Bengaluru: Former Karnataka chief minister Jagadish Shettar is in talks with senior Congress leaders after resigning from the Karnataka Assembly over his candidature not being reconsidered by the BJP for the May 10 election, Congress sources said.
The sources told PTI that Shettar flew from Hubballi to Bengaluru on Sunday in a special helicopter and held discussions with Congress general secretary (Karnataka in-charge) Randeep Singh Surjewala, Congress state chief D K Shivakumar, former minister M B Patil and veteran Congress leader Shamanur Shivashankarappa.
Shettar may join Congress on Monday, the sources added.
The six-time Hubballi-Dharwad Central MLA resigned from the Assembly on Sunday after his talks with Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai and two Union ministers Pralhad Joshi and Dharmendra Pradhan the previous night failed.
Shettar alleged that he has been humiliated by denying him a BJP ticket and added that there was a systematic conspiracy against him in the ruling party.
New Delhi: A day after gangster-politician Atiq Ahmad and his brother Ashraf were shot dead under police escort, a plea was filed in the Supreme Court on Sunday seeking the constitution of an independent expert committee headed by a former apex court judge to probe the killings.
The plea, filed by advocate Vishal Tiwari, also sought an inquiry into the 183 encounters that have taken place in Uttar Pradesh since 2017.
Ahmad (60) and Ashraf, who were in handcuffs, were shot dead by three men posing as journalists when they were answering reporters’ queries while being escorted by police personnel to a medical college in Uttar Pradesh’s Prayagraj for a checkup on Saturday night.
Just hours before the shooting, the last rites of Ahmad’s son Asad, who along with one of his associates was gunned down in a police encounter in Jhansi on April 13, were held.
Uttar Pradesh Police had said on Friday that it has gunned down 183 alleged criminals in encounters in the six years of the Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath-led government and this included Asad and his accomplice.
The plea sought the creation of an independent expert committee to probe the killings of Atiq and Ashraf.
“Issue guidelines/directions to safeguard the rule of law by constituting an Independent Expert Committee under the Chairmanship of former Supreme Court justice to inquire into the 183 encounters which had occurred since 2017 as stated by Uttar Pradesh Special Director General of Police (Law and Order) and also to inquire into the police custody murder of Atiq and Ashraf,” it said.
Referring to Atiq’s killing, the plea said “such actions by police are a severe threat to democracy and rule of law and lead to police state”.
“In a democratic society the police cannot be allowed to become a mode of delivering final justice or to become a punishing authority. The power of punishment is only vested in the judiciary,” the plea stated.
The plea said extra judicial killings or fake police encounters have no place under the law.
When the police turn “Dare Devils then the entire rule of law collapses and generates fear in the mind of people against police which is very dangerous for democracy and this also results into further crime,” it stated.
Burhanpur: Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) chief Mohan Bhagwat, in an apparent reference to religious conversions, said on Sunday that missionaries take advantage of situations wherein people feel that the society is not with them.
He was addressing an event here, where he dedicated to the people the samadhi of Govindnath Maharaj.
“We don’t see our own people. We don’t go to them and ask them. But some missionary from thousands of miles away comes and lives there, eats their food, speaks their language and then converts them,” Bhagwat said.
Over the course of 100 years, people came to India to change everything, he said.
They have been working here for centuries but failed to gain anything as our roots remained strong thanks to the efforts of our ancestors, Bhagwat said.
“Efforts are made to uproot them. So, the society should understand that deceit. We have to strengthen the faith,” he said.
Deceptive people raise some questions about religion to waver the faith, he said, adding, “Our society never faced such people earlier so people get sceptical…We have to remove this weakness.”
Bhagwat said, “Even after this, our society doesn’t waver. But people change when they lose faith and feel that the society is not with them.”
The RSS chief said that an entire village in Madhya Pradesh became “sanatani” 150 years after they locals got converted to Christianity as they got help from Kalyan Ashram (an RSS-backed voluntary organisation).
“We don’t need to go abroad to spread our faith as ‘sanatan dharma’ doesn’t believe in such practices. We need to remove the deviation and distortion of the Bharatiya traditions and faith here (in India) and strengthen the roots of our ‘dharma’,” he said.
