India

New Delhi, Jan 16 (IANS) Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge has attacked the BJP and the Prime Minister and alleged that 115 people are taking their lives per day.

Kharge said in a tweet, "In #GujaratModel of BJP, 9 daily wagers die by suicide every day in Gujarat, 115 daily wagers commit suicide every day in India. Your 'Double Engine' has crushed the aspirations of the poor under its deadly wheels !"

Kharge had earlier attacked the government and said, "No Prime Minister, no home minister has lied, they are lying, sometimes they say they will give 2 crore jobs some time 15 lakh rupees to each one account, but all false."

"The Congress party made so many governments but the MLAs were lured and the BJP formed their own government, while they talk about protecting democracy."

He said the BJP's main aim is to create hatred and division, but the Bharat Jodo Yatra is fighting these elements and will emerge victorious.

Addressing the a rally in Haryana's Panipat recently, senior Congress leader Rahul Gandhi lashed out at the government on Agniveer Scheme, and said Haryana has become a champion in unemployment with no jobs for youth.

Gandhi said that earlier a soldier used to serve country for 15 years and proper training and retirement benefits were given but now after five years he will be unemployed.

--IANS
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Joshimath, Jan 16 (IANS) Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Central government have been monitoring the situation in Joshimath. After the Ministry of Home Affairs, a team from the PM's Office visited the holy city to inspect the land subsidence affected areas. The cracks have increased slightly.

The team, headed by Mangesh Ghildiyal, Deputy Secretary PMO, visited the city on Sunday and will submit its report soon, said sources.

According to sources, the purpose of the visit was to separately inspect the condition of the areas with visible cracks and deteriorating water quality.

Disaster Management Secretary Ranjit Kumar Sinha inspected the affected areas on the same day and said that there had been a slight increase in the number of cracks, but no new areas were damaged.

A team of the MHA, led by Border Management Secretary Dharmendra S. Gangwar, had visited Dehradun and Joshimath last week and had held discussions with the the state officials.

The local authorities informed the Central teams about the steps taken by the district administration.

--IANS
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New Delhi, Jan 16 (IANS) Congress leader Acharya Pramod Krishnam has termed his party's senior "manager" as old and irrelevant.

Krishnam tweeted, "After SP now BSP has also flatly refused the arrangement, seems to be that the senior 'manager' of our party, along with being old, has also become irrelevant."

It is apparent that Congress campaign for opposition unity against the BJP seems to have received a setback.

Significantly, Assembly elections are to be held in nine states before the Lok Sabha polls.

In many of these states, including in Uttar Pradesh, the opposition Samajwadi Party (SP) and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) are seemingly drifting away from the Congress.

Krishnam took a jibe at the party manager regarding the same.

Recently, SP president and former UP Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav, while talking to IANS, had said that the relevance of Rahul Gandhi's Bharat Jodo Yatra and his party would be decided by the results of the Lok Sabha elections.

On the occasion of her birthday on Sunday, BSP Chief Mayawati informed that the party would not contest assembly elections in Karnataka, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh in 2023 and will contest the Lok Sabha polls alone, without any alliance.

These statements indicate that the Congress might not get the support of the SP and the BSP in the Lok Sabha polls and that the BJP might win against the divided opposition.

--IANS
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New Delhi, Jan 16 (IANS) The Supreme Court on Monday held that default bail granted to an accused can be cancelled on merits -- if a strong case is made out on filing of a charge sheet -- as there cannot be a premium on lethargic probe.

A bench headed by Justice M.R. Shah directed the Telangana High Court to consider on merits the CBI's plea for cancellation of bail to Erra Gangi Reddy in connection with the murder of former Andhra Pradesh minister Y.S. Vivekananda Reddy, uncle of Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy. He was found murdered at his residence in Pulivendula on March 15, 2019.

The bench, also comprising Justice C.T. Ravikumar, noted that mere non-filing of the charge sheet (within the deadline) will not be enough when a strong case is made out against the accused. The top court remanded that matter back to the high court to consider it afresh in accordance with law and on merits.

The top court observed that the high court judgment -- which held that default bail cannot be cancelled on merits -- would give a premium to the lethargy of investigating agencies.

The top court was considering whether bail can be cancelled after presentation of the charge sheet, when the bail was granted for not filing the charge sheet within 90 days.

The bench noted that mere filing of charge sheet will not result in cancellation unless a strong case is made out that the accused has committed a non bailable offence. The detailed judgment in the matter will be uploaded later.

--IANS
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New Delhi, Jan 14 (IANS) A team of Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Saturday visited the office of Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia in connection with the Delhi excise policy case.

While Sisodia claimed that the CBI raided his office, the central probe agency denied the claim.

A top CBI official said on condition of anonymity that it was only a search operation related to the excise policy case.

