Backing the students stir at Hyderabad University, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal today mounted pressure on the Centre as he demanded sacking of Union ministers Smriti Irani and Bandaru Dattatreya over the suicide by a dalit scholar which he called a “national shame”.
Coming out all guns blazing against HRD Minister Smriti Irani, the AAP leader while addressing the agitating students here said her statement yesterday about Rohith Vemulas death as well as subsequent agitation by the universitys students was a clear attempt to make it a caste issue for which she must apologise.
He also demanded inclusion of Iranis name in the FIR in connection with the death. “It is shameful that a responsible minister without inquiring into the facts has already concluded that Ambedkar Students Association is casteist. He mentioned three words about the students — anti-national, casteist and extremist,” said Kejriwal.
The AAP leader, who met the group of students sitting on an indefinite fast, charged Irani with playing “dirty politics” on the issue of the students suicide.
“Smriti Irani lied yesterday and tried to play dirty caste politics and tried to play with the emotions of the students. We demand she seek an apology from the entire country for that. We appeal to the Prime Minister to remove Smriti Irani and Dattatreya from his Cabinet,” he said.
“An FIR is registered. Dattatreyas name is there; let there be action against Smriti Irani also. Her name should also be there in that FIR,” Kejriwal said.
Irani had yesterday alleged that a malicious attempt was being made to project it as a “dalit versus non-dalit issue to ignite passions” for political gains and strongly refuted allegations of interference or putting pressure on university authority to take action against the dalit students.
Observing that the government work is not done only through letters, Kejriwal said the role of all would be known after a probe into call records of all concerned.
He claimed that the HRD Minister must have called Vice-Chancellor Prof Appa Rao Podile many times in connection with the issue. Kejriwal also sought removal of the Vice-Chancellor.
Vemulas alleged suicide following his suspension has snowballed into a major row with BJPs rivals wading into it and demanding the removal of Irani and Dattatreya, accusing them of being responsible for the death.
A zonal officer of Bhopal Municipal Corporation (BMC) was caught on camera allegedly watching porn clipping on his mobile during the general body meeting of the civic body, prompting the authorities to suspend him today.
BMC Zonal Officer (Zone 10), Anil Sharma, was allegedly caught watching a porn movie on January 18 when the general body meeting of the corporation was in progress. The meeting, among others, was attended by Mayor, Commissioner and corporators.
“Anil Sharma was today suspended after the probe panel submitted its initial report to me. In the report, Sharma has been found guilty,” Municipal Commissioner Tejasvi Nayak told PTI.
BMC public relation officer Premshanker Shukla said, “The act came to light yesterday when a TV channel aired the footage of Sharma allegedly watching the porn film in the meeting.”
The civic body chief had taken a serious view of the matter and constituted a committee comprising Additional Commissioner Sanjay Kumar and City Engineer A K Nanda and Shukla himself, to probe the matter and give initial report within 24 hours, he added.
“Nayak had already told me that if Sharma is found guilty in the initial report, stern action will be taken against him,” Shukla said.
As per the committee’s investigation, a TV journalist had caught Sharma’s act from the media gallery, the BMC PRO said adding that his conduct was “unbecoming” of a government officer.
BEIRUT: The Islamic State group confirmed Tuesday the death of British extremist “Jihadi John”, saying he was killed in a drone strike in their Syrian stronghold of Raqa in November.
Born Mohammed Emwazi, he was known as the executioner of the jihadist group appearing masked in a string of videos showing the beheadings of Western hostages.
In its online magazine Dabiq, the group said Emwazi was killed on November 12 “as the car he was in was targeted in a strike by an unmanned drone in the city of Raqa, destroying the car and killing him instantly”.
‘Jihadi John’: quiet football fan who became the symbol of IS
The US military had said at the time that it was “reasonably certain” he had been killed in the strike.
IS described Emwazi as a “martyr” and prayed to “Allah… to envelop him with His mercy and enter him into the highest levels of al-Firdaws (paradise)”.
