India

Kozhikode, Jan 15 (IANS) Stressing that the BJP will emerge as the single-largest party in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, Congress leader Shashi Tharoor said that there was a possibility that the current government's numbers can be brought down.

"I strongly feel they can be brought down to a level where several potential allies may not want to join them," he said.

Speaking during the Kerala Literature Festival (KLF) held on the Kozhikode beach, the politician-writer said that considering India boasts of diverse shades, it was not important that the INDIA bloc must come to a complete agreement in all states.

Talking about the seat-sharing issue among INDIA bloc members, Tharoor hoped for an arrangement in as many states as possible to ensure preventable defeats.

Citing the examples of Kerala and Tamil Nadu, the Congress politician remarked that while in Kerala "it is hard to imagine CPM and Congress agreeing on seat sharing, however, in Tamil Nadu the CPI, CPM, Congress, and DMK are together and there is no dispute". They fought the last election together and are likely to fight this one too, he said.

He said that it was important to acquaint the people with the fact that the best candidate should be chosen from their constituency. “Everyone should be aware that only people from Varanasi can vote for (Narendra) Modi. Well, if in other places, they want to vote only to ensure that Modi becomes the PM, it is entirely their choice. However, people need to think if they want an effective administrator who will be good for their region."

--IANS

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Patna, Jan 14 (IANS) A man in Bihar's Bhojpur has been arrested for killing his friend over a Rs 500 dispute, police said on Sunday.

Superintendent of Police, Bhojpur, Pramod Kumar Yadav said that the accused, identified as Ajay Mahto, also tried to mutilate the body as well.

"A complaint was filed by a person named Vinod Singh that his nephew Mohan Singh was found missing since January 10 from his native village Bada Basantpur under Mufassil police station in the district. His dead body was found a couple of days later. We constituted a team and managed to arrest the main accused of this case," he said.

The accused confessed that he had a dispute of Rs 500 with the victim. On January 10, the accused brought Mohan Singh from home for a liquor party. When Singh became inebriated, accused Ajay Mahto throttled his neck until he was dead. He also tried to remove his eyes using fingers. However, he failed in his attempt,” the SP said, adding that they were interrogating the accused to find out if there was involvement of other persons in the crime.

--IANS

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Imphal, Jan 14 (IANS) Manipur Chief Minister N. Biren Singh, soon after Congress leader Rahul Gandhi led Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra was flagged off in the state on Sunday, questioned whether it was time for politics by holding rallies in the violence-hit state.

When the situation is getting better in Manipur, Rahul Gandhi and other Congress leaders are trying to make the situation more complicated, he alleged.

"Considering prevailing situation in the state, is it a time for politics by holding a rally ? This is the hour of protecting lives and properties, and providing comfort and relief,” Singh told the media on the sideline of a programme in Imphal.

Terming Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra as ‘Bharat Todo’ (break India) yatra instead, he claimed that the situation in Manipur is gradually getting better and normalcy being restored.

"Whenever he (Gandhi) comes, problems crop up. If he comes, we have to be careful and alert so that he does not mess with the situation," Singh said.

Gandhi visited Manipur for two days in June last year, weeks after the violence broke out in the state on May 3, and visited a few districts and met the affected people lodged in relief camps.

Terming Prime Minister Narendra Modi led 10-years governance as “anyay kaal” (period of injustice), the Congress on Sunday launched the 66-day long Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra from Manipur’s Thoubal district. The yatra will culminate in Mumbai on March 20 after covering 6,713 km through 15 states. After the BJP Government gave limited permission to use the Hapta Kangjeibung Palace ground in Imphal for launching the ‘Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra’, the Congress shifted the launch venue to Thoubal's Khongjom War Memorial.

--IANS

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Gurugram, Jan 14 (IANS) The body of Divya Pahuja, a former Gurugram-based model and girlfriend of slain gangster Sandeep Gadoli that was recovered on January 13 -- eleven days after she was shot dead at a hotel here, was cremated on Sunday by her family members.

Divya, 27, was allegedly killed by Abhijeet Singh, the owner of Hotel City Point where she was staying.

Her family members performed the last rites here on late Sunday evening. Her body was brought to Gurugram after a medical board conducted an autopsy in Hisar on Sunday afternoon.

Divya's body was recovered from a canal in Tohana in Haryana's Fatehabad district on Saturday.

"After the postmortem of the body, it was handed over to the family members of Divya. They performed the last rites here in Gurugram," spokesperson of Gurugram Police, Subhash Boken, said.

