Bhopal: Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Saturday appealed BJP workers to step up their efforts and ensure that the party would win all seven Assembly seats of Madhya Pradesh’s Chhindwara district in the upcoming elections.
Addressing a public gathering in Chhindwara, Shah said that in 2019, BJP had lost Chhindwara Lok Sabha seat from narrow margin, “thus the party workers need to step up their efforts and ensure that the party would win the seat in 2024 general elections and all seven seats in upcoming Assembly elections”.
Chhindwara is considered as the bastion of Madhya Pradesh Congress chief Kamal Nath.
Shah urged the people to vote “overwhelmingly” for the BJP in the Assembly polls to be held later this year.
Meanwhile, hitting at Nath, the Union Home Minister said the former did nothing for the people of the state when he was Chief Minister between December 2018 and March 2020. “Previous Congress governments did not care for the tribals, the poor and those from the Backward Classes. Only the BJP can provide security, prosperity and ensure welfare of the poor. Prime Minister Narendra Modi cares for the respect of tribals, whom the Congress has neglected for years.”
He reminded that it was the BJP and Prime Minister Narendra Modi “who decided to make a tribal woman – Droupadi Murmu – the President of India”. He also reiterated that the Narendra Modi-led BJP government has announced nationwide celebration of legendary tribal leader Birsa Munda’s birth anniversary on November 15 as ‘Janjatiya Gaurav Diwas’.
Meanwhile, Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan levelled several allegations on Kamal Nath, such as “stopping” various public-centric schemes during his 15 months government in the state.
Chouhan said the BJP government sent a lot of money for development of Chhindwara, but Kamal Nath was taking credit out of it.
“Since the day Congress leaders came to know that Amit Shah is coming to Chhindwara, all their leaders went on panic mode. Kamal Nath has started making big announcements to counter BJP’s promises. But, let me tell you all that Chhindwara will no more remain Kamal Nath’s bastion now. BJP will win all seven Assembly seats and Lok Sabha election this time. We have taken a pledge for it,” Chouhan added.
Kamal Nath was first elected to the Lok Sabha from Chhindwara in 1980 and repeated the feat several times, with his only loss coming in a bypoll in 1997. Even when the BJP won 28 out of 29 Lok Sabha seats in 2019, his son Nakul Nath won the election from the seat. The Congress has won all assembly seats in the district in 2018 polls.
SRINAGAR: Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha felicitated and interacted with players participating in 84th National & Inter State Table Tennis Championship at Gymnasium Hall, University of Jammu on Wednesday.
The Lt Governor expressed immense pride in the accomplishments of sportspersons at national and international arena.
We truly admire the outstanding skills, courage, sacrifice and dedication of our sportspersons and committed to put the needs of the players first, added the Lt Governor.
“Big change always starts with a small step; this is what we learn from the sports. The energy of players, glory earned on the field is giving new impetus to development and our Sports Persons are playing a major role in social transformation & social integration”, said the Lt Governor.
The Lt Governor shared the milestones achieved in transforming the sporting ecosystem in Jammu Kashmir.
Under the guidance of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, J&K is realizing its true potential in sports. New sporting icons are emerging in every discipline, all the barriers have been removed & youngsters from small towns & villages are achieving their dreams, said the Lt Governor.
We have been successful in providing state of the art infrastructure, facilities, coaching and opportunities to the young sportspersons of J&K to prove their mettle, he added.
The Lt Governor asked the young table tennis players to take inspiration from the likes of Sharath Kamal, Mouma Das and Manika Batra and bring laurels to the country in international championships.
“Don’t stop when you are tired. Stop when you are done. I call upon all the players to compete with the spirit of sportsmanship. Your aim should give new enthusiasm, new identity to the youth, and hope to the society and the nation,” said the Lt Governor.
The Lt Governor said the presence of Arjuna Awardees, Khel Ratna & Dronacharya Awardees will surely raise the morale and confidence of the other players participating in the championship.
