Greece’s prime minister easily won a crucial vote on a third bailout programme for the debt-stricken nation early on Thursday, hours after the European Central Bank infused cash-starved Greek banks with further emergency liquidity.

A total of 230 MPs backed the economic reforms programme demanded by Greece’s creditors, while 63 voted against the plan at the late-night vote.

Alexis Tsipras again faced down rebels within his own party who oppose a third bailout. Thirty-six Syriza MPs either voted no or abstained, three fewer than at a similar vote last week.

Yanis Varoufakis, the high-profile former finance minister, supported the measures. Last week he had voted against the first set of bailout conditions, including VAT rises and pension cuts, after resigning his post. But in this case, Varoufakis said, the specific measures being voted on included reforms he had previously put forward himself.

The vote clears the way for Greece to begin formal talks with its lenders on a three-year package of loans that could be worth €86bn.

Before the vote Tsipras had urged MPs to support the bailout, which will save Greece from bankruptcy and preserve its place in the eurozone.

“We made difficult choices and now we must all adapt to the new situation,” he told MPs, repeating that he did not agree with many of the reforms but would do his best to implement them.

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Athens was thrown further emergency assistance when the European Central Bank (ECB) increased liquidity for Greek lenders ahead of the crucial vote.

The ECB’s governing council agreed on Wednesday to raise the cap on emergency assistance for the country’s fragile banking system by €900m (£629m). The move was immediately received with relief. Greek banks, newly opened after three weeks of enforced closure, have become a weather vane for normality in a country whose close brush with bankruptcy has kept it on the frontline of Europe’s debt drama.

The decision – the second such injection of emergency funds since late June – will allow Greece’s cash machines to keep operating as the tourist season gathers pace, despite the continued imposition of capital controls across the banking sector. The ceiling on funds was previously set at €89.5bn.

With continued membership of the eurozone still far from assured, the Greek finance minister, Euclid Tsakalotos, kicked off a raucous debate in the 300-seat parliament imploring MPs to support the bailout plan. The passage of reforms, including a new code of civil procedure that would overhaul Greece’s notoriously slow judicial sector, were demanded by the EU and the International Monetary Fund in exchange for opening talks on a third rescue package.

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MPs in Athens have voted to accept a second package of economic measures tonight, despite another Syriza rebellion
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Tsakalotos told MPs: “It is extremely important to wrap up this procedure of prior actions so that we can start negotiations on Friday.”

A new bailout programme will provide as much as €86bn in loans for Greece, tiding it over for the next three years. But the stringent terms attached to the package have divided the ruling leftwing Syriza party and raised fears of political instability. With at least a third of the governing party vehemently opposed to the measures, and advocating a euro exit and a return to the drachma, the late-night vote was always expected to be a test of the authority over Syriza of Tsipras.

Hardliners, including the flamboyant former finance minister Yanis Varoufakis, have described the policies as unworkable in a country already labouring under record levels of poverty and unemployment. But on Wednesday night even Varoufakis voted yes.

Costas Isychos, the former deputy defence minister who resigned in outrage over the measures, said: “The coping strategies of a large part of society ran out long ago. The road map foreseen by the accord not only cannot be enforced, I believe large parts of society will fight back.”

Ahead of the ballot, anti-austerity protestors took to the streets, with the civil servants union ADEDY and militants from the communist-affiliated PAME organising rallies against reforms denounced as the harbingers of yet more destitution.

Insiders said it was essential that Tsipras at least retained control of the 110 MPs who last week voted in favour of tax rises and pension cuts – measures spurned by the young prime minister until his spectacular U-turn in the face of possible eurozone ejection.

Chances of Greek bailout rest on MPs’ vote
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The controversial policies were passed with the help of “pro-European” opposition parties, including the main centre-right New Democracy, which have argued that Greece must remain at the heart of Europe, and in the eurozone, at any cost.

But across the political spectrum MPs said it was impossible for the government to continue counting on the opposition for support.