Meanwhile, an accused in the case Balraj Gill, who was arrested on January 11 in Kolkata, has been sent to four-day police custody.

Gill had allegedly disposed of Divya's body after she was killed on January 2.

Following his arrest in Kolkata, he was brought to Gurugram, and presented on Sunday at a court that sent him to police custody.

According to the police, Divya and Abhijeet were in a relationship.

Abhijeet told the police that he killed her in a fit of rage after she refused to delete some of his objectionable photos from her mobile phone.

The police are, however, yet to recover the 'murder weapon' which was reportedly thrown away by Abhijeet after killing Divya.

Balraj Gill had revealed during the transit remand that he and Ravi Banga had thrown Divya's body in Bakhra Canal in Patiala.

Five teams of Gurugram Police were involved in tracking Balraj and Amit who had absconded along with Divya's body since January 2. Divya's body was identified by a tattoo on her back.

Also, a clue regarding the whereabouts of the body was received after the arrest of Balraj Gill.

In connection with Divya's murder, the police have so far arrested six persons including the prime accused, Abhijeet Singh, his aides Om Prakash, Hemraj, Balraj Gill, Parvesh, and a woman, Megha.

The woman had helped Abhijeet in hiding documents and personal belongings of Divya.

Om Prakash and Hemraj had helped Abhijeet to drag Divya's body into the boot of a BMW car.

Parvesh had supplied the murder weapon to Abhijeet. Divya came in contact with Abhijeet through a jailed gangster, Binder Gujjar.

Binder Gujjar is said to be the prime conspirator in the alleged "fake encounter" of gangster Sandeep Gadoli, along with the

Gurugram Police, which took place in Mumbai in 2016. Divya was the prime accused in the case.

Later, she was arrested in connection with the gangster's murder, and she spent seven years in jail.

She was granted bail last year in June by the Bombay High Court. Divya's family has alleged that her murder was conspired by Sandeep Gadoli's family members, along with Abhijeet.

--IANS

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Gurugram, Jan 14 (IANS) The residents of Millennium City on January 13 experienced the coldest day of the season with the mercury sliding to 2.7 degrees Celsius, the Met Office said on Sunday.

According to the India Meteorological Department (IMD), the mercury rose by 2 notches on Sunday, with the minimum temperature recorded at 4 degrees Celsius.

The maximum temperature here on Sunday was 18 degrees Celsius.

On Sunday, dense fog was witnessed in the city with visibility dropping to less than 100 metres at many places in the morning hours, the IMD said.

The IMD has sounded an "orange alert" for Monday, predicting cold to severe cold wave conditions.

The weather office also predicted that cold conditions will continue for the next few more days in the city.

"The southern Haryana region, including Gurugram and Faridabad districts, will witness cold conditions and dense fog on Monday as well. The weather is likely to clear from Tuesday onwards. No significant change in minimum temperatures is likely over the region during the next two days and a rise by two to three degrees thereafter is likely," said an IMD official.

North India continued experiencing the cold wave conditions with the minimum temperature in Delhi dropping below 4 degrees Celsius on Saturday night.

The Met Office said that parts of Punjab, Haryana, Chandigarh, Uttar Pradesh and Delhi are likely to witness "dense to very dense" fog till Monday.

--IANS

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Jaipur, Jan 14 (IANS) Six people were killed while five others were injured as two cars collided in Rajasthan's Sikar on Sunday, police said.

The collision, which occurred at around 4.50 p.m. on the Jaipur-Bikaner (NH-52) highway near Laxmangarh in the district, was so severe that both the cars were completely shattered.

On receiving the information, police reached the spot and took out the bodies with the help of local people.

The bodies stuck in the badly-mangled vehicles were taken out with great difficulty.

Sikar MP Sumedhanand Saraswati also reached the spot. He said that Chief Minister has been briefed about the incident and that the state government will facilitate treatment of the injured.

The accident occurred as an SUV coming from Laxmangarh towards Sikar and the other vehicle, coming from the other direction, crossed the divider to the other side of the road and collided with the SUV, as per local people.

--IANS

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New Delhi, Jan 14 (IANS) An IndiGo passenger took to social media to express his frustration after enduring what he described as the "worst flight experience" of his life with the airline.

On Friday, the 10 p.m. Kolkata-Bengaluru flight, normally a routine journey, turned into a nightmarish ordeal for the passenger marked by a series of delays, totlaling a staggering seven hours.

The user named Deedy, in a series of posts on X, said: "I had the worst flight experience of my life last night, with Indigo. My 10 PM Calcutta-Bangalore flight left at 4.41 AM, after 6 delays totaling 7 hrs. I missed an international flight. 'Always on-time' is false advertising from @IndiGo6E. I’d avoid flying them again."