Sh Rajeev Rai Bhatnagar, Advisor to Lt Governor and Sh Sarmad Hafeez, Secretary Youth Services and Sports also spoke on the occasion and enumerated the sports facilities and infrastructure developed in the last two years in J&K UT.
Around 900 players from across the country are participating in the championship.
Prof Umesh Rai, Vice Chancellor, University of Jammu; Sh Mukesh Singh, ADGP Jammu: Ms Nuzhat Gul, Secretary J&K Sports Council; members of Table Tennis federation, and prominent sports personalities were present on the occasion. (GNS)
UBS said in a statement that it would pay the equivalent of $3.25 billion to buy Credit Suisse, in what will be a merger of two institutions considered important to the global financial system.
“With the takeover of Credit Suisse by UBS, a solution has been found to secure financial stability and protect the Swiss economy in this exceptional situation,” the Swiss National Bank said in its statement. It added that the deal was made possible with the support of the Swiss federal government, the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority FINMA and the Swiss National Bank.
The Fed later also announced it would take steps to make it easier for five foreign central banks to exchange their currencies for dollars. The move, coordinated with the other central; banks including the European Central Bank, is aimed at easing strains in global funding markets.
Starting Monday, those currency swaps will happen daily rather than weekly.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
Kasaragod: Kerala police on Thursday said it intensified surveillance around the house of a Muslim lawyer, who remarried his wife under the Special Marriage Act to ensure their daughters’ financial security.
The vigil has been stepped in the area of advocate-actor C Shukkur’s house in Kanhangad here in the wake of news reports on threats by some outfits against the man and his family, a senior police officer told PTI.
Shukkur, on Wednesday, remarried his wife Sheena, the former Pro-Vice Chancellor of Mahatma Gandhi University, under the Special Marriage Act (SMA) in the presence of their three daughters at a Sub-Registrar’s office at Kanhangad in Hosdurg taluk.
The couple decided to get remarried under the SMA as under the Muslim personal laws, which also govern inheritance of property, daughters will only get two-thirds of their father’s property and the rest will go to his brothers in the absence of a male heir.
“As of now, there is nothing like personal protection. There is no full-time security for the family or the house. But, we have strengthened the vigil around the premises of their house,” the officer said.
When asked whether there was any intelligence input on any possible attack against the advocate, he replied in the negative.
“The media has extensively reported on the remarriage incident in the last two days. Today, some newspapers have carried reports about an alleged fatwa issued by certain religious institutions against the family,” he said.
Though the state police have no first-hand information regarding the threat, a decision has been taken to intensify the surveillance in the area based on media reports, the officer added.
The Muslim couple’s remarriage has received both criticism and approval on social media.
A prominent Sunni higher education institute in Kerala had opined that the couple’s decision was an attempt to disrespect Muslim personal laws and Islam.
It said that the remarriage was a “drama” and an indication of “narrow-minded thinking” that Shukkur’s brothers should not get the one-third share of his property after his death.
While the institute was of the view that every believer would strongly oppose the couple’s decision, Shukkur had reacted to it on his Facebook page by saying that the educational institution would be responsible for any physical attack on him.
Washington: Ned Price would step down as the spokesperson of the State Department, Secretary of State Antony Blinken has said as he credited him with resuming the department’s daily press briefings that had been sporadic during the Trump administration.
“Throughout the more than 200 briefings he has since held, he’s treated journalists – as well as colleagues and everyone else he interacts with – with respect,” Blinken said in a statement on Tuesday announcing Price’s departure as the spokesperson of the department.
Indian-American Vedant Patel, who is currently the Deputy Spokesperson, would be the interim spokesperson. Price’s replacement has not been announced yet.
“For people in America and around the world, Ned Price has often been a face and voice of US foreign policy. He’s performed with extraordinary professionalism and integrity. On behalf of the Department, I thank Ned for his remarkable service,” Blinken said.
