A 26-year-old man was crushed to death after his motorcycle hit a pothole in the Dombivali-Kalyan area of Thane district on Saturday and he came under a bus, a police official said.
Ankit Thaiva, a resident of Ambernath, was on his way to work in Ghansoli in Navi Mumbai when the incident took place on Katai-Badlapur road near Khoni village, he said.
“He lost control after his motorcycle hit a pothole. The two-wheeler then rammed into a Kalyan Domivali Municipal Transport bus moving alongside. He came under the wheels of the bus and died instantly,” the Manpada police station official informed.
Union Home and Cooperation Minister Amit Shah on Saturday pointed out that “there is no database” for the cooperative sector of the country despite the sector completing several decades of its journey.
“There is no cooperative database. We cannot think of expansion until there is a cooperative database,” Shah made the remarks while addressing the national conference of Rural Development Banks (ARDBs) organized here with an aim to prepare a roadmap for the revival of the sector.
Shah said, “neither do we have the database of cooperative societies of fishermen nor do we have the database of cooperatives working in the irrigation sector”.
Even, the Minister said, there is also “no database of how many villages are deprived of the benefit of Primary Agricultural Credit Society (PACS)”.
“We have started the work of creating the database. It will be of great benefit as I think. Expansion can happen only if you know where to expand. If you don’t know where to do the expansion, then expansion can’t happen,” Shah announced.
This basic work has also been started by the Ministry of Cooperation, said the Minister, adding model bye-laws of PACS have been sent. He also requested all the members of the cooperative sectors to send their suggestions and practical experiences for model bye-laws of PACS, saying “we want to make PACS multidimensional.” Shah also sought the support of ARDBs to fulfill Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s vision of doubling farmers’ income.
“Without the support of Agricultural Rural Development Banks (ARDBs), we cannot fulfill the vision of PM Modi of doubling the farmer’s income,” Shah said. The Minister further stressed the need for expansion of long-term finance for the development of the agriculture sector.
He said that ARDBs should also expand their jurisdiction besides only doing financing to achieve the aim of agriculture development. Informing about the role of ARDBs, Shah said over 3 lakh tractors have been financed by these banks and 5.2 lakh farmers have been given long-term finance.
Noting that several ARDBs have done various reforms, the Cooperation Minister emphasized the need for the development of this sector for the development of cooperatives. He focussed that “long term finance should be more than that of short term finance for the development”.
“I believe that there are hurdles but unless we increase long-term finance, agricultural development, as per the vision of PM Modi, is impossible. It just can’t happen,” said Shah.
He also said that the cooperative sector cannot be expanded by any government until it expands itself. “Cooperative will play a very big role in fulfilling PM Modi’s 5 trillion economy vision.” Speaking at the event, Minister of State for Cooperation BL Verma stressed on the need to for modernization of ARDBs and increasing of its financial condition.
The National Cooperative Agriculture and Rural Development Banks’ Federation Ltd (NAFCARD) organized the conference of ARDBs-2022. The technical session of the day-long conference is to “deliberate on the roadmap for revival of ARDBs and finalize recommendations for submitting them to the government”.
Ministry of Cooperation Secretary Gyanesh Kumar, NCUI President and IFFCO Chairman Dileep Sanghani, President, International Cooperative Alliance- Asia-Pacific Region and Chairman, KRIBHCO Dr. Chandra Pal Singh Yadav also attended the conference.
The conference was also attended by representatives of Cooperative Agriculture and Rural Development Banks at state and primary levels across the country and representatives from the government, NABARD, and other National Federations.
National Cooperative Agriculture and Banks Federation based in Mumbai is an apex body of state cooperative agriculture and rural development banks in the country. This conference culminates the sectoral programs of ARDBs including the public contact program at ground level as part of celebrating Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav.
The federation also held an award function on the occasion to felicitate SCARDBs in Kerala, Karnataka, Gujarat, and West Bengal for outstanding performance in lending, recovery, and improvement in other parameters of performance during 2020-21.