Bhagwat also addressed a Dharma Sabha and visited Gurdwara Badi Sangat to pay obeisance.
After visiting the gurdwara, he said that Guru Granth Sahib is a source of inspiration for the Hindus.
On Monday, Bhagwat is scheduled to inaugurate the office building of Dr Hedgewar Memorial Committee at Saraswati Nagar and also address the Sangh volunteers in Burhanpur.
Burhanpur: Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) chief Mohan Bhagwat, in an apparent reference to religious conversions, said on Sunday that missionaries take advantage of situations wherein people feel that the society is not with them.
He was addressing an event here, where he dedicated to the people the samadhi of Govindnath Maharaj.
“We don’t see our own people. We don’t go to them and ask them. But some missionary from thousands of miles away comes and lives there, eats their food, speaks their language and then converts them,” Bhagwat said.
Over the course of 100 years, people came to India to change everything, he said.
They have been working here for centuries but failed to gain anything as our roots remained strong thanks to the efforts of our ancestors, Bhagwat said.
“Efforts are made to uproot them. So, the society should understand that deceit. We have to strengthen the faith,” he said.
Deceptive people raise some questions about religion to waver the faith, he said, adding, “Our society never faced such people earlier so people get sceptical…We have to remove this weakness.”
Bhagwat said, “Even after this, our society doesn’t waver. But people change when they lose faith and feel that the society is not with them.”
The RSS chief said that an entire village in Madhya Pradesh became “sanatani” 150 years after they locals got converted to Christianity as they got help from Kalyan Ashram (an RSS-backed voluntary organisation).
“We don’t need to go abroad to spread our faith as ‘sanatan dharma’ doesn’t believe in such practices. We need to remove the deviation and distortion of the Bharatiya traditions and faith here (in India) and strengthen the roots of our ‘dharma’,” he said.
Bhagwat also addressed a Dharma Sabha and visited Gurdwara Badi Sangat to pay obeisance.
After visiting the gurdwara, he said that Guru Granth Sahib is a source of inspiration for the Hindus.
On Monday, Bhagwat is scheduled to inaugurate the office building of Dr Hedgewar Memorial Committee at Saraswati Nagar and also address the Sangh volunteers in Burhanpur.
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Claire Bischoff, a Dominion spokesperson, said the company would have no comment on the trial delay. Representatives for Fox News and its parent company, Fox Corp., the entities Dominion is suing, did not immediately return requests for comment. In his statement, Delaware Superior Court Judge Eric Davis said only that the trial, including jury selection, would be continued until Tuesday and that he would announce the delay in court on Monday.
That’s when Fox News executives and the network’s star hosts were scheduled to begin answering for their role in spreading doubt about the 2020 presidential election and creating the gaping wound that remains in America’s democracy.
Jurors hearing the $1.6 billion lawsuit filed against Fox by Dominion Voting Systems would have to answer a specific question: Did Fox defame the voting machine company by airing bogus stories alleging that the election was rigged against then-President Donald Trump, even as many at the network privately doubted the false claims being pushed by Trump and his allies?
Yet the broader context looms large. A trial would test press freedom and the reputation of conservatives’ favorite news source. It also would illuminate the flow of misinformation that helped spark the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol and continues to fuel Trump’s hopes to regain power in 2024.
Fox News stars Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity and founder Rupert Murdoch are among the people who had been expected to testify.
Barring a settlement, opening statements are now scheduled for Tuesday.
“This is Christmas Eve for defamation scholars,” said RonNell Andersen Jones, a University of Utah law professor.
If the trial were a sporting event, Fox News would be taking the field on a losing streak, with key players injured and having just alienated the referee. Pretrial court rulings and embarrassing revelations about its biggest names have Fox on its heels.
Court papers released over the past two months show Fox executives, producers and personalities privately disbelieved Trump’s claims of a fraudulent election. But Dominion says Fox News was afraid of alienating its audience with the truth, particularly after many viewers were angered by the network’s decision to declare Democrat Joe Biden the winner in Arizona on election night in November 2020.