Price previously served in the CIA and was spokesperson of the National Security Council during the Obama Administration. He resigned at the start of the Trump Administration.
Blinken said Price has helped the US government defend and promote press freedom around the globe and modelled the transparency and openness it advocates for in other countries. “His contributions will benefit the Department long after his service.” In a statement, Shaun Tandon, president of the State Department Correspondents’ Association, said the press corps at the State Department salute Price for restoring one of the pillars of American diplomacy — the Daily Press Briefing.
“From the moment he was appointed, Ned reached out to make clear that regular, substantive and thorough briefings were a priority and he has stayed true to his word. Even when he knew he would face intense scrutiny at the podium such as during the Afghanistan withdrawal,” Tandon said.
“Thanks to Ned, the Daily Press Briefing now seems routine and that is how it should be — it offers an opportunity for press from around the world to question the foreign policy of the United States, often critically, and requires the State Department to defend it. It is a tribute to the health of American democracy,” he said.
“Ned has also worked hard to ensure the rightful role of the press in covering the travels of the secretary of state. His more than two years on the job have thankfully been drama-free on travel, with Ned understanding and embracing the need for media to be present and to ask questions when Secretary Blinken represents the United States overseas,” Tandon said.
“I started as a public servant as an analyst at the CIA, and I ended up in this job because of a series of accidents, fateful accidents,” Price told NBC News. “I have loved being in this line of work for the past several years. And one of the things I love most about it is the connection to the policy.”
Price previously worked as a CIA analyst and served as a spokesperson on for the National Security Council during the Obama administration.
In his statement, Blinken particularly thanked Price for bringing back the department’s daily press briefings, which were irregular during the Trump administration, praising Price for “giving journalists the chance to regularly ask tough questions of our policy.”
“Ned has helped the U.S. government defend and promote press freedom around the globe and modeled the transparency and openness we advocate for in other countries,” Blinken added. “His contributions will benefit the Department long after his service.”
Vedant Patel, Price’s current deputy, will serve as his temporary replacement, the State Department official said.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
Tehran: Iran said on Tuesday that the visit of senior Arab lawmakers to quake-ravaged Syria is a step toward greater “solidarity” in the region.
Making the remarks in a tweet, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani said the visit of the Arab Inter-Parliamentary Union (AIPU) delegation on Sunday represented fresh “breakthroughs” in relations between Syria and other Arab countries, Xinhua news agency reported.
Headed by the Speaker of the Arab Parliament Adel Abdel-Rahman Al-Asoomi and Iraqi parliament Speaker Mohammed al-Halbousi, the delegation’s Sunday visit was aimed at “expressing solidarity” with Syria following the deadly quakes that jolted the country on February 6, Kanaani noted.
These breakthroughs are also proof of greater “realism” in the region and in the Muslim world, he added.
If the regional countries can adopt “realistic and independent” national approaches and resist the demands of any hegemonic power, they will resolve their problems through dialogue and regional mechanisms, the spokesman said.
After the tragic earthquakes, Arab countries have sent many aid shipments to Syria amid signs of a wide-scale diplomatic detente.
The AIPU is a regional parliamentary organisation composed of parliamentary groups representing the Arab Parliament, the legislative body of the Arab League. Syria’s membership in the Arab League was suspended in 2011 after the war broke out in the country.
And one of the state’s senators is even seizing on the politics surrounding abortion and LGBTQ issues, arguing that sending the command from a blue state to a red one takes away the rights of service members.
Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.) “has raised the issue of reproductive health care access in his conversations about the Space Command basing decision,” said one congressional aide, who asked for anonymity to discuss private conversations between Bennet and the Pentagon.
The senator, the aide added, “has serious concerns about the impact that abortion ban laws have on readiness and our national security.”
It’s the latest turn in a saga that’s dragged on for three years after Trump personally directed the Air Force to choose Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, Alabama, as the command’s permanent headquarters. Alabama and Colorado were the two finalists in the Air Force’s search.
