gone on an indefinite strike since midnight to protest against the ‘anti-workers policies of the Bharatiya Janata Party government at the Centre’,” Utagi told agencies.
“A massive rally will be taken out at Azad Maidan this afternoon which will be addressed by top TUJAC leaders. Similar rallies and protest marches are also being held all over Maharashtra during the two-day strike.”
This is the biggest nationwide agitation this year ahead of the crucial Lok Sabha elections, and has the support of all major opposition parties in states and the Centre, he added.
However, private vehicles were plying as usual though normal operations in many central business districts like Nariman Point, Fort, Worli, Bandra Kurla Complex, Andheri, Goregaon and other parts were severely hit.
Twelve people were booked by the Thane police in Maharashtra for allegedly duping a man of Rs 55.27 lakh by promising good returns on investments in mutual funds and other schemes, police said.
The main accused, Suryakant Tripati, got in touch with the victim and claimed had good influence in the insurance regulatory body and that he could get him good returns through investments in various schemes, Thane police spokesperson Sukhada Narkar said.
Getting lured by the offer, the victim invested around Rs 55.27 lakh in several schemes through various financial advisers (agents) introduced to him by the accused between March 2015 and December 2017, she said.
However, when the man did not get any return as promised, he realised that he was cheated and approached the Thane police on Sunday, she said.
Based on his complaint, the police registered offences against Tripathi and 11 financial advisers under IPC sections 420 (cheating), 406 (criminal breach of trust), 120B (criminal conspiracy), and other sections pertaining to forgery, Narkar said.
No arrest has been made so far, she said, adding that a probe was underway.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday launched road and underground sewerage system projects developed at an investment of Rs 1,100 crore in Solapur.
The NCP on Tuesday dubbed a “slap” in the face of Narendra Modi government the supreme court order reinstating CBI Director Alok Verma, who was sent on administrative leave by the Centre last year.
The 116th passing out parade of police sub-inspectors was held Tuesday at the Maharashtra Police Academy (MPA) in Nashik.
Prisoners of the Nagpur Central Jail in Maharashtra who have taken up academic courses will now get their queries answered by teachers through a new inclusive radio counselling facility started for them.
Twelve people were booked by the Thane police in Maharashtra for allegedly duping a man of Rs 55.27 lakh by promising good returns on investments in mutual funds and other schemes, police said.