After a two-day hiatus, the Indian stock market’s benchmark Sensex slumped 709 points on Wednesday dragged by a selloff in heavyweight Reliance Industries Limited.
The 30 stock S&P BSE Sensex slumped 709.54 points or 1.35 per cent to 51,822.53 per cent against its previous day’s close at 52,532.07 points.
Earlier, the Sensex started the day in the red at 52,186.36 points and slumped to a low of 51,739.98 points in the intra-day. The Sensex touched a high of 52,272.85 points in the intra-day.
The Sensex has slumped after two consecutive days of gains. The Sensex had gained 934.23 points or 1.81 per cent on Tuesday.
The Sensex has closed in the red for the seventh time in the past nine trading sessions. There was heavy selling pressure in the market last week. The Sensex had lost 2,943.02 points or 5.41 per cent last week.
The markets recovered in the first two days of the week. However, it has again come into the selling pressure.
The broader Nifty 50 of the National Stock Exchange slumped 225.50 points or 1.44 per cent to 15,413.30 points against its previous day’s close at 15,638.80 points.
The Nifty has closed in the red after two consecutive days of gains. The Nifty had gained 288.65 points or 1.88 per cent on Tuesday.
Tata Steel crashed 5.24 per cent to Rs 837.95. Wipro dipped 3.29 per cent to Rs 411.25.
The index heavyweight Reliance Industries Limited slumped 3.07 per cent to Rs 2505.20.
IndusInd Bank slumped 2.67 per cent to Rs 777.30. HCL Technologies fell 2.61 per cent to Rs 961.60. Bajaj Finserv fell 2.41 per cent to Rs 11452. Titan dipped 2.32 per cent to Rs 2030.30.
Selling pressure was across the board. Only four of the 30 scrips that are part of the benchmark Sensex closed in the positive.
TCS rose 0.31 per cent to Rs 3222. Hindustan Unilever, Power Grid Corporation and Maruti Suzuki also close marginally higher.
In 56 years, Shiv Sena faces 4th rebellion, 1st under Uddhav's watch 3
Despite being a party of committed cadres with unflinching loyalty to the leadership of the day, the Shiv Sena has been vulnerable to rebellions in its ranks and it has seen revolts by prominent figures on four occasions, three of them under the watch of its charismatic founder Bal Thackeray, with Eknath Shinde becoming the latest leader to join the list.
The rebellion by Shinde, a cabinet minister who has walked away with a bunch of Shiv Sena MLAs, is most significant in the outfit’s 56-year-old history as it threatens to bring down the party-led Maha Vikas Aghadi government in Maharashtra, while the other revolts took place when it was not in power in the state.
The present revolt, which started taking shape post-Monday midnight after Legislative Council poll results, throws a big challenge before Maharashtra Chief Minister and Sena president Uddhav Thackeray as the three previous revolts took place when his father Bal Thackeray was still around.
The Sena witnessed the first major jolt in 1991 when Chhagan Bhujbal, the OBC face of the party who was also credited with expanding the organization’s base in rural parts of Maharashtra, decided to leave the party.
Bhujbal had cited ”non-appreciation” from the party leadership as the reason for leaving the party.
Despite Bhujbal having helped the Sena to win a sizeable number of seats in parts of Maharashtra, Bal Thackeray had appointed Manohar Joshi as Leader of Opposition in the Assembly.
In the subsequent winter session in Nagpur, Bhujbal along with 18 Sena MLAs left the party and announced their support to the Congress which was then ruling the state. But, 12 rebel MLAs returned to the Sena fold the same day.
Bhujbal and other rebel MLAs were recognized by the then-Assembly speaker as a separate group and they did not face any action.
“It was an audacious move because Shiv Sena workers were well known for their aggressive approach (towards dissidence). They even attacked the official residence of Chhagan Bhujbal in Mumbai, which is generally guarded by the state police force,” a senior political journalist told PTI.
Bhujbal, however, lost the 1995 Assembly election from Mumbai to the then-Shiv Sena leader Bala Nandgaonkar, and later shifted base to Nashik district.
The veteran politician joined the NCP when Sharad Pawar formed the party after leaving the Congress in 1999. Bhujbal (74) is currently a minister and cabinet colleague of Shinde in the Shiv Sena-led MVA government.
In 2005, the Shiv Sena faced another challenge when former chief minister Narayan Rane left the party and joined the Congress.
Rane, who subsequently left the Congress, is currently a BJP Rajya Sabha member and also a union minister.
The next shock to the Sena came in 2006 when Uddhav Thackeray’s cousin Raj Thackeray decided to leave the party and form his own political outfit – the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS).