Awards were also presented to the four oldest ARDBs in the country for ceaseless service to the rural sector for more than 90 years. In order to give proper impetus to the cooperative sector under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the Union Government created the Ministry of Cooperation in July 2021.
Amit Shah was given charge of the newly formed Ministry of Cooperation. There is immense potential for the development and empowerment of farmers, agriculture, and rural areas of the country in the cooperative sector. That is why under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the Union government is empowering the cooperative sector with the mantra of ‘Sahakar Se Samriddhi’.
The Eknath Shinde-led government in Maharashtra on Saturday gave a cabinet approval to rename Aurangabad and Osmanabad cities as Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar and Dharashiv respectively. The decision to rename these cities was taken in the previous Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government’s last cabinet meeting chaired by the then chief minister Uddhav Thackeray on June 29, just before he resigned.
However, Shinde and Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, who was sworn in on June 30, had said the Thackeray-led dispensation’s decision to rename these places was illegal as it was taken by it after the governor had asked it to prove a majority in the state Legislative Assembly.
During the cabinet meeting chaired by Thackeray last month, Aurangabad was renamed Sambhajinagar, but the Shinde government on Saturday added the ‘Chhatrapati’ prefix to it. At present Shinde and Fadnavis are the only two members in the cabinet as its expansion is still pending.
A statement from the Chief Minister’s Office (CMO) said the minutes of the June 29 cabinet meeting (chaired by Thackeray) was approved by the new government (led by Shinde) at the cabinet meeting held on Saturday.
The minutes had come for approval before the new government, which had directed the administration to re-submit the proposal, it said. “The fresh proposal approved by the cabinet today will be sent to the Centre, after which the renaming of both the cities will be done at the divisional, district, taluka, municipal corporation, and council levels,” it said.
The cabinet also approved the decision to name the proposed Navi Mumbai International Airport after farmer leader D B Patil. This decision was also taken by the Thackeray-led cabinet last month.
The CMO statement said the administration was asked to submit a fresh proposal about the airport’s name, which was approved on Saturday. The Navi Mumbai airport is being developed as a greenfield airport spread over 1,160 hectares by the City and Industrial Development Corporation (CIDCO) under a public-private partnership.
The MVA government comprising the Shiv Sena, NCP, and Congress collapsed on June 29 after Thackeray resigned as chief minister, days after Shinde raised a banner of revolt against the Sena leadership. Shinde took oath as the chief minister the next day.
The arrested persons have been identified as Amir Ali, Atikul Islam, Mafizuddin Ahmed, Saiful Islam, and Habibur Rahman and also recovered fake Indian currency notes, live ammunition, and a fake currency notesmaking machine, one four-wheeler vehicle, and two motorbikes.
Based on intelligence input, a team of Biswanath district police led by Additional Superintendent of Police (ASP) Kulendra Nath Deka and Deputy SP (DSP) Jayanta Baruah launched an operation at Ambari Seujpur area of Biswanath town on Friday night.
“We received information that some people from Lakhimpur district were involved in fake gold and fake currency notes selling and the gang has taken shelter at Seujpur area of the Biswanath town,” ASP Deka said.
“We observed the presence of some suspicious people at Amir Ali’s house and conducted the search operation at his house, immediately,” he added.
The police officer further said that the police team have seized one machine used for printing fake currency notes, fake currency notes worth Rs 5.49 lakh, one Swift Dzire, two motorbikes, 18 rounds of live ammunition of 7.62 mm, 51 rounds of live ammunition of point 22 calibre and other items from the house.
Apart from the aforesaid, police also recovered fake gold biscuits, 10 mobile phones, Aadhar cards, voter id cards, ATM cards, PAN cards, and other incriminating documents from the possession of the five arrested. Further investigation into the matter is underway.
Launching a scathing attack on Congress interim president Sonia Gandhi over the Special Investigating Team (SIT) affidavit in the 2002 Gujarat riots case, BJP on Saturday alleged that she was the “architect of the entire conspiracy” and had attempted to “malign” the name of the state through her political advisor late Ahmed Patel.
