New Delhi: The Central Election Committee of the BJP may hold a meeting at the party office on April 9 for finalising candidates for the Karnataka assembly elections, said party sources.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, BJP national president JP Nadda, Union Home Minister Amit Shah, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, BJP general secretary BL Santosh and members of the party’s Central Election Committee will be present at the meeting.
According to party sources, the core group of the BJP in Karnataka has shortlisted three names for each Assembly seat which will be placed before the Central Election Committee. The party’s central leadership will then brainstorm over these names before locking the candidates.
On April 4, the BJP’s core group in Karnataka drew up a shortlist of candidates in a meeting with the party’s national general secretary Arun Singh, state election in-charge Dharmendra Pradhan, co-in-charge Mansukh Mandaviya, Central Election Committee member Annamalai, former chief minister BS Yediyurappa and his successor and incumbent Basavaraj Bommai.
The BJP emerged as the largest single party in the last Assembly elections, winning 104 seats, with the Congress winning 80 and the JD(S) 37 seats.
The assembly elections will be held in a single phase on May 10, with the counting of votes scheduled on May 13.
Islamabad: Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has convened a meeting of the National Security Council (NSC) for Friday, amid the widening chasm between the judiciary and the federal government over holding polls in the country’s politically crucial Punjab province.
Pakistan’s parliament on Thursday passed a resolution rejecting the country’s Supreme Court’s decision about the Punjab elections delay case and demanded a full court to decide on this vexing issue.
A three-member bench of the apex court led by Chief Justice Umar Ata Bandial on Tuesday fixed May 14 as the new date for elections to the Punjab Assembly, as it quashed the Election Commission of Pakistan’s decision to extend the polls date from April 10 to October 8.
The top civil and military leadership will participate in the NSC meeting while the heads of the country’s intelligence agencies will brief the participants on the national security situation, according to The Express Tribune newspaper.
The meeting is scheduled to take place at 11am on Friday at the Prime Minister House, the report said.
The NSC is a federal institutional and consultative body chaired by the Prime Minister of Pakistan as its chairman.
It is a principal forum that is mandated for considering national security and foreign policy matters with the senior national security advisers and Cabinet ministers. In the latest development, the National Assembly or the lower house passed a resolution to reject the decision of the apex court.
The resolution was moved by lawmaker Khalid Magsi of Balochistan Awami Party which is part of the ruling coalition and it was adopted by the lower house.
It called upon the Prime Minister Sharif and the federal cabinet not to implement this judgment as it is contrary to the Constitution.
The resolution came after Sharif addressing the cabinet meeting on Wednesday described the apex court’s decision as a “mockery of the Constitution and law,” and added that it could not be implemented.
His idea was supported by the National Assembly, showing the bitter divide over the date of election in Punjab where the assembly was dissolved on January 13 and the polls should be held within 90 days.
The federal government asserts that it has powers to delay the polls and hold it with the general elections in the country after August this year.
However, former prime minister Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party has been pushing for early polls and demanding that instead of delaying the elections in the Punjab province, the national assembly should be dissolved and general elections called in the country.
Chandigarh: A young woman from Haryana’s Rohtak who had gone to Canada last year to pursue higher studies was allegedly murdered and buried in a field in Sonipat by her lover in June 2022 when she came to meet him, police said Wednesday.
The Crime Investigation Agency of Bhiwani, which is investigating the case, found her skeletal remains on Tuesday along the Garhi Jhanjhara road in Ganaur. The accused, who allegedly shot the women dead, was arrested from Uttar Pradesh on April 2.
CIA-II Bhiwani in-charge Ravindra Kumar told PTI over the phone accused Sunil was already married to another woman when he got involved with the victim, Monica (23). He also had two kids with the other woman.
Sunil and Monica got married at a Ghaziabad temple in May last year when the woman returned from Canada, the officer said, adding she had gone to Canada on a student visa in January 2022 after clearing the IELTS exam.