Antigone Limberaki, an MP with the centrist Potami party, said: “Tsipras cannot cohabit with at least a third of his political group and more than half of his central committee totally opposed to the measures [outlined] in the third memorandum. Everything now depends on how he handles the problems in his party. It is very clear that he is burning bridges with the other side, that he feels he is on a one-way track and is going down the road of moderation.”

Selfie’ couple Satish Apte and Lisa Kapadiya’s marriage made news, in January this year, for their 39-year age difference.

Recently, the 59-year-old Apte filed a missing complaint of his wife, who left his home on March 31 but never returned. As Apte manages to make into news yet again, iamin tries to find out the other side of the story.

In an exclusive interview, Lisa’s sister Monica reveals that she was physically harassed by Apte. “Lisa was blackmailed into marrying Apte. As soon as they got married, he started to assault her physically. Looking at her apathy, I decided to take her to my home. It all started when she was only 8-year-old. She was molested by Apte then and we had filed a complaint with the Ramnagar Police Station in Dombivali. She is presently very disturbed,” Monica said.

Monica is set to take her sister Lisa to the Naupada police station and file a complaint against Apte. “Apte had helped our family when we were financially unstable. He is just taking advantage of that fact. We will fight against this torture,” said Monica.

Meanwhile, Apte rubbished all these allegations.

New Delhi, Jul 22 (PTI) Gujarat police has opposed in the Supreme Court the anticipatory bail plea of Teesta Setalvad, saying the social activist and her husband “misappropriated” funds meant for charity for personal expenses ranging from wine, earbuds to expensive mobile phone besides tampering with evidence.

The state police in its affidavit said Setalvad and her husband Javed Anand as trustees of two trusts — Sabrang Trust and Citizen for Justice and Peace (CJP) — have by “diverse methods” allegedly “misappropriated the funds of charity and converted to their own use funds meant for the rehabilitation and welfare of the unfortunate victims of riots in Gujarat in Feb-March 2002,” including construction of “dream museum”.

It said the probe into the case of alleged embezzlement of funds for a museum at Gulbarg society, devastated in the 2002 riots, revealed that expenses of “very personal nature” have been debited by them under the head “Secular Education” or “Legal Aid Expenses”.

It said the probe is supported by evidence like vouchers having dates and amounts incurred on consumption of wine, whiskey and rum, purchase of movie CDs of Singham, Jodha Akbar and PAA, payment for several pairs of spectacles, wining and dining at some of the best restaurants and fast food outlets of Mumbai.

The crime branch said under the heading of “secular education” and “legal aid expenses”, the investigation revealed that Setalvad claimed reimbursment towards purchase of sanitary napkins in the name of medical expense and “surprisingly” her husband too claimed reimbursment for it.

Further, purchases of purely personal items like ear buds, wet wipes, nail clippers, ladies personal items, several books including romantic novels like Mills and Boons and Thrillers like Total Control, Blackberry phone and clothes were made from the funds of Sabrang Trust.

The affidavit said, interestingly the investigation which is based on “limited documents” submitted by the couple recently to the investigating officer, also throws light

New Delhi, Jul 22 (PTI) Ruling out any ’emergency or urgency’ in getting back USD 6.5 billion oil import dues from India, Iran today proposed that a part of this corpus can be invested in Indian projects there — assuaging concerns that an immediate payment outgo might hit India’s forex reserves.

Hopeful that a “settlement” can be reached on how to clear these dues, Iran has also proposed delegation-level visits and discussions to iron out the issues in this regard.

The assurance by Iranian Ambassador to India, Gholamreza Ansari, assumes significance as there were concerns that India might have to make immediate payments to clear these dues after lifting of the Western sanctions on Iran. The dues have been pending largely because of curbs on the banking and payment channels connecting Iran.

As per the estimates, more than half of the crude oil bill has remained uncleared in the past two years and has grown to more than USD 6.5 billion (over Rs 41,000 crore).