Some rulings by the judge have eased Dominion’s path. In a summary judgment, Davis said it was “CRYSTAL clear” that fraud allegations against the company were false. That means trial time won’t have to be spent disproving them at a time when millions of Republicans continue to doubt the 2020 results.
Davis said it also is clear that Dominion’s reputation was damaged, but that it would be up to a jury to decide whether Fox acted with “actual malice” — the legal standard — and, if so, what that’s worth financially.
Fox witnesses would likely testify that they thought the allegations against Dominion were newsworthy, but Davis made it clear that’s not a defense against defamation.
New York law protects news outlets from defamation for expressions of opinion. But Davis methodically went through 20 different times on Fox when allegations against Dominion were discussed, ruling that all of them were fully or partly considered statements of fact, and fair game for a potential libel finding.
“A lawsuit is a little bit like hitting a home run,” said Cary Coglianese, law professor at the University of Pennsylvania. “You have to go through all of the bases to get there.” The judge’s rulings “basically give Dominion a spot at third base, and all they have to do is come home to win it.”
Both Fox and Dominion are incorporated in Delaware, though Fox News is headquartered in New York and Dominion is based in Denver.
Fox angered Davis this past week when the judge said the network’s lawyers delayed producing evidence and were not forthcoming in revealing Murdoch’s role at Fox News. A Fox lawyer, Blake Rohrbacher, sent a letter of apology to Davis on Friday, saying it was a misunderstanding and not an intention to deceive.
It’s not clear whether that would affect a trial. But it’s generally not wise to have a judge wonder at the outset of a trial whether your side is telling the truth, particularly when truth is the central point of the case, Jones said.
The lawsuit essentially comes down to whether Dominion can prove Fox acted with actual malice by putting something on the air knowing that it was false or acting with a “reckless disregard” for whether it was true. In most libel cases, that is the most difficult hurdle for plaintiffs to get past.
Dominion can point to many examples where Fox figures didn’t believe the charges being made by Trump allies such as Sidney Powell and Rudy Giuliani. But Fox says many of those disbelievers were not in a position to decide when to air those allegations.
“We think it’s essential for them to connect those dots,” Fox lawyer Erin Murphy said.
If the case goes to trial, the jury will determine whether a powerful figure like Murdoch — who testified in a deposition that he didn’t believe the election-fraud charges — had the influence to keep the accusations off the air.
“Credibility is always important in any trial in any case. But it’s going to be really important in this case,” said Jane Kirtley, director of the Silha Center for the Study of Media Ethics and the Law at the University of Minnesota.
Kirtley is concerned that the suit may eventually advance to the U.S. Supreme Court, which could use it as a pretext to weaken the actual malice standard that was set in a 1964 decision in New York Times Co. v. Sullivan. That, she feels, would be disastrous for journalists.
Dominion’s lawsuit is being closely watched by another voting-technology company with a separate but similar case against Fox News. Florida-based Smartmatic has looked to some rulings and evidence in the Dominion case to try to enhance its own $2.7 billion defamation lawsuit in New York. The Smartmatic case isn’t yet ready for trial but has survived Fox News’ effort to get it tossed out.
Many experts are surprised Fox and Dominion have not reached an out-of-court settlement, though they can at any time. There’s presumably a wide financial gulf. In court papers, Fox contends the $1.6 billion damages claim is a wild overestimate.
Dominion’s motivation may also be to inflict maximum embarrassment on Fox with the peek into the network’s internal communications following the election. Text messages from January 2021 revealed Carlson telling a friend that he passionately hated Trump and couldn’t wait to move on.
Dominion may also seek an apology.
The trial has had no apparent effect on Fox News’ viewership; it remains the top-rated cable network. And there is little indication that the case has changed Fox’s editorial direction. Fox has embraced Trump once again in recent weeks following the former president’s indictment by a Manhattan grand jury, and Carlson presented an alternate history of the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, based on tapes given to him by House Speaker Kevin McCarthy.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
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While praising the intent behind the House GOP efforts to expand work requirements for SNAP, which used to be known as food stamps, top Republican senators have sought to temper expectations about the proposal’s prospects in the upper chamber.