“During our investigations, it came to the fore that between January 2022 and May 2022, the woman made a couple of trips to India,” he added.
Police said Sunil murdered Monica in June 2022 and buried her body in a 10-foot-deep ditch in the fields of a farmhouse on June 29.
Kumar said the woman’s family was unaware of her return to the country. They had last year lodged a missing person complaint after failing to contact her.
“Their marriage was also registered before a court, where the accused concealed the fact that he was already married,” he said.
Kumar said as the woman was a neighbour of the accused in Gumad village in Sonipat, where she was living with her aunt, she was aware of the man’s marital status.
On why Sunil killed her, the police officer said, “Sunil did not enjoy a good marital relation with his wife and wanted to settle abroad. He had thought if Monica gets Permanent Residency (PR) in Canada, he too could move there… However, when he felt his plan was not materialising, he murdered Monica.”
He said preliminary investigations revealed that the farmhouse belongs to the accused, but it was being verified.
The police officer said the skeletal remains have been sent for post-mortem examination to Sonipat Civil Hospital, while procedure for conducting a DNA test was also underway.
A murder case has been registered against the accused. He has also been booked under other charges, including concealing before a court that he was already married, he said.
Dr. Mohammed Jameel who hails from Telangana has become the First Indian American Muslim elected to the Long Grove Village Board.
Speaking on this occasion in winning celebrations in Long Grove he thanked the voters of Long Grove who has voted for him and urged the community to increase participation in civic activities and build a strong community which thereby can lead to more participative and inclusive participation in all levels of Government. Lake County Treasurer Holly Kim was the Chief Guest and congratulated him.
Dr Jameel is very active in Local politics heads the Americans Democratic Forum and has supported in the win of first Indian Muslim woman Nabeela Syed as state representative in the State of Illinois. He is also very active in all spheres of engagement socially and politically in India as chairman of the Indian Americans forum.
He belongs to Warangal, India, and graduated from Deccan medical college. Many eminent personalities both from India and the USA congratulated him on his success prominent amongst them is the president of DAANA Moizuddin. Alumni association from his school Y Sunitha, Inner wheel president Dr Ashish Chauhan MD, Tarun Joshi IPS, Zaheeruddin Ali Khan Managing Editor of Siasat, Padmaja Shaw former professor of communications OU, and from US Dr Rehan Khan ISPJ Washington, Holly Kim Lake county Treasurer, CK Schmidt chief Ela democrat, Roy Manthena Dalit activist Newyork, Irshad khan ex-chairman CIOGC congratulated him on been elected and wished him all success.
Hyderabad: The BJP’s preparations for Telangana Assembly elections scheduled later this year are likely to get a boost with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Hyderabad on April 8 during which he is expected to address a public meeting and launch various development projects.
The BJP leaders expect that PM Modi’s visit will boost their morale in the runup to the Assembly elections. The party expects that he will set the tone for the party’s poll campaign.
The Prime Minister is expected to launch an attack on Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) government for its various acts of omissions and commissions.
PM Modi is likely to target BRS and Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao over corruption, especially in the wake of questioning of his daughter K. Kavitha by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in connection with the Delhi liquor policy scam.
He is also likely to hit out at the BRS government over the Telangana State Public Service Commission (TSPSC) paper leak, which has heated up state politics.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has also taken up state-wide protests over the paper leak, alleging involvement of KCR’s son and state minister K.T. Rama Rao.
The Telangana unit of the BJP has huge expectations from PM Modi’s visit in view of his recent statement about the state.
“In the south, we have always been strong in Karnataka and in Telangana, people now have confidence only in one party, BJP, and in Andhra Pradesh also people are looking towards us,” Modi had said on March 28 while inaugurating the residential complex of the party in Delhi.
Modi will be launching various railway projects at Secunderabad Railway Station and later a public meeting at Parade Grounds in Secunderabad.