The SIT, in its affidavit in the sessions court in Gujarat, has claimed that at Ahmed Patel’s behest, Teesta Setalvad and others had plotted to destabilize the Gujarat government.
Addressing a press conference, party spokesperson Sambit Patra said, “The affidavit has brought the truth out that who were the ones who were driving these conspiracies – Ahmed Patel.
Ahmed Patel is just a name, the driving force was his boss Sonia Gandhi. Through her Chief Political Advisor Ahmed Patel, Sonia Gandhi attempted to malign Gujarat’s image.
Through him, she attempted to insult Narendra Modi and she was the architect of this entire conspiracy.” Slamming social activist Teesta Setalvad whose name was mentioned in the SIT affidavit that she had numerous meetings with Patel where they received Rs 5 lakhs for the first time and Rs 25 lakhs after two days, Patra said that she was doing all this with political objectives.
“The first political objective of Teesta Setalvad was to destabilize the publicly elected Narendra Modi government in Gujarat. The second objective was to frame innocent people including the then Chief Minister Narendra Modi.
The affidavit says that this conspiracy was to malign the image of Gujarat,” he said. “What Teesta Setalvad was doing, Sonia Gandhi was impressed with it and awarded her with Padma Shree in 2007. Teesta was a member of the national advisory council of Sonia Gandhi,” the BJP leader said. Patra said that they do not want answers from Jairam Ramesh, who had issued a statement refuting the allegations of the SIT and slamming the Centre for the “mischievous” charges against late Ahmed Patel.
“How should the BJP government be dismissed in Gujarat, how to destabilize it, how to play politics with Gujarat riots, there is only one person behind all this, Sonia Gandhi. Today we are wanting answers from none other than Sonia Gandhi, not Jairam Ramesh. With a clear conscience, we beseech Sonia Gandhi to hold a press conference and address the nation as to why she was conspiring against Narendra Modi,” Patra said.
The Delhi High court on Friday refused to grant permission to an unmarried woman to abort the 23 weeks pregnancy out of a consensual sexual relationship.
The Division Bench of Chief Justice Satish Chandra Sharma and Justice Subramanium Prasad refused to grant interim relief to 25 years old-woman in view of Rule 3B of the Medical Termination of Pregnancy (MTP) Rules 2003 which does not allow the unmarried woman to abort her pregnancy of more than 20 weeks out of a consensual sexual relationship.
The bench observed, “The petitioner, who is an unmarried woman and whose pregnancy arises out of a consensual relationship, is clearly not covered by any of the clauses under the Medical Termination of Pregnancy Rules, 2003. Therefore, section 3(2)(b) of the Act is not applicable to the facts of this case.” “Rule 3B of the Medical Termination of Pregnancy Rules, 2003, stands, and this court, while exercising its power under Article 226 of the Constitution of India, 1950, cannot go beyond the statute.
Granting interim relief now would amount to allowing the writ petition,” it noted. Advocate Amit Mishra had submitted that Rule 3B of the Medical Termination of Pregnancy Rules, 2003 is violative of Article 14 of the constitution of India, in as much as it excludes an unmarried woman.
The bench said, “whether such rule is valid or not, it can be decided only after the said rule is held Ultra Virus, for which purpose, notice has to be issued in the writ petition and has been done so by this court.”
The bench issued notice to the Health and Family Welfare Department of the Delhi government and directed to file a response to the petition by August 26.
“The court said the notice is limited to the prayer which seeks to include an unmarried woman in Rule 3B of the Medical Termination of Pregnancy Rules, 2003”. These rules include the victim of rape, minor women whose marital status changes during pregnancy, mentally ill women, and women with fetal malformation and these are allowed to terminate pregnancy up to 24 weeks.
During the hearing on the petition on Friday, the court had said that granting permission for abortion at this stage would amount to killing the child, the court will not allow this. The bench had suggested that the child can be given for adoption.