The decision, if given the final signoff by the Biden administration, would uproot the fledgling command from its current location at Peterson Space Force Base in Colorado Springs. Since the original decision, members of Colorado’s delegation in both parties have decried the move to a Trump-friendly state as political favoritism that will delay the organization from achieving full operating status.
“I haven’t found any Democratic senator who thinks it’s a good idea to allow a precedent to stand that encourages politics to overrule the judgment of our military command,” Colorado Sen. John Hickenlooper said in an interview.
The Biden White House vowed to reassess the choice after lawmakers blasted the basing decision. The Air Force secretary must still determine whether to follow through with Trump’s decision or keep the command in Colorado.
The Air Force was expected to announce a final decision at the end of 2022, but the deadline passed with no ruling.
“We don’t have anything new on the decision timeline,” the service said in a statement. The service declined to say why a choice has not been made.
Lawmakers on both sides of the argument say they’re in the dark on when the Air Force might finally make a call, but both states’ delegations have said they believe they will prevail.
“I do think the delay is, in my view, a positive thing,” said Rep. Jason Crow (D-Colo.). “My read of that is that the administration is taking a harder look and a fresh look at it and revisiting certain elements of the decision. That’s what I hope they’re doing.”
The commander, Gen. James Dickinson, has said Space Command won’t be fully operational until the final basing decision is made.
Pros and cons
U.S. Space Command was restarted by the Trump administration in 2019 as it sought to emphasize the importance of the military’s space mission, coinciding with the creation of the Space Force. Space Command, which oversees the operations of military space assets and defending satellites, had been its own outfit since the 1980s, but was folded into U.S. Strategic Command following the creation of Northern Command in 2002.
Colorado Springs and Huntsville were two of six finalists selected by the Air Force in late 2020 for the permanent headquarters. The list included military installations in Florida, Nebraska, Texas and New Mexico.
Colorado lawmakers contend permanently keeping Space Command in its temporary home is more efficient and will ultimately prove better for national security because it will be near Northern Command and North American Aerospace Defense Command.
With a large military space presence already in the state, Colorado’s leaders argue that politics alone was the deciding factor in the Trump administration selecting Alabama.
They point to comments Trump made after leaving office boasting that he made the call to move Space Command.
“I hope you know that. [They] said they were looking for a home and I single-handedly said ‘let’s go to Alabama.’ They wanted it. I said ‘let’s go to Alabama. I love Alabama.’” Trump said on an Alabama-based radio show in August 2021.
Alabama’s almost entirely GOP delegation says Huntsville — dubbed Rocket City because of the large aerospace industry presence there — checks all the boxes for the new command.
The Pentagon visited each of the six prospective headquarters sites between Dec. 8, 2020, and Jan. 7, 2021, where experts gathered data and refined cost estimates. Those cost estimates were not released publicly, according to the Defense Department’s inspector general.
“Democrats said it was political, but the best place to put it is in Huntsville,” Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) said in an interview.
“The only reason you would leave it in Colorado is because that’s where it’s at right now,” Tuberville said. “But we need to make sure it’s in the right spot. We have the missile defense. We have Redstone Arsenal, NASA. You name it, we got it.”
Since a headquarters decision was announced in January 2021, both the Defense Department IG and the Government Accountability Office released reports that questioned whether the selection process was adequate.
DoD IG found the Air Force base analysis that was conducted under the Trump administration’s direction “complied with law and policy” when selecting Alabama as the headquarters location, while the GAO asserted the service’s base location analysis had “significant shortfalls in its transparency and credibility.”
Neither report determined whether Trump meddled in the decision.
Both oversight groups agree a resolution was reached during a White House meeting with high-ranking officials on Jan. 11, 2021.
Meeting attendees included the former president and top Pentagon leaders who have since left — the acting defense secretary, the vice chair of the Joint Chiefs, the Air Force secretary and the assistant secretary of the Air Force for installations, environment and energy.