Dabiq devoted an article to Emwazi, describing him as an “honourable brother” known for his “mercy and generosity” who once gave away a concubine as a gift “to an unmarried injured brother”.
The world knew him as a ruthless executioner who spoke English with a British accent and he was dubbed “Jihadi John” after hostages nicknamed a group of IS guards The Beatles.
He first appeared in a video in August 2014 showing the beheading of James Foley, a 40-year-old American freelance journalist captured in Syria in 2012.
Foley is seen kneeling on the ground, dressed in an orange outfit resembling those worn by prisoners held at the US naval base at Guantanamo Bay. Emwazi is dressed entirely in black.
US air strike targets ‘Jihadi John’ in Syria: Pentagon
The Pentagon has said Emwazi participated in videos showing the murders of Foley and fellow US journalist Steven Sotloff, US aid worker Abdul-Rahman Kassig, British aid workers David Haines and Alan Henning, Japanese journalist Kenji Goto, and a number of other hostages.
Emwazi was last seen in the video showing Goto’s execution in January.
On November 13, the US military said it was “reasonably certain” Emwazi, 27, was killed in a drone attack in Syria while he was being driven in a car.
He was targeted in a combined British-US operation the previous day in Raqa, de facto capital of IS in war-torn Syria.
Intelligence sources had been tracking Emwazi “for some time,” Baghdad-based military spokesman Colonel Steve Warren said at the time.
Islamic State’s Jihadi John reveals his face for the first time
“This guy was a human animal, and killing him probably makes the world a little bit better place,” he added.
Britain’s Prime Minister David Cameron had said if confirmed, Emwazi’s death would be “a strike at the heart” of the IS group.
A London computer programmer, Emwazi was born in Kuwait to a stateless family of Iraqi origin. His parents moved to Britain in 1993 after their hopes of obtaining Kuwaiti citizenship were quashed.
Emwazi was six years old when his family moved to London. He grew up in North Kensington, a leafy middle-class area where a network of Islamist extremists was uncovered in recent years.
New Delhi :-
Prime Minister Narendra Modi today strongly condemned the terror attack at a university in Pakistan and expressed condolences to the families of the deceased.
“Strongly condemn the terror attack at Bacha Khan University in Pakistan. Condolences to families of the deceased. Prayers with the injured,” he tweeted.
Heavily-armed Taliban militants stormed the prestigious university in Pakistan’s restive northwest Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province this morning, firing indiscriminately on students and teachers.
At least 25 people were killed and about 50 others injured in the attack as per the latest information.
According to officials, up to 10 attackers were believed to be involved in the attack.
PANAJI: An anonymous letter purportedly signed by ISIS has threatened to kill Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar.
Goa Police have circulated this letter to all the police stations in the state and handed over the case to the Anti Terrorist Squad (ATS).
The postcard threat letter was received at the State Secretariat last week following which Goa Police swung into action, a senior police official said today.
“All the agencies of state police are investigating this letter. We will soon be able to find the source of it,” the police official said.
“ISIS was written at the bottom of the postcard,” the official confirmed.
The letter has expressed anger over ban on cow slaughter in the country.
The Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) has taken a slew of measures including a 35 seconds compulsory wait to book tickets online through its website to facilitate hassle-free booking by genuine ticket seekers.
Now it is not possible to book ticket online before 35 seconds mandatory wait as it has been done to prevent faster booking by unscrupulous elements using any other means, said IRCTC Chairman and Managing Director AK Manocha here today.
Though it takes about 35 seconds minimum to fill the form followed by bank transaction online, there were cases of faster bookings by touts using certain automated softwares and thereby depriving genuine passengers.
We have taken certain security measures to prevent manipulation of the ticketing site and at the same time the site has been upgraded with a substantial investment to enable the system to book 15,000 tickets per minute, Manocha said.
Asked why 35 seconds wait, Centre for Railway Information System (CRIS) MD Sanjay Das said this is the minimum time required to fill the information necessary for booking ticket online. We cannot make it any longer otherwise there will be a long queue which will again be counter productive.”