There is a long queue for adoption. Why are you killing the child? it said. It also said that it is not forcing to raise the child. Everything will be taken care of by the government.
The bench had also asked the senior Advocate Kapil Sibal, who was present in the Courtroom, what he has to say on the court’s view. Sibal had said that the child should not be aborted at this stage.
The petitioner has challenged rule 3B. She had also sought permission to terminate the 23 weeks pregnancy. The counsel for the petitioner had submitted that the pregnancy will impact the petitioner physically and mentally.
Congress alleges that Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s “political vendetta machine” does not even “spare the departed” who were his “political adversaries”. An affidavit filed by Gujarat Police’s Special Investigating Team before the sessions court claimed that Teesta Setalvad was part of a larger conspiracy, hatched at the behest of late Congress leader Ahmed Patel, to destabilise the BJP-led Gujarat government after the 2002 Gujarat riots.
“The Indian National Congress categorically refutes the mischievous charges manufactured against the late Shri Ahmed Patel. This is part of the Prime Minister’s systematic strategy to absolve himself of any responsibility for the communal carnage unleashed when he was chief minister of Gujarat in 2002,” said a statement issued by General Secretary In-Charge, Communications, AICC, Jairam Ramesh.
“The Prime Minister’s political vendetta machine clearly does not even spare the departed who were his political adversaries. This SIT is dancing to the tune of its political master and will sit wherever it is told to. We know how an earlier SIT chief was rewarded with a diplomatic assignment after he had given a ‘clean chit’ to the chief minister,” the statement stated.
The SIT affidavit alleged that social activist Setalvad, former state Director General of Police (DGP) RB Sreekumar and former IPS officer Sanjeev Bhatt had accepted Rs 30 lakh from Ahmed Patel, the political advisor of the then Congress president Sonia Gandhi to allegedly frame then Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi and destabilise his government following 2002 Gujarat riots.
The SIT was formed to probe Setalvad along with R B Sreekumar for criminal conspiracy and forgery. SIT’s ACP BC Solanki’s Special public prosecutors Mitesh Amin and Amit Patel filed an affidavit in the sessions court on July 15 against the bail plea filed by Teesta, Sreekumar stating that the accused had entered into a larger conspiracy with the intention of obtaining illegal money and other benefits from Congress.
After the riots that broke out after the Godhra incident, the SIT filed serious charges against Setalvad, Sreekumar and Bhatt in the case of defaming several people including the then Chief Minister Narendra Modi and Gujarat in the case of petitions to various commissions and the Supreme Court.
The SIT affidavit stated that the accused had numerous meetings with Patel where they received Rs 5 lakh for the first time and Rs 25 lakh after two days. Ahmed Patel passed away in 2020.
Last month, the Supreme Court dismissed the plea filed by Zakia Jafri, widow of former Congress MP Ehsan Jafri, challenging the clean chit given by the Special Investigation Team (SIT) to then Chief Minister Narendra Modi and several others in the 2002 Gujarat riots.
After 58 pilgrims were burnt alive on the Sabarmati Express train at Gujarat’s Godhra Railway Station on February 27, 2002, riots broke out across the state in which more than 1,000 people were killed.
Karnataka Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai, during a visit to his constituency Shiggaon and Savanur today, will lay the foundation stone for a textile park, besides launching a slew of other developmental works.
The proposed textiles park will come up in an area spread across 59.34 acres.
Infrastructure facilities for the unit would be created in three phases. The state government has provided Rs 25 crore for the first phase.
Further, he is also scheduled to lay the foundation stone for setting up of a readymade garments unit. Ms Texport Private Limited will invest Rs 42 crore to set up the readymade garments unit, which is expected to provide employment opportunities to about 3,000 individuals.
Teesta Setalvad, former state Director General of Police (DGP) RB Sreekumar and former IPS officer Sanjeev Bhatt came in another controversy, as sit revealed that they had accepted Rs 30 lakhs from Ahmed Patel, the political advisor of the then Congress president Sonia Gandhi to allegedly frame then Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi and destabilise his government following 2002 Gujarat riots, a Special Investigating Team (SIT) report revealed.