Raj Thackeray had then said his fight was not with the Sena leadership, but with others surrounding the party leadership and not letting others in. In the 2009 election to the 288-member Maharashtra Assembly, the MNS won 13 seats. Its tally in Mumbai was one more than the Shiv Sena.
The Shiv Sena is currently facing another rebellion by a section of its MLAs led by senior state minister Eknath Shinde, a four-time MLA from Thane district and a popular figure in the organization.
Political journalist Prakash Akolkar, who has written a book on the party, said, “The Sena leadership is taking some of its leaders for granted. Such an attitude has always backfired, but the party is not ready to change its stance.” ”Now, times have changed and most of the MLAs come to the party with a lot of expectations, he said. If those expectations are not addressed properly, such a revolt is bound to happen,” he said.
The Shiv Sena currently has 55 MLAs, the NCP 53 and the Congress 44 MLAs. All three constitute the MVA. The opposition BJP has 106 seats in the Assembly.
To escape a disqualification under the anti-defection law, Shinde needs the support of 37 MLAs. The rebel leader has claimed 46 Sena MLAs are with him.
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) registered a fresh case against Dewan Housing Finance Corporation Ltd (DHFL) on Wednesday against former promoters Kapil Wadhawan and Dheeraj Wadhawan for defrauding a consortium of banks led by Union Bank of India for Rs 34,615 crore, the biggest banking fraud in the country.
CBI file and FIR, The searches are underway in 15 location in Mumbai involving DHFL. The Senior CBI officer informed
FIR mentioned that as per the forensic report submitted by KPMG, the Emails obtained by them show that the aforesaid loans/ICDs were disbursed in favour of the promoter controlled/related/connected entities by DHFL under instructions of the promoters Kapil Wadhawan and Dheeraj Wadhawan.
A part of the money was diverted to companies controlled by the erstwhile promoters, Kapil Wadhawan and Dheeraj Wadhawan and Sahana Group, where they also have prima facie financial interest.
It further reads that Kapil Wadhawan, Dheeraj Wadhawan, the promoters of DHFL, in conspiracy with others, including public servants, induced the DHFL Consortium Banks to sanction and disburse the loans/ advances/subscription in NCDs aggregating to Rs 42,871.42 crore, dishonestly and fraudulently misappropriated such public funds raised by the said DHFL and diverted the same to the DHFL Group entities/Sahana Group Entities/other parties named above through sanction of fraudulent loans to such entities without due diligence, without obtaining adequate securities, through falsification of books of accounts and deliberately and wilfully defaulted on the loans/advances availed from the DHFL Consortium Banks, thereby causing a wrongful loss of Rs 34,814.88 crore to the DHFL Consortium Banks.
The role of auditors of DHFL and DHFL Promoter Groups companies/Sahana Group companies may be looked into during the course of investigation to ascertain as to how large value loans, given as other large project loans (OLPL) but reflected as small retain loans in Bandra Books entities etc were not reported by the Statutory Auditors/Internal Auditors of DHFL during their audits, it reads.
Struggling to tide over the internecine crisis, the Shiv Sena on Wednesday asked all its MLAs in Maharashtra, including the rebels accompanying dissident leader Eknath Shinde, to attend a legislature party meeting here at 5 PM or face action under the anti-defection law.
Shiv Sena chief whip Sunil Prabhu has written a letter and issued it to some Sena ministers, including the minister of state for Home Shambhuraj Desai who is currently staying with Shinde in Guwahati.
“The Shiv Sena has called for an urgent meeting today evening at ‘Varsha’ bungalow as there have been attempts to make the MVA government unstable. The details regarding the meeting have been shared with all the members (MLAs) on their registered e-mail address, Whatsapp and by way of SMS.
“You cannot remain absent to the meeting without providing a valid and sufficient reason. If you do not attend the meeting, it would be presumed that you have a clear intention of leaving the party. Hence, there will be action taken against you based on the provisions for preventing anti-defection,” the letter said.
‘Varsha’ is the official residence of Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray.
A day earlier, the Sena had removed Shinde as its group leader in the Legislative Assembly.
The Shiv Sena has 55 MLAs in the Assembly.
Shinde had said he has 46 MLAs supporting him.
“I have more numbers (of Shiv Sena MLAs) than needed (to form a separate group in the Assembly without inviting the anti-defection law provisions),” he told a Marathi TV channel.
The Shiv Sena-led MVA is tottering on the brink following the rebellion by Shinde who left Mumbai on Monday night with a sizeable number of MLAs and travelled to Surat in Gujarat.
In the early hours of Wednesday, Shinde and rebel MLAs accompanying him were flown to Guwahati.