According to the disgruntled passenger, IndiGo, despite facing delays exceeding six hours, failed to offer the mandatory alternate flight and refund as required by aviation laws.

Deedy outlined the sequence of delays, ranging from half an hour to a staggering four hours, before the flight eventually departed at 4.41 a.m. arriving at its destination at 7.02 a.m.

At approximately 12.20 AM, frustrated and realising the impact on his international connection, Deedy decided to cancel his IndiGo flight and book a direct flight to San Francisco. He claimed it took the IndiGo team an additional two hours, until 2.20 a.m., to cancel his flight and return his checked-in luggage.

Deedy alleged that IndiGo employees initially resisted the cancellation, stating, "we won't do cancellations". Adding insult to injury, Deedy also said that the misleading information provided by some IndiGo employees who dismissed the delays as "regulation procedure." Furthermore, he shared an encounter with a person who condescendingly advised him to keep "at least TWELVE hours between flights" for international travel.

Deedy clarified that the delays were not due to fog, a common occurrence during December to February in India. While certain flights experience fog-related delays of approximately an hour, IndiGo's delays on this occasion were unrelated to adverse weather conditions.

Expressing his frustration, he posted: "Absolutely zero respect for other people's time and money."

In response to the tweets, IndiGo issued a statement, expressing regret for the inconvenience caused to Deedy and assuring him of a full refund, which he would receive between 5-7 business days. The airline acknowledged the importance of travellers' arrangements and claimed that such experiences were not reflective of their intended level of service.

--IANS

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Mumbai, Jan 14 (IANS) On Makar Sankranti morning, Mumbai Congress was rudely jolted awake when senior leader Milind M. Deora announced that he was quitting the Congress and later on Sunday afternoon, he officially joined Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde's Shiv Sena.

The dapper, foreign-educated Deora did what many in the Congress and even the ruling MahaYuti felt was 'unimaginable' by discarding the tricoloured 'Hand' to grab the saffron 'Bow-and-Arrow' flag, and ending the Deora family's 55-year-long links with the Congress.

"I never thought I would ever leave the Congress. But the same Congress which had ushered in economic reforms in the country under the former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is now abusing businessmen and industrialists and the good work of the government," said Deora in his acceptance speech as Shinde smiled broadly at the 'big catch' of the New Year, offered him party stole, a flag and flowers.

On his part, Shinde mouthed a filmy dialogue to forewarn 139-year-old grand old Congress of the political poaching shows planned ahead: "This is just a trailer, the main picture is still remaining."

Till late Saturday night, Deora and senior Congress leaders were in the denial mode with one leader terming the speculation over the upcoming defection as 'inconceivable'.

However, all political kite-flying ended as Makar Sankranti dawned and Deora perched himself in the Shiv Sena's lap, almost like a Pied Piper, with a horde of Congress leaders from the faction-ridden Mumbai and Maharashtra units tagging along.

For the Congress -- which had maintained a smug look when former CM Uddhav Thackeray's Shiv Sena (UBT) and senior leader Sharad Pawar's Nationalist Congress Party had also split vertically in June 2022 and July 2023, respectively -- Deora's walkout came as the proverbial 'ill-tidings' at an inopportune time.

Deora's departure -- akin to the exit of Jyotiraditya Scindi in March 2020 -- could prove damning for the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) ahead of the crucial civic, parliament and assembly elections due in 2024, when it would try to dislodge the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

The immediate trigger for the exit of Deora, 47 -- a two-time MP from Mumbai South -- is said to be the uncertainty over his nomination for the same prestigious seat in 2024, after the SS-UBT unilaterally staked claim over it.

Incidentally, his father, the late Murli S. Deora was a staunch Congress veteran enjoying excellent rapport with Sonia Gandhi and former PMs Rajiv Gandhi, P.V. Narasimha Rao, Manmohan Singh, and top leaders across the political and corporate honchos in India and world over.

Deora, who became MP at just 27, served as a junior minister in Manmohan Singh's cabinet for almost three years, from July 2011-May 2014, was Mumbai Congress President and had good relations with Congress leader Rahul Gandhi.

Interestingly, Deora dumped the Congress on a critical day -- when Rahul Gandhi launched his Manipur-Maharashtra Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra (BJNY) -- and served to divert attention from the party's mass outreach initiative.