The SIT was formed to probe Setalvad along with R B Sreekumar for criminal conspiracy and forgery. SIT’s ACP BC Solanki’s Special public prosecutors Mitesh Amin and Amit Patel filed an affidavit in the sessions court on Friday against the bail plea filed by Teesta, Sreekumar in the Sessions Court stating that the accused had entered into a larger conspiracy with the intention of obtaining illegal money and other benefits from Congress.
Particularly, a metropolitan court in Ahmedabad sent Setalvad and Sreekumar to 14-day judicial custody on July 2. Former IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt was arrested by the Ahmedabad Police’s Crime Branch on Tuesday in connection with the Gujarat riots case for embezzling funds and forging documents. After the riots that broke out after the Godhra incident, the SIT filed serious charges against Teesta Setalvad, RB Sreekumar and Sanjeev Bhatt in the case of defaming several people including the then Chief Minister Narendra Modi and Gujarat in the case of petitions to various commissions and the Supreme Court.
The SIT affidavit stated that the accused had numerous meetings with Patel where they received Rs 5 lakhs for the first time and Rs 25 lakhs after two days.
Ahmed Patel passed away in 2020. Last month, the Supreme Court dismissed the plea filed by Zakia Jafri, widow of former Congress MP Ehsan Jafri, challenging the clean chit given by the Special Investigation Team (SIT) to then Chief Minister Narendra Modi and several others in the 2002 Gujarat riots.
Ehsan Jafri was among 69 people killed during violence at the Gulbarg Society in Ahmedabad on February 28, 2002. His widow Zakia Jafri challenged the SIT’s clean chit to 64 people including Narendra Modi who was Chief Minister of Gujarat at the time.
After 58 pilgrims were burnt alive on the Sabarmati Express train at Gujarat’s Godhra Railway Station on February 27, 2002, riots broke out across the state in which more than 1,000 people were killed.
The Zeus unmanned nuclear-powered space tug, which is currently under development in Russia, would be delivering an interstellar space station to the planets of the Solar System while cosmonauts would be flying to the station separately due to long flights, Dmitry Rogozin, the former head of Russian space agency Roscosmos, has told Sputnik.
“We are currently discussing the expediency of delivering a crew to the point where the tug arrives while using conventional chemical engines on a superheavy-class rocket. Thus, the people would not have to suffer while flying one way for a year aboard this space tug. In other words, if you wish to catch a train, you have to take a plane,” Rogozin said.
He further explained that crews would be more comfortable flying on “traditional means” until more powerful engines are developed than those planned to be used in the Zeus nuclear-powered space tug.
Rogozin added that the breaking of the space tug would be as long as the acceleration; therefore, the station pushed by the space tug would be more effective for flights to distant planets rather than the Moon.
S.P. Korolev Rocket and Space Corporation Energia is currently preparing a preliminary design of the Russian Orbital Service Station (ROSS) and is expected to complete it in the third quarter of 2023, after which it will begin the development of design documentation.
The station is expected to be built in a high-latitude orbit with an inclination of 96-98 degrees to ensure the desirable observation scale of the Earth’s surface.
The Zeus nuclear-powered space tug is designed for deep space flights from one orbit to another. It has been in development since 2010. The spacecraft’s preliminary design is expected to be finished by July 2024 and will cost 4.2 billion rubles ($56.3 million).
Zeus is expected to be sent into space for test flights in 2030. The first mission of Zeus to Jupiter will take 50 months and will last from 2030 to 2034.
Zeus and the payload module will be launched into orbit from the Vostochny Cosmodrome on separate launch vehicles.
They will dock, travel to the Moon, orbit it and return to Earth. After that, another payload module will dock Zeus and the station will fly to Venus, make a gravity maneuver, and head for Jupiter’s moons. The mission will be fully unmanned.