Days before the meeting, the Pentagon received new information that if Colorado was selected the military could renovate a building instead of having to construct a new one to house the new headquarters.
But the Space Force did not deliver an updated estimate to Air Force officials ahead of the White House meeting, according to GAO.
The Pentagon is keeping the cost estimates private and are not included in the GAO report because the information is designated as “sensitive and privileged.”
Opting for renovation instead of new construction would allow for the command to reach full operational much sooner than the estimated six years.
In interviews with the GAO, the head of Space Command, the top Space Force general, and the former vice Joint Chiefs chair, all said they conveyed in the meeting that the headquarters should remain in Colorado because that was the best way to reach full operational capability as quickly as possible.
Bennet echoed the same concerns during a speech on the Senate floor this month.
It is important the Biden administration not ratify “a political decision that was made in the last few days of the Trump administration,” Bennet said, referring to the former president dismissing the counsel of Pentagon officials who recommended the headquarters remain in Colorado.
Bennet underscored it is not only expected to be cheaper and faster to keep Space Command in Colorado, but the military would not have to worry over the number of civilian workers who won’t opt to move to Alabama. Roughly 60 percent of the Space Command workforce are civilians, he said.
“Decisions of this importance shouldn’t be made this way. It should be in the interest of our national security. And the Biden administration has the opportunity to restore the integrity of this process,” Bennet said.
Renewed fight
The Colorado delegation fought the move when it was initially announced, but had gone quiet in the following months. They rekindled their efforts last month when Hickenlooper and Bennet were the only Democrats to join Republicans in opposition to the confirmation of Brendan Owens, the nominee to oversee facilities and energy programs at the Pentagon. The pair said they opposed him because the Pentagon had brushed off their efforts to meet with Austin to discuss Space Command.
Owens was still confirmed despite most Republicans also opposing him.
Bennet also threatened to hold up other nominees to secure a meeting with Austin. Hickenlooper and Bennet met with Austin to discuss the decision on Jan. 26, though no resolution was reached.
“He’s got a lot on his plate, so he wasn’t versed in the details of the issue,” Hickenlooper said. “But he listened very thoughtfully and I think he took it very seriously.”
But Bennet continued to press the issue. A spokesperson said Bennet placed a hold on Ravi Chaudhary, Biden’s nominee to oversee Air Force installations. He dropped the hold this month after meeting separately with Chaudhary and Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall where he “reiterated his longstanding concerns” with the basing decision. The behind-the-scenes maneuvering has not been previously reported.
Some opponents are also highlighting how the climate in the U.S. has changed since an initial decision was made in January 2021. Many Democrats are unsettled by moving service members from a blue to a red state after the Supreme Court dealt a blow to abortion rights last year.
With the end of nationwide federal protections for abortion, many Democrats have raised the impacts on troops stationed in states where the procedure is now banned or significantly limited. Bennet has publicly raised similar concerns in the proposed Space Command move.
“I’m deeply concerned about how the Dobbs decision and state abortion bans will affect Space Command’s workforce and readiness if the command leaves Colorado,” Bennet said in a statement to Military.com in August.
Another driver for the Biden administration to keep the headquarters in Colorado and not move to a conservative state are rights for LGBTQ people.
“It’s hard not to think about the dramatically more hostile environment in Alabama when it comes to reproductive rights and LGBTQ+ rights,” said one Democratic aide. “It’ll mean many of the civilians who work for Space Command may not move with it. And service members will be forced to move somewhere where they’ll lose those rights.”
Though both Tuberville and Hickenlooper downplayed the role the Supreme Court decision would play in the basing move, the impact on troops has been in focus after the reversal of abortion protections under Roe v. Wade.
Even Austin, who is usually not outspoken on political issues, moved to shore up troops’ access for abortion. He issued a memo in October directing the Pentagon to pay for service members to travel costs for abortions, though not for the procedure itself, arguing the “practical effects of recent changes” in laws will hurt military readiness.