CRIS provides the software to IRCTC.
About the possibility of hacking the site to cause disruption in the service, Das said foolproof arrangements have been made to prevent any unauthorised intrusion or hacking of the site.
We have engaged Standardisation Ticketing and Quality Control, a website security audit expert, to check the system and they have certified that the site is safe, Manocha said.
“There has been attempts being made by about 18,500 times in the past to intrude into the system which can be called as denial of service attackers. We have taken necessary security measures to prevent such incidents,” Das said.
Online booking of train tickets has gone up to 58 per cent of the total tickets booked by railways.
IRCTC, a railway PSU launched next generation e-ticketing system in April, 2014 to cater to the increased online booking demand. It has spent about Rs 180 crore in the last five years to strengthen the system.
In order to facilitate the genuine passengers, Tatkal booking time has been staggered from 10 AM to 11 AM for AC classes and 11 AM to 12 AM for non-AC classes.
Manocha said a total of about two lakh Tatkal tickets are booked in a day.
In 2014-15, a total 183,021,842 tickets were booked on IRCTC ticketing site. There were about 14.9 crore tickets booked till December 2015.
by : PTI
Chief Judicial Magistrate Om Prakash accepted the plea of government lawyer for withdrawal of the case against 262 RJD leaders including Lalu Prasad, his sons Tejaswi Yadav and Tej Pratap Yadav, besides state party chief Ramchandra Purve.
Patna, Jan 19: A district court here today accepted Bihar government’s plea to withdraw a case against RJD chief Lalu Prasad, his two minister-sons and others for vandalism and stopping government officials from discharging their duties during an RJD-sponsored bandh last year and discharged all the accused.
Chief Judicial Magistrate Om Prakash accepted the plea of government lawyer for withdrawal of the case against 262 RJD leaders including Lalu Prasad, his sons Tejaswi Yadav and Tej Pratap Yadav, besides state party chief Ramchandra Purve. Tejaswi Yadav and Tej Pratap Yadav are Deputy Chief Minister and Health Minister respectively. The government lawyer made a plea by moving an application for withdrawal of case under CRPC 321, which was accepted by the court. (ALSO READ: Bihar situation worsening, government not under Nitish Kumar’s control: Chirag Paswan)
The court discharged all the accused and closed the case. A case was registered against them with Kotwali police station in Patna on July 27, 2015, under various sections of IPC which related to vandalism and preventing government officials from discharging their duties. The charge sheet was filed in the case on October 13 last year. RJD, which was not a part of the state government at that time but was supporting Nitish Kumar ministry from outside, had enforced a Bihar bandh on July 27, 2015 demanding the release of caste census report by the union government.
A senior IRS officer of the Income Tax department has been sacked by the government for allegedly being on “continuous leave” in an unauthorised manner for over five years.
The case pertains to 1982-batch Indian Revenue Service (IRS) officer Ritu Kakkar who was last posted as a Commissioner of Income Tax in Kolkata in 2004, an order she never complied to and remained on “unauthorised absence from duty for a continuous period exceeding five years.”
According to the termination from service notification issued by the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT), Ms. Kakkar’s “continuous absence” has been treated as “deemed resignation from the IRS with immediate effect.”
“The officer will not be entitled for any retirement benefits,” the order issued by the CBDT on January 14 against the Delhi-based officer said. The notification said Ms. Kakkar was granted a study leave of two years between 2002-2004 and after her return when she “failed to comply with her posting order” to Kolkata, action was initiated by the government and a notice was issued to her in 2007.
It said the said notice could not reach its “logical end” because the officer did not respond to it. “Ms. Kakkar subsequently tendered a notice dated June 21, 2007 for Voluntary Retirement Scheme which was, however, not been found as per relevant rule of VRS as Ms. Kakkar had only 19 years and 5 months qualifying service till the date of proceeding on study leave.