Union Minister for Tourism and Culture G. Kishan Reddy along with state BJP president Bandi Sanjay Kumar and party MP K. Laxman on Tuesday visited Secunderabad Railway Station and Parade Grounds to take stock of the preparations for the Prime Minister’s visit.
Kishan Reddy, who is also an MP from Secunderabad, said the PM would lay the foundation stone for the re-development of Secunderabad Railway Station. The station is being revamped at a cost of Rs 719 crore and will provide world-class railway infrastructure and amenities.
He will also lay the foundation stone of the new block of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) at a cost of Rs 1,336 crore.
Kishan Reddy said this would give a big boost to health infrastructure in Telangana. The expansion and new facilities include academic blocks, auditorium, staff quarters, hostels and guest houses. The hospital block renovation is also underway.
Meanwhile, Telangana Chief Secretary Santhi Kumari on Tuesday reviewed arrangements for PM Modi’s visit. She instructed the officials to make foolproof arrangements.
Presiding over a coordination meeting, she said that all the departments have to work in close coordination and make the brief visit of the Prime Minister a success.
The police have to make adequate security arrangements, law and order, traffic and bandobast arrangements as per the blue book.
The fire department was asked to arrange adequate fire fighting equipment and fire tenders should be positioned at the venue. Medical staff, ambulances and other facilities should be kept ready at all the venues.
The Chief Secretary asked officials to repair roads to be used by the Prime Minister’s convoy. Uninterrupted power supply at all the venues should be ensured, she said.
DGP Anjani Kumar, senior police officers and officials from various departments including railways attended the meeting.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by Siasat staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
Srinagar, Apr 02: Around 15 years ago, a tragic accident not only shattered the dreams of a Budgam woman of becoming a doctor but confined her to the wheelchair. But nothing stopped her from working hard and becoming the first wheelchair bound basketball player of Kashmir.
Insha Bashir (29) a resident of Beerwah area of Budgam despite disability is leaping the ladder of success not only herself but helping other specially-abled children to make their dreams come true.
In an exclusive interview with the news agency—Kashmir News Observer (KNO), Insha said, “I was not disabled from birth. I had a regular life like every other girl. When I was 12th class I had been diagnosed with gastric ulcers and suffered oral bleeding and in the same year one day I was at the terrace with dizziness and nausea and started vomiting blood from where I fell down and hit the ground underneath resulting in grievous injuries to my spine.”
“It wasn’t not just a spinal cord injury but this incident shattered my dream of becoming a doctor and wholly and solely dependent on my family. I started suffering from depression, facing taunts from relatives and other issues. My health started deteriorating despite full support from my family,” she said.
“Despite facing all the trauma, though I had to change my subjects but continued studies and passed 12th class and then pursued bachelors degree and B.Ed as well and currently I am pursuing masters in social works,” Insha said.
“My dad’s deteriorating health pushed me to take charge of my life. And so, I began researching my condition and what I could do about it. I came across the Shafqat Rehabilitation Center in Srinagar that gave six months of physiotherapy,” she recalls. Her father, her steadfast cornerstone had been diagnosed with Parkinsonism, and this proved to be the final nail in the coffin, ensuring that she finally mustered enough strength to stand up on her own feet.
After repeated attempts by her father Bashir Ahmad Wani and constant counseling sessions by Dr. Saleem Wani- valley’s famous urologist, Insha was able to overcome this difficult phase of her life.
“Though it took me a long time to accept this reality, when I realized, I started taking everything positively and saw my disability as a challenge which had become a hurdle.
“At the centre, when I saw more people with more complex problems than me, it gave me courage that I am not the only person who is facing this problem in the world. When I saw specially-abled boys playing basketball and other games in a very happy mood, it ignited my childhood inclination towards it as well,” she added.
“Once I overcame initial hesitation, I found the game to be enjoyable, and convenient and suitable to partake in, from a wheelchair. I found the game very interesting and it got me impelled by the enthusiasm of representing Jammu & Kashmir,” she said.