This has become a major pre-poll season exodus of sorts for the Congress as the MVA grapples with virtually a 'civil war' over the seat-sharing talks that could make or mar the fragile alliance. Maharashtra unit Congress President Nana Patole said that the BJP is rattled by Rahul Gandhi's BJNY which kicked off from Manipur and has taken away a strong associate with the threats of central investigative agencies.

Congress Legislative Party leader Balasaheb Thorat said that the timing of Deora's departure was intended to shift focus from the BJNY, and "even our Murli Deora will be pained by this".

NCP's Working President Supriya Sule said that the MahaYuti is getting in the Congress colours by taking away all talented leaders and wondered what would be the fate of their own workers.

SS-UBT Chief Spokesperson Sanjay Raut rued how today, "there's nothing like loyalty and ideology in politics, its all about power", and recalled his association with the late Murli Deora, "who was a great leader who knew what to do for the party".

(Quaid Najmi can be contacted at: q.najmi@ians.in)

--IANS

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New Delhi, Jan 14 (IANS) Around 150 flights were delayed for hours due to traffic congestion at the IGI Airport here on Sunday, while 11 flights were diverted, and some cancelled as low visibility conditions due to dense fog disrupted operations, causing chaos for passengers and airlines alike.

An official said that between 4.30 a.m. and 12 noon, a total of 11 flights, including three international flights, were diverted.

Eight flights were redirected to Jaipur, while one each were sent to Ahmedabad, Mumbai, and Shimla.

The dense fog not only impacted domestic routes but also caused substantial delays and cancellations for overseas services.

Airlines took to social media to inform passengers about potential disruptions. Akasa Air posted on X: "Due to adverse weather (fog) at Delhi, Chennai, Varanasi, Bagdogra & Lucknow, our flight schedules have been affected, which may lead to consequential delays. We understand this may impact your travel plans and regret the inconvenience..."

SpiceJet posted: "Due to expected poor visibility in Delhi (DEL), Amritsar (ATQ), Jammu (IXJ), Varanasi (VNS), Gorakhpur (GOP), Patna (PAT), Bagdogra (IXB), Darbhanga (DBR), Guwahati (GAU) and Tezpur (TEZ) all departures/arrivals and their consequential flights may get affected."

Passengers took to social media to express their frustration with the disruptions.

Udit, a user on X, complained about a 4-hour plus delay on IndiGo flight 6E 2346 from Delhi to Coimbatore, and the inconvenience it caused in finding local transportation and accommodation.

Another user, Abhi Anand, criticised Vistara: "@airvistara, worst experience ever, been stranded at Delhi T3. No update on UK627, staff unsupportive. Telling nothing!!" In response, Vistara replied: "Hi Abhi, our commitment is to uphold on-time operations; however, we regret to inform you that flight UK601 experienced a delay due to air traffic congestion in Delhi and bad weather. Sometimes, such delays are beyond our control, despite our best efforts."

User Satish posted: "Have been waiting at Gorakhpur airport with old parents 80+, since morning 1100 to board IndiGo flight 6e5288. Constant delays to now 2010 departure. The inbound flight is yet to get airborne from Delhi. Hellish experience especially with old parents."

An IndiGo spokesman said: "Due to the low visibility and dense fog conditions across North India, IndiGo flight operations were impacted on Jan 14, 2024. This had a cascading effect on our operations throughout the day. Our staff kept passengers apprised of all delays and cancellations across airports and made every possible effort to facilitate the passengers. We sincerely regret the inconvenience caused to our passengers."

--IANS

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New Delhi, Jan 14 (IANS) Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday will release the first installment to 1 lakh beneficiaries of Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana-Gramin (PMAY-G) scheme under Pradhan Mantri Janjati Adivasi Nyaya Maha Abhiyan (PM-JANMAN) programme, an official said on Sunday.

According to the Prime Minister's Office (PMO), the first installment will be released on January 15 at 12 noon via video conference.

The Prime Minister will also interact with the beneficiaries of PM-JANMAN on the occasion.

In line with the Prime Minister's efforts towards the vision of Antyodaya to empower the last person at the last mile, PM-JANMAN was launched for the socio-economic welfare of Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups (PVTGs) on November 15, 2023, on the occasion of Janjatiya Gaurav Diwas.

The PMO said that PM-JANMAN, with a budget of approximately Rs 24,000 crore, focuses on 11 critical interventions through 9 ministries.

It is aimed to improve socio-economic conditions of the PVTGs by saturating PVTG households and habitations with basic facilities such as safe housing, clean drinking water and sanitation, improved access to education, health and nutrition, electricity, road and telecom connectivity, and sustainable livelihood opportunities.

--IANS

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