“Since, leave is not a matter of right, leave applied for by Ms. Kakkar for conversion of study leave into regular leave could not be considered,” it said.
The order cited DoPT rules governing these issues and cited Rule 12 (2) of CCS (Leave) Rules, 1972 which states that a government servant who remains absent from duty for a continuous period exceeding five years other than on foreign service, with or without leave, shall be deemed to have resigned from the government service provided that a reasonable opportunity to explain the reasons for such absence be given to that government servant before provisions of sub-rule (2) are invoked.
It added that the said officer was contacted over phone by the office of the cadre controlling Chief Commissioner of Income Tax in Kolkata last year to obtain her side of the story and she informed them that she had “decided to put in her papers and filed VRS.” “This can be treated as opportunity provided to her,” it said in the notification declaring her termination from government service and the IRS.
by : PTI
Even as it “condemned” the ink throwing act on Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, BJP on Monday said that the attempt of Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia to accuse BJP and police for the incident is “more condemnable”.
“We do not approve of such incidents but on the other hand, the swiftness with which Deputy CM Manish Sisodia started blaming the BJP and police is more condemnable and raises suspicion whether the act was staged by the AAP itself,” Delhi BJP president Satish Upadhyay said.
Upadhyay said BJP has never supported such anarchic politics but AAP and Congress have given political promotion to people committing such acts.
“It was the AAP which encouraged anarchism in politics by promoting Jarnail Singh, a Khalistani supporter, to become an MLA, after he had thrown a shoe at the then Finance Minister P Chidambaram.
“Similarly Congress had also indulged in a low grade politics by promoting Bhola Pandey of Uttar Pradesh, who had hijacked a plane three decades ago, to the post of MLA,” he said.
A woman, identified as Bhavna Arora and who claimed to be a member of the Punjab unit of Aam Aadmi Sena, threw ink at Kejriwal at a public rally alleging that she has ample proof that the AAP-led Delhi government is directly involved in the CNG scam. She was later detained by police and a Delhi court today sent her to one day police custody.
“The allegations levelled by Bhavna Arora against AAP government over the sale of more than one lakh CNG stickers to non-CNG cars in Delhi exposes double standards of the government,” Upadhyay said.
“AAP has emerged as the most corrupt party than Congress,” Upadhyay tweeted.
by : PTI
Union Minister Ram Vilas Paswan said on Monday the NDA government would act on the Ram temple issue on the basis of the Supreme Court verdict and not on pro-Ram Mandir rhetoric of saffron leaders.
The Lok Janshakti Party leader said there was no question of relations between his party and BJP souring over the issue as the government would act on basis of the apex court verdict.
Also, Prime Minister’s politics revolves around development, not around controversial issues such as Ram Mandir, Babri Masjid and Common Civil Code among others, Paswan said.
“In the last two-and-half years of Modi’s rule, the Prime Minister has not even once spoken about Ram Mandir, Babri Masjid, Common Uniform Civil Code and Article 370, among others.
“His only aim is that there should be development in the country…how to solve the unrest among the youth, and strengthen the image of India, internationally, which no other Prime Minister could do as better as Modi,” he said.
To a question, he said: “There is no question of Modi’s image taking a beating and relations between LJP and BJP souring over the Ram Mandir issue because the NDA government will act on SC’s verdict, not on pro-Ram Mandir rhetoric of saffron leaders including Pravin Togadia.”
Replying to a query, Paswan said Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi does not have the moral right to demand capping of taxation percentage in the GST Bill because they did not do anything on it during the decade-rule of the UPA.
Paswan said Congress was misusing the strength of numbers in the Rajya Sabha to stall the GST Bill.
“The Bill should have been passed last year. They (Congress) are enjoying majority in Rajya Sabha, and they are misusing this position to their advantage.This is not good.”
Asked whether the GST dilemma is spoiling the image of Modi or Congress, he said more than the image of Congress, the image of the country has taken a massive beating.
“The image of Congress has taken a beating big time, but the biggest damage has been done on country’s image.”
by :PTI
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