“I was the first wheelchair bound woman from Kashmir to play basketball. I started training others and in some time a team was ready following which I played at national and international level and won many medals,” Insha said.
She represented India in the US in 2019, and participated in the National Championship as the captain of the J&K Wheelchair Basketball Women’s team in 2019 besides that she was invited by the US consulate to be part of the prestigious Sports Visitor Program.
She now motivates and inspires others in the valley to overcome their inhibitions and impediments and take up sporting pursuits.
“Besides playing and training my team, the major area of focus is to encourage differently-abled girls in sports, not just in Kashmir but across the country, and ensure that they have a say in their own lives.” she said.
She practices on a daily basis following a professional schedule, following the practice, she returns to the hostel and mentors, counsels and instructs young girls who wish to rise beyond their struggles and play like her.
“My message to the other specially-abled persons will be that your disability isn’t the end of life, rather you need to be courageous to fight all odds and overcome challenges,” she said. “If your one organ isn’t functioning, your brain is working and that is enough to dream and work on your dreams to make them come true.”
Mumbai: What happens when two men – absolute legends in their fields – meet? There are fireworks all around and that’s what happened when the playback singer Arijit Singh met former Indian cricket team captain, M.S. Dhoni recently.
While Dhoni is regarded as one of India’s best skippers, Arijit is currently India’s biggest singing sensation with countless chartbusters to his credit.
Arijit was performing live at the opening ceremony of the Indian Premier League at Ahmedabad. After the opening ceremony, the players of the Chennai Super Kings and Gujarat Titans met the performers.
When Dhoni and Arijit met, the ‘Channa Mereya’ hitmaker touched the feet of the legendary cricketer in an expression of gratitude towards him. Dhoni also embraced Arijit. The moment grabbed the attention of many fans and the picture has gone viral since then with netizens praising Arijit for his humility and respect for Dhoni.
Notably, Tamannaah Bhatia and Rashmika Mandanna also performed in the ceremony alongside Arijit.
People who know them say the two lawyers have very different styles — she’s an understated tactician and he’s a colorful showman, “bombastic,” in his own words — but both have built their careers in New York courtrooms.
In separate interviews, Necheles and Tacopina said they have a productive working relationship — Tacopina described it as “harmonious,” adding that they would likely add a third member to the team who specializes in election law.
And both called their relationship with Trump “respectful.”
“Of course I’ve worked with difficult clients over the years in some cases, and you just try to make them have confidence in you,” Necheles said.
Still, Trump’s recent remarks about Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg — calling him an “animal” and “racist” — could complicate his lawyers’ ability to work productively with prosecutors.
Necheles dismissed any concerns, saying, “Trump is a little bit more verbal about it and out there” in his criticism of the office. But, she added: “Of course he doesn’t like them. They’re trying to ruin his life.”
Tacopina said the case is in some ways unremarkable and in others extraordinary. “On one hand, this is a belly-of-the-beast, 100 Centre Street, low-level case that should be treated this way. On the other hand, this is the former president of the United States, so we have to be cognizant of that,” he said, referring to the street address for Manhattan Criminal Court where Trump will be tried.
“I’m buckling my seatbelt,” he added. “Let’s put it that way.”
Neither lawyer would discuss their strategy for the Trump case, but both have a history of deploying creative gambits on behalf of their clients. Necheles once used a “divine defense” on behalf of a developer accused of fleecing ultra-orthodox Jewish clients, telling a jury he had received a blessing from a rabbi to build affordable housing. “It was a mitzvah to him, a Hebrew word that means a good deed and an obligation,” she said.
During the trial of a former New York state senator accused of theft, she showed jurors a blown-up image of an apple, while a piece of the fruit sat on the defense table in front of her client. “There’s something rotten about this case,” she told jurors.