Formal policies issued this month cover travel costs for obtaining abortions as well as administrative leave, as many troops are stationed in states where the procedure is now illegal.
Tuberville was among the GOP lawmakers who slammed the move. He vowed to hold up civilian Pentagon nominations as well as top military promotions over the new policy.
The issue, however, isn’t purely about red states vs. blue states. If Space Command doesn’t move to Alabama, the headquarters will remain in reliably conservative Colorado Springs. The area and its military assets are represented by Republican Doug Lamborn, who chairs the House Armed Services Strategic Forces subcommittee. Lamborn has also criticized the move as one of political favoritism over national security needs.
The state’s other two Republican House members, Reps. Ken Buck and Lauren Boebert, have also protested the decision and signed several letters with Democrats arguing to keep the command in Colorado.
Yet if the Biden administration decides to reverse the earlier decision, it could open itself up to criticism that it’s making a political call, just like the Trump White House. A reversal also would draw pushback from Alabama’s delegation, including Rep. Mike Rogers, who has new tools at his disposal as the House Armed Services Committee chair.
In the meantime, Alabama lawmakers are confident the Trump administration’s decision will be upheld.
“Nobody’s saying, but they’ve done several more reviews on it in the last two years,” Tuberville said of the final decision. “And we’ve pretty much passed all the tests.”
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
New Delhi: The BJP on Saturday welcomed the Delhi High Court ruling putting a stay on the re-election for six members of the Standing Committee of the MCD that was scheduled for February 27, and said this was a “step towards justice”.
Interacting with reporters, Delhi BJP working president Virendra Sachdeva said Mayor Shelly Oberoi had made a “wrong, immoral and unconstitutional announcement” on Friday to hold the election afresh.
“Now, the high court has put a stay on this unconstitutional move. And, this is a good decision, a decision that will sustain democracy. We welcome this stay. Truth will triumph and whatever result will eventually come out of it… We feel that the results of the technical experts in the election for the members of the Standing Committee will hold good,” he said.
Kamaljeet Sehrawat, BJP councillor and one of three candidates from the saffron party in the election, said the court’s stay meass that “our demands were valid”.
“The hearing went for one hour and 35 minutes, and the other party’s counsel was asked what right the mayor has in announcing a fresh election for the standing committee’s members without finality on the election already held on Friday. So, this is a step towards justice,” she told reporters.
Sehrawat, a senior BJP leader and a former mayor of south Delhi, said the entire election process went smoothly and counting was also done without any disturbance, then on what grounds a fresh election was announced, without completion of the poll already conducted.
BJP councillor Shikha Rai alleged that Mayor Shelly Oberoi was behaving like a “dictator” on Friday and not announcing the results, despite the technical experts having submitted the documents on it.
“On February 22 also, she had held councillors captive in the House by stretching the proceedings overnight and till next morning,” Rai alleged.
Earlier in the day, addressing a press conference, Sachdeva had alleged that the re-election for members of the MCD panel, called by the mayor on Monday, was “undemocratic and unconstitutional”.
Later in the day, the Delhi High Court stayed the re-election for six members of the Standing Committee of the MCD, on two pleas.
Justice Gaurang Kanth, in a special hearing held on a court holiday, said prima facie it appeared that the mayor, who was also the returning officer, is conducting the re-election on Monday without declaring results of the previous poll held on February 24 which is in violation of regulations.
The high court said the regulations nowhere reflect that the Delhi mayor has authority to declare the election of Standing Committee members as null and void.
It issued a notice to the returning officer and others on two pleas challenging the decision to hold re-election without declaring the results of the earlier poll.
“Notice to hold re-election shall remain stayed till the next date of hearing,” the judge said.
The Delhi BJP tweeted in Hindi on Saturday evening, “Delhi High Court has failed AAP’s plan. Kejriwal ji, how will your game of dirty politics go on?”
It also shared a news clip on the stay granted by the high court.