The Regional Meteorological Centre (RMC) of the India Meteorological Department (IMD) issued an Orange alert for rainfall in several parts of Maharashtra on Thursday and directed them to be prepared for the next 5 days. The RMC, Mumbai had forecasted heavy rainfall in Raigad on Thursday and said that Sindhudurg can expect heavy rainfall today as well.
Meanwhile, the RMC has been expecting Ratnagiri to experience wet showers on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. However, Mumbai has been issued with a Yellow alert for receiving heavy to very heavy rainfall at isolated places for the next three days.
The India Meteorological Department has also predicted isolated heavy rainfall in the ghat areas of “Madhya Maharashtra” from Friday to Sunday. Under the influence of an off-shore trough and strong westerly winds along the west coast in lower tropospheric levels, the IMD informed via a Tweet that isolated heavy rainfall is expected over Konkan and Goa, Coastal Karnataka and Kerala and Mahe during the next five days; North Interior Karnataka on 24th and 25th; Gujarat region on 22nd, 25th and 26th; Coastal Andhra Pradesh and Telangana on 22nd June.
It also informed that under the influence of southerly/southwesterly winds from the Bay of Bengal to Northeast and adjoining East India, Sub-Himalayan West Bengal is also expected to receive heavy to very heavy rainfall on Saturday and Sunday.
“Isolated heavy rainfall likely over Gangetic West Bengal on 22nd; Vidarbha on 23rd and 24th; Bihar during 23rd-26th, Jharkhand on 24th and 25th and over Odisha and Chhattisgarh during 22nd-26th of June,” it informed in another Tweet.
255 People died and nearly 500 people injured after 6.1 magnitude hit eastern Afghanistan in the provinces of Paktika and Khost on Wednesday.
The quake of 6.1 jolted southwest of Khost upto 44 Kilometer, as per US Geological Survey (USGS).
The quake damage many houses and also caused land slides in many regions in Paktika.
In four district most of the casualties happen the most-hit eastern province, according to the report
A local news channel quoted, “According to preliminary information … 100 people have been killed in Paktika, Gayan district, and in Afghan Dubai village, in Spera district of Khost province, 20 people have been exhumed”.
As per European Mediterranean Seismological Centre (EMSC) the jolts felts over 500 KM nearly 119 million people in Afghanistan, India and Pakistan.
Pakistan also reported mild earthquake in some parts of Islamabad. Termors also felt in Lahore, Quetta and other parts in Pakistan.
In a major blow to Shiv Sena, another cabinet minister Gulabrao Patil goes incommunicado and is believed to have joined the Eknath Shinde faction.
According to some media reports, “Gulabrao Patil sent a message ‘Jai Maharashtra’ to some of his supporters and close people from his mobile. He could not be reached after that. It is understood that he also joined Eknath Shinde’s group.”
Patil is known as the cannon of Shiv Sena. Shiv Sena had given him political power in the district against Eknath Khadse. He was included in the cabinet despite a three-party government. Even after that, they raised the flag of rebellion.
A 23- Year old commensal sex working women allegedly attacked by four people over a monetary dispute in Maharashtra police said on Wednesday.
As per police complain registered by victim the incident took place in Bhiwandi of Thane district on Sunday and case registered against a couple and two other person on Tuesday as per official from Bhiwandi police said.
Accuse dragged victim from her home by pulling her hair and than beat her up, Victim register in complain.
The Accuse also manhandled her fellow worker who came to rescue her, the official said. The police registered case against four accused under relevant provisions, he added. Till now no arrest was made.
Is 'Operation Kamal' now unfolding in Maharashtra? 11
Maharashtra saw big drama today, but this was very much expected. If you look at the series of events you can decode the political crises. Many Shiv Sena leaders were against the alliance with Congress, and those who expressed their disappointments were asked to remain silent. Shiv Sena got divided into groups. Above all Aaditya Thackrey’s supremacy was not accepted by many veteran leaders.
During Rajya Sabha elections cross-voting by Sena and Congress members gave the BJP one more seat than it should have won. Yesterday, cross-voting took place again in key elections for the Legislative Council. The Sena also failed to get the support of independent MLAs and the smaller parties.
After the debacle, Eknath Shinde met Chief Minister. He expressed his reason of supporting the BJP, but Uddhav Thackeray did not take him serious meanwhile the report also suggests that the people around CM such as Narvekar and Aditya Thackrey become a hindrance in communication.
Sharad Pawar was in Delhi to serve as a key player in the opposition’s plan to contest the Presidential election. The master of mixed signals said last week that he would not be the Opposition’s candidate, stating that he wants to remain in active politics. His allies could perhaps have taken that as a sign of something big in the mix.