Meanwhile, Tacopina helped a rapper named Sticky Fingaz, who faced a gun possession charge that was later dropped, slip into the courthouse undetected by paparazzi.
Tacopina accompanied his driver — who posed as the rapper by donning a hat and sunglasses — through the front entrance while the rapper slipped through another door. Tacopina laughed at the suggestion that he would try to pull a similar stunt with Trump. “I have no tricks up my sleeve here,” he said. “This is the Secret Service’s show here, not mine.”
Tacopina also has some experience navigating choppy relationships between Trump world and its investigators — though not always with favorable results for his clients. Last year, when he represented Guilfoyle before the Jan. 6 committee, Tacopina accused the committee of blindsiding them by allowing some of the panel’s Democratic members to attend the proceeding and she walked shortly after it started. Her premature departure resulted in the committee issuing a subpoena for Guilfoyle’s testimony that ultimately compelled her return for a lengthy interview about her involvement in planning and fundraising for Trump’s Jan. 6 rally.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
Hyderabad: Telangana chief secretary Santhi Kumari on Friday held a meeting with officials of the industries department and took stock of the progress achieved on setting up Special Food Processing zones in the state.
Principal secretary (industries) Jayesh Ranjan, TSIIC MD Narsimha Reddy and other officials were present. Kumari said that the vision of chief minister K Chandrashekhar Rao is to transform the state in food and agriculture sector and set up food processing zones based on the demand and feasibility in each district.
She directed the officials to formulate a strategy to promote food processing zones in seven places where there is a huge potential and demand from prospective investors.
“With the increasing paddy production in the State there is a need to promote setting up rice mills in these food processing zones,” she told officials.
The Telangana chief secretary asked the officials to give top priority and complete the process of allotting the lands for setting up rice mills within next four to five months. She also asked them to take steps to operationalize the concept of setting up Aqua Hub in the Mid Manair Reservoir.
“I’m watching it on TV,” Graves said of the January stalemate over electing McCarthy, as he recalled thinking: “We look like idiots.” So he began dialing conservative holdouts as well as GOP moderates resistant to the right’s biggest demands. The 51-year-old even grew a beard that he refused to shave until McCarthy prevailed.
And when McCarthy won, he appointed the self-described policy “nerd” to his leadership team — a remarkably central role given that Graves chairs no committee and won no leadership election. Graves has embraced the jack-of-all-trades adviser identity, helping smooth intra-party conflicts while building his clout in the House.
That emerging profile of “assistant coach,” in McCarthy’s words, raises the question of how Graves fits in an elected leadership team that includes fellow Louisianan Steve Scalise, McCarthy’s formal No. 2. But Graves said he’s been careful not to get in the way — and also suggested the gubernatorial run he openly mulled this year may not be the end to his statewide ambitions, declining to rule out a Senate bid in 2026.
“I’m very cognizant of the fact that all these folks were actually elected positions,” Graves said in an interview, referring to Scalise, Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-Minn.) and Conference Chair Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) He portrayed his role as “blocking and tackling” and “plate-spinning” to give McCarthy an extra assist.
“I think the intent here is to benefit the entire leadership team, the entire conference,” he added. “If ever that’s not happening. I obviously need to move on.”
He’s spent this week helping keep the House GOP together on perhaps its biggest agenda win yet, a nearly 200-page energy bill incorporating a decade’s worth of Republican energy ideas that passed Thursday, 225-204.
Yet even that broadly popular package required plenty of hands-on work with just four votes to spare. Graves and other members of leadership raced to resolve intra-party policy spats, several of which involved coastal Republicans resistant to offshore drilling.
The GOP’s energy project permitting push is a particular personal highlight for Graves, who’s literally handled thousands of permits at the state level — first as a teenager working for his parents’ small engineering firm, and later as head of the Louisiana Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority. At the latter job, he helped devise a multibillion-dollar program to rebuild coastal levees damaged by Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
“He learned his way around” on energy issues as the coastal authority chief, said Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), whom Graves replaced in the House and could, at some point, face in a statewide primary. “You put all that together and you have a guy others respect. And it gives him greater influence.”