“I’m sure it won’t be easy,” said John Thune (S.D.), the No. 2 Republican in the Senate, noting his party will get a second bite at the apple later this year during the farm bill reauthorization process.
A GOP Senate aide, who was granted anonymity to discuss private conversations, was less diplomatic: “I mean, Godspeed. Get what you can. We’re going to live in reality over here.”
Senate Republicans have been voicing similar skepticism since House Republicans began privately pitching new proposals to rein in SNAP last year, after they won back the chamber in November.
Asked about the prospects for such measures in the next Congress, Sen. John Boozman (Ark.) the top Republican on the Agriculture Committee, which oversees SNAP, said in an interview a week after the 2022 midterms that the effort “would be difficult to pass in the Senate with 60 votes,” a nod to the threshold needed to overcome a Senate filibuster.
And, given the GOP’s unexpectedly slim majority in the House, there’s no guarantee such controversial proposals could even get out of the lower chamber, Boozman pointed out. “You look at the margin in the House,” he said, “It might be difficult to pass it in the House.”
McCarthy and his team are now confronting that reality as they try to hold together their own caucus vis-a-vis the debt ceiling negotiations with the White House. McCarthy, Graves and other top House Republicans have briefed most of the caucus on their plans in a series of calls that stretched into the weekend. So far, leaders have avoided key defections by staying away from too much detail — for example, they have yet to outline a specific plan to close the so-called “loopholes” in the existing SNAP work requirements, which Republicans complain primarily blue states are using to waive some work requirements. Taking a tough line would please the most conservative GOP members, but alienate Republicans from swing districts, and vice versa.
Already, the talk of shrinking SNAP, which currently serves 41 million low-income Americans, is raising pressure on many Republicans that represent districts President Joe Biden won in 2020. Several of those members have raised internal concerns, especially about proposals from their colleagues that would add work requirements for some low-income parents who have children under 18 living at home, according to two other people involved in those conversations, who asked for anonymity to discuss internal caucus matters. A handful of GOP freshmen from New York, one of the states that consistently asks the federal government to waive some work requirements for SNAP recipients, are in an especially tricky spot. Constituents have begun pressing them to oppose efforts that would further restrict SNAP and other key assistance following the loss of key pandemic-era aid — which Biden administration officials argue helped keep the country from falling into a deeper hunger crisis in the wake of Covid-19.
At a farm bill listening session in Rep. Marc Molinaro’s (R-N.Y.) upstate district last Friday, local farmers, food bank operators and anti-hunger advocates urged lawmakers to defend and even expand current SNAP programs.
One state administrator called for “easing burdensome and complicated work and reporting requirements” to provide better access to the program, as the administration’s pandemic-era pause on certain SNAP work requirements is set to end in July. A food bank operator warned of a looming “hunger cliff” in the country as families continue to reel from the fallout of Covid-19. She urged members of Congress “not make decisions on the back of the most vulnerable people.”
Eric Ooms, vice president of the New York branch of the American Farm Bureau Federation, the nation’s leading agricultural lobby, told the lawmakers who attended the listening session not to think of SNAP as a “city thing,” noting that the program is a key lifeline to low-income Americans in rural areas where food insecurity “is higher than it’s ever been.”
Molinaro, who says his family relied on food stamps during his childhood, has indicated general support for some SNAP reforms, saying he understands the “inefficiencies” of the program through his experience as a former county executive charged with overseeing it. But he has declined to say if he would support the proposals to expand work requirements that his colleagues have been pushing for months.
In his closing remarks on Friday, Molinaro sounded a note of support for SNAP but indicated only the most needy should get aid — an argument Republicans have used in their campaign to reduce the size of the program.
“Yes, those that struggle the hardest need to know that they have the support, not only of SNAP, but of other wrap-around services,” he said.
Derrick Van Orden, a Trump-aligned Republican who represents a swing district in Wisconsin, spoke during the listening session of his family’s struggle with poverty and reliance on food stamps when he was a child. While he acknowledges some flaws in the current system, he said, “I’m a member of Congress because of these programs.”
“There’s a lot of people who have not gone to bed hungry at night, and I have. And there’s no place for that in America,” Van Orden said.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
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