Eknath Shinde was also upset at the growing primacy accorded to Sanjay Raut, Sena MP, by Uddhav Thackeray. Shinde, who is a mass leader from Thane and used to choreograph the biggest Sena events, felt slighted at the new order of precedence in the party and the government. Sources say that he had no problem with the increasing prominence. After suspected cross-voting in Maharashtra MLC elections and the camping of ‘rebel’ party MLAs in Gujarat, chief minister Uddhav Thackeray on Tuesday held an urgent meeting of all Shiv Sena MLAs.
Meanwhile, NCP chief Sharad Pawar told reporters in Mumbai that the MVA government in Maharashtra will continue in the state under the leadership of Uddhav Thackeray.
Shinde was, meanwhile, removed from the post of a party group leader. MLA Ajay Chaudhary replaces Shinde. At least 30 MLAs of the Shiv Sena under the leadership of Shinde, Minister for Urban Development in the MVA government in Maharashtra, were taken to the Le Meridien hotel in Surat on Tuesday, indicating a rebellion that could break up the Sena and possibly trigger the fall of the Uddhav Thackeray government in the state. In another development, Milind Narvekar, the personal assistant of CM Uddhav Thackeray and MLC Ravindra Fatak went to Surat to discuss with Shinde and convince him to return back to the state.
Meanwhile, hours after triggering a political crisis in Maharashtra, Shinde has said that he is a part of “Balasaheb’s staunch Shiv Sainiks,” and he “will never cheat for power”. “We are Balasaheb’s staunch Shiv Sainiks … Balasaheb has taught us Hindutva. We have never and will never cheat for power regarding Balasaheb’s thoughts and Dharmaveer Anand Dighe Saheb teachings,” Shinde tweeted.
Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief Sharad Pawar has termed the issue as an “internal matter” of Shiv Sena and expressed confidence in the leadership of Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray to find a solution to the political crisis faced by the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government. Speaking to the media on Tuesday, Pawar said that this is the third instance when someone has tried to destabilise the government and it may not succeed. “Looking at the situation, I think we will find out some solution,” said Pawar.
Who Is Eknath Shinde?
From working in a beer bar in Thane and driving an autorickshaw to make ends meet, to becoming the most powerful leader in the present Shiv Sena after the Thackerays, Eknath Shinde, 58, followed the path of Chhagan Bhujbal and Narayan Rane who had earlier managed to engineer a split in the Sena.
Eknath Shinde sidelined turns a rebel
The emergence of Aaditya Thackeray, who is also the Yuva Sena president, and his bid to groom the party’s youth wing leaders like Varun Sardesai also upset Eknath Shinde. Once deemed to be the tallest leader in the party after the Thackerays, the rise of younger leaders in its ranks is said to have rankled Shinde.
While Shinde has always sworn allegiance to the Sena and Thackerays, there have been murmurs in recent months that he was “unhappy” over the way the party was being run and the treatment being meted out to old Sainiks like him. Over the past two years, the Sena underwent a generational change in its leadership which saw the sidelining of its many senior leaders and the emergence of a new guard led by Aditya Thackeray, the son of party president and Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray.
Afghanistan and Iran have reached an agreement over the Helmand River Water Treaty, local media reported quoting a Taliban member.
Water of the Helmand River will be shared with Iran based on the Helmand Water treaty signed in 1973 between the two countries, reported Tolo News.
The 1973 treaty between Afghanistan and Iran states that Kabul will share the water from Helmand River with Tehran at the rate of 26 cubic meters of water per second, or 850 million cubic meters per annum.
Taliban member Barakutullah Aryoubi stated that mutual stations and facilities will be established on both sides of the Helmand River.
“The two sides called for the implementation of the treaty as the problem was within the area covered by the treaty,” he added.
Last year after the Taliban came to power in Afghanistan, Iran’s foreign ministry had said that the recent political changes in Afghanistan could turn into a strategic threat to Iran’s interests.
“If the Taliban with the current thought and format gets established in Afghanistan, it definitely will be a strategic threat against our country’s national interests. There is no doubt about it,” the General Director of the Iranian foreign ministry’s west Asia department, Rasoul Mousavi had said, according to Tolo News.
Mousavi made the statement after confirming the Taliban’s recognition of the 1973 Helmand River Treaty.
Former Afghan president Ashraf Ghani had repeatedly said Afghanistan would not give water free of charge to any country, especially to Iran.
Ghani had said he will give water to the neighboring countries only in exchange for oil, but will not give it away for free.
Earlier, Helmand provincial council former head Attaullah Afghan also said that the water level has lowered in Helmand River and its water flow into Iran should not be allowed.