While Scalise officially led the House GOP’s energy bill effort, Graves has been a central part from the start, leading McCarthy’s task force on the subject last year. He sat with senior staff to draft the details of the permitting section, a rare display of policy chops from a lawmaker. One senior GOP leadership aide described him as a “bonus chief of staff.” (A former long-time energy aide himself, Graves even tried to attend staffer committee briefings when he arrived in Congress in 2015.)
But Graves’ identity on energy policymaking has another, politically charged dimension: He got elected as a rare Republican willing to call out his party on climate change, as Donald Trump was falsely deriding it as a hoax.
And the Louisianan’s message didn’t always sit right with his party. When McCarthy first picked Graves to lead GOP pushback on Democrats’ new climate panel in 2019, some colleagues were skeptical.
“I don’t think when he got chosen [that] immediately he was everybody’s number one pick,” recalled Rep. Kelly Armstrong (R-N.D.), who first got to know him on the panel. Armstrong now calls Graves “one of our most effective” members, full stop.
That’s a big reason why fellow Republicans answered his calls in January, when Graves first jumped in to help McCarthy’s election math problem. He and a handful of other McCarthy allies began bringing leadership and the holdouts into the same room for real talks.
Centrist Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.) has called Graves “one of the unsung heroes” in the speakership battle. Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas), a conservative holdout, said Graves excelled at convincing each side that common ground existed.
It doesn’t hurt that Graves, though sometimes seen as sharp-elbowed, also wins friends easily, despite (or perhaps due to) being a notorious prankster. “He’s the kind of guy who will give you a hard time, then he’ll step back and make sure you’re all taken care of,” said Rep. Blake Moore (R-Utah).
The same players, from Graves to Roy, will soon play similar roles as the party grasps for a workable strategy to resolve the imminent debt limit crisis. But for now, Graves is wrapping up the House energy bill — which is DOA in the Democratic-controlled Senate.
During his eight years in office, he’s taken solace in seeing elements of his party move closer to the message he shaped as a coastal Republican: a readiness to talk about the disastrous effects of a warming planet alongside calls for more U.S. oil and gas production.
Rep. John Curtis (R-Utah), who chairs the Conservative Climate Caucus that launched in 2021 with Graves as a founding member, credits his colleague’s “ability to explain these concepts in a way that helps Republicans get their climate feet underneath them.”
Graves is elated to see others in the party parrot his language on clean energy, including McCarthy: “I love the fact that the Republican mainstream is now talking about lowering emissions.”
Democrats who’ve worked with him, though, say he’s doing little but paying lip service to the threat of climate change by not using his sway to advance GOP policy solutions.
One who worked closely with him on the now-disbanded climate committee said that Graves isn’t interested in alienating an oil and gas industry still dominant in his coastal district, which is also vulnerable to sea-level rise from climate change.
“When no cameras are on, I love Garret. When cameras are on, he does what he needs to do. But he’s a good human being and someone I get a beer with,” said Rep. Sean Casten (D-Ill.).
Rep. Kathy Castor (D-Fla.), who led the climate panel which McCarthy disbanded this year, said Graves under-delivered there. “He is a fierce defender of the oil and gas industry — he makes no bones about it,” she observed.
Graves dismissed those Democratic criticisms of him and the GOP’s energy bill, which was written to ease production and export of oil and gas, but also to streamline permitting reviews that affect electric vehicles and renewable energy supplies.
And he did so with characteristic bluntness, calling Democrats’ arguments “complete bullshit.”
“Those people that have the bulls-eye on oil and gas, those people haven’t run companies and thought through how you do this. Does that mean we do away with wind, solar, and geothermal? Hell no. We need absolutely everything,” Graves said.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