“We are neither in emergency or urgent situation. It depends on discussions between the two sides. We should exchange delegations between the two countries and discuss arrangements which they want to do business with each other,” Ansari told PTI in an interview here.

“Anyway, it will take a long time between Iran and India (to settle the dues) because we are good partners and may be part of this money can go to different projects, different purposes,” he said.

However, the envoy did not give the exact figure of the payments to be made by India and only said it was a “substantial” amount.

“In future…we will have some sort of settlement on what we want to do with the dues… We should find mechanism to settle it. How we want to use it, sell it or transfer it. It can be discussed between the two sides,” the envoy further said, indicating that there were many investment opportunities in Iran and part of the dues could be used there.

India has maintained a trade relation with Iran despite the sanctions, especially in terms of crude oil imports.

As per the industry estimates, India has been Iran’s second biggest oil customer after China. .

New Delhi, Jul 22 (PTI) Government has decided to update the National Population Register (NPR) and seed the Aadhaar number in the NPR database.

Minister of State for Home Haribhai Parathibhai Chaudhary told Rajya Sabha that the initiative would cost Rs 951.35 crore and the field work would be completed by March 2016.

“This updated NPR database along with Aadhaar number would become the mother database and can be used by various government departments for selection of beneficiaries under their respective schemes,” he said in reply to a written question.

There is no duplication of efforts as all the agencies namely Registrar General of Citizen Registration India, Ministry of Home Affairs, Unique Identification Authority of India, NITI Aayog, Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) Mission, Ministry of Finance and State/Union Territories Governments are working in close coordination for completion of the above exercise.

The National Population Register is a Register of usual residents of the country. The project is being implemented by the Registrar General and Census Commissioner of India.

The Unique Identification Authority of India is responsible for collecting the biometric and demographic data of residents, store them in a centralised database, and issue a 12-digit unique identify number called Aadhaar to each resident. It is considered the world’s largest national identification number project.

MUMBAI: Heavy rain which lashed several parts of Mumbai city and suburbs since Tuesday morning came to a halt by early evening. The rainfall recorded between 8am to 2pm in Mumbai city area was 32.78mm, eastern Suburbs 62.61mm and western suburbs 65.39mm.

The rain led to waterlogging in several areas. Local train services and flights were also hit.

Siliguri, July 20: A Siliguri-based tea auction company today launched a catalogue with details of brew that would go under the hammer at the Siliguri Tea Auction Centre scheduled for July 22.

“This is the first time that we have come up with a printed catalogue containing details of tea that would be auctioned off by us. At the sale scheduled for July 22, we will auction off 1.71 lakh kg of tea from 64 gardens of the region (north Bengal). Details would be sent by each garden,” Rajiv Jain, a representative of Good Point Tea Private Limited, said. “Now, buyers will get catalogues before every auction.”

He said: “Most of the hard copies would be distributed among buyers. We will also put up the catalogue on our website. Prospective buyers can see tasting reports along with photographs of tea. We are putting scores on the basis of quality of dry leaf sample.”

Representatives of the auction company said tea brokers used to distribute samples and other details earlier.

The catalogue, which would be published every week, would have details like name of the gardens, total number of tea packages and type of brew from each estate. “We also have a feedback form at the end of the catalogue and we would urge buyers to share their opinion with us about the catalogue,” an official said.

P.O. Desai, chairman and managing director of Gujarat-based Wagh Bakri Group, a tea blending and packaging firm, said: “We appreciate the manner in which the company has planned to come out with a catalogue. It is good for buyers to have a clear idea of the quality of the tea.

ndslides prepared by the district administration, which had pegged the losses at Rs 27 crore. This, however, did not include the damage caused to infrastructure like roads and bridges.

“I held a meeting with BDOs (block development officers) and others and requested them to visit the areas where they had not gone and carry out a fresh survey and prepare an accurate report. It will be better if we (GTA and district administration) can co-ordinate…I will request them (the district administration) to prepare the report in co-operation with us,” he told journalists here.

In the July 1 landslides and rain, 33 people had died across the Darjeeling hills.