"Today again the CBI has reached my office. They are welcome. They raided my house, my office, searched my locker, even conducted an investigation in my village. Nothing has been found against me and nothing will be found, because I have not done anything wrong. I've sincerely worked for the education of the children in Delhi," Sisodia tweeted in Hindi.

In November last year, the CBI had filed a charge-sheet in connection with the alleged liquor policy scam, but it did not name Sisodia in it, though he was named in the FIR filed earlier in the matter.

--IANS
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Srinagar, Jan 14 (IANS) An avalanche hit Tulail area of Gurez in J&K's Bandipora district on Saturday.

Officials said that the avalanche hit Jurniyal village but no damage has been reported.

People in Gurez and adjoining areas have been advised by the administration to remain cautious and not to venture out on slopes, hilly areas, or avalanche prone areas till the weather improves.

Two labourers were killed on Friday after an avalanche hit Sarbal area of Sonamarg in Ganderbal district.

-- IANS
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Visakhapatnam, Jan 14 (IANS) Dense fog around Visakhapatnam airport affected flight operations on Saturday morning.

Flights coming from Bangalore and Delhi were diverted to Hyderabad due to poor visibility because of heavy fog at the airport in the port city.

A few flights scheduled to take off from Visakhapatnam to other destinations were also delayed.

Akasa Air's flight from Bangalore and Air Asia flight from Delhi were diverted to Rajiv Gandhi International Airport at Shamshabad.

As the conditions improved after 10 a.m., the flights were called back. Subsequently, all flights took off and landed as scheduled.

Dense fog enveloped the port city and other parts of Visakhapatnam district. Road users also faced difficulty due to poor visibility

--IANS
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Kolkata, Jan 10 (IANS) Based on intelligence inputs, the cops of Golabari Police station in Kolkata, adjacent Howrah district, have arrested nine illegal Bangladeshi immigrants from near Howrah station late on Monday night. A local Indian agent was also arrested.

District police sources said that they received information that these nine illegal Bangladeshi immigrants arrived at Howrah with the intention of settling there. Accordingly, the cops of the Golabari Police station started keeping a watch in the areas adjacent to Howrah station.

During that screening process they noticed two cars. They stopped the cars and demanded identity proof from the commuters. After that, it was revealed that nine of the ten passengers were illegal Bangladeshi residents, of which six were men and three were women. They have been booked under various sections of the Foreigners Act, 1946.

District police source said that none of them had proper documents to come to India and the local agent arrested along with them helped in crossing the border illegally.

"Preliminary investigation has revealed that they were basically economic immigrants and the local agent arrested was supposed to take them to Bangalore for employment," a district police official said.

They are being interrogated now to ascertain how they illegally crossed the border, especially the area through which they infiltrated. They will be presented at a lower court in Howrah district on Tuesday. The police as per rules will be informing the matter to the Bangladesh Deputy High Commission in Kolkata.

--IANS
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Ambala, Jan 10 (IANS) Congress leader Rahul Gandhi will visit the Golden Temple in Amritsar on Tuesday before the Bharat Jodo Yatra (BJY) enters Punjab on Wednesday.

Taking to Twitter, Jairam Ramesh, the party's General Secretary said: "Day 116 — Bharat Jodo Yatra finishes Haryana leg in Ambala now. 2mrw morning is Punjab leg. There can be no better way to begin that than with a pilgrimage to holiest Golden Temple in Amritsar. There'll be no padyatra this afternoon so that Rahul Gandhi can pay his respects there."

After Punjab, the mega walkathon is scheduled to enter Jammu and Kashmir on January 20 after a brief halt for a day in Himachal Pradesh.

The yatra will end on January 30 in Srinagar with hoisting of the Tricolour.

--IANS
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Greater Noida, Jan 10 (IANS) A forest department team continued with its search operation after a leopard was spotted in Greater Noida's residential colony.

The search operation has been going on since January 3 when the leopard was first spotted.

The Forest Department team has used various state-of-the-art machines and tried indigenous remedies to catch the elusive big cat.

The leopard has been repeatedly spotted in the under-construction building.

The Forest department team and other special teams of the surrounding districts are also continuously trying to catch the leopard, but have failed to catch the animal.

The team sprayed lime at various places on the under-construction site so that they could record the movement of the leopard.

Apart from this, CCTV cameras and other cameras have also been installed at many places.

According to the information received, evidence of the leopard coming and staying in the under-construction society have been found by the officials of the forest department.

Sources have told IANS that the leopard has been coming to the under-construction building for the past several days. The leopard has made it a 'temporary home' here in a way and also lives in the surrounding ridge area.

Even though the forest department team is not saying this openly, they have got the evidence and are investigating accordingly.

The leopard sighting has triggered panic among the residents living in the surrounding societies.

Trap cages with goats as bait have been deployed and the forest department has been continuously monitoring the area.

--IANS
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