Jaipur: The deadlock between the Rajasthan government and four widows of Pulwama martyrs turned murkier on Wednesday with one of them, Manju Jat, writing to Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot alleging that the police beat her up, stripped her clothes and even pricked her with a pin.
Manju, the wife of Pulwama martyr Rohitash Lamba, alleged that the police threw her as if she was a gunny bag when she was going to meet the Chief Minister.
“Unable to bear the torurtue by the police, I am on an infinite hunger strike since March 4 and the Chief Minister will be responsible if something happens to me,” she said.
Meanwhile, Rajasthan Governor Kalraj Mishra has also written to Gehlot, asking him to look into the matter. Mishra said that the four war widows have sent a letter to him seeking permission for euthanasia, as he urged the Chief Minister to ensure that the right action is taken.
Union Jal Shakti Minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat has shared a video of CRPF jawan Rohitash Lamba’s widow Manju, saying that Gehlot should stop this ‘dictator-like’ behaviour.
Referring to Manju’s allegations of police brutality, Shekhawat said that instead of taking the necessary action, the Chief Minister is issuing statements on Twitter to blame her.
“The government should break the fast of the widows of Pulwama martyrs. Gehlot ji, this dictatorship will not work,” Shekhawat said.
Meanwhile, BJP Rajya Sabha MP Kirodi Lal Meena, who is also protesting with the widows, said, “On Tuesday, two ministers — Pratap Singh Khachariawas and Shankuntala Rawat — came to meet the protesting women.
Both listened to their demands and assured to solve the issue. It was expected that there would be an announcement from the state government on Wednesday accepting their demands, but nothing happened.
Instead, the Chief Minister is raising questions over the demands of these widows despite two of his own ministers assuring to solve the matter.”
SRINAGAR: The Anantnag Patwar Association continued their sit-in protest for the seventh consecutive day at Achabal, to seek an early redressal of their demands.
The Patwar Association said they have been demanding a hike in pay scales for patwaris, departmental promotion of patwaris and girdawars, and a ban on direct recruitment of Tehsildars.
They said that construction of patwar khanas, creation of patwar halqas and girdawar circles, timely conduct of DPCs, and an increase in their allowances are also in their agenda.
“We are sitting here under the banner of All Jammu and Kashmir Patwari Association for the seventh consecutive day, to let the government know about our demands. We graduate patwaris have a grade pay issue which the government should consider.” they said.
“Education and finance departments , teachers , account officers in the finance department have a handsome grade pay. Similarly, we graduate Patwaris demand a genuine increase in our grade pay.”
The other issue is that girdawar circle and pathwar Halqa are the same since the time of Maharaja Hari Singh and we demanding for their delimitation,” they added.
“We would also like to draw the keen interest of the administration towards the direct recruitment of Naib Tehsildars and demand a 75:25 quota, like the one in vogue in the Union territory of Ladakh and 75%, Girdawars and departmental Patwaris should be promoted to Naib Tehsildar”, the protesting paatwaris further said.
Meanwhile CPI (M) leader Mohamad Yousuf Tarigami also urged the government to redress genuine demands of striking patwaris. “The strike of patwaris has paralysed the working in revenue department”, Tarigami said.
“The administration has been giving assurances and making promises that their genuine grievances would be redressed, but nothing seems to be happening on ground, forcing them to go on protest. The demands include increase in the grade pay of graduate patwaris, timely departmental promotion of patwaris,girdawaris, rent for Patwar Khanas (Private accommodation), construction of new Patwar Khanas, creation of new patwar halqas and Girdawar circles are all genuine demands, which must be fulfilled without any further delay”, Tarigami said in a statement.
He urged that the Government must talk to the representatives of the Association and take effective steps to settle their genuine demands. (GNS)
SRINAGAR: The Kashmiri Pandit employees, who were on a 310 days long strike, protesting for their relocation outside the Kashmir valley suspended their strike on Saturday and said that the future course of action will be decided by the core committee of their association.
The employees from KP community working in various government departments under PM’s employment package were protesting to demand relocation outside Kashmir to some safer places, keeping in view the targeted killings.
The leadership of the package employees said that the government was financially choking them by stopping their salaries.
“We have suspended the protest due to certain issues particularly in view of the financial choking of the employees, which has caused a great distress among their families,” ,” said All Migrant Employees (Displaced) Association Kashmir ( AMEAK) in a statement.
“For last many days, the core committee held a number of meetings with the employees and their families. They came to know that employees were in complete chaos and confusion as their issues get multiplied every day. They were in complete distress. The core committee has reached the conclusion and a unanimous decision was taken to suspend the protest issued to the news agency,” they said.
Neha, who was part of the protest, said they are left with no option but to “surrender” before the government after it “stopped their salaries”.
“We do not feel safe there (in Kashmir) but nobody is listening to us. The government exploited the employees by stopping our salaries and choking us financially,” she said.
The protesting employees said that they desperately surrendered before the government as the response of the administration towards their primary demand of relocation remained very cold in the last 310 days of their legitimate struggle.
“ We held bare feet protest, mid night and full night protest and also protest in humid and cold conditions but they were not taken seriously by the UT administration .We have a great regret that the government did not even once try to know our view point,” they said.
They also said that the administration from time to time has issued statements that the genuine demands of package employees will be resolved and in addition the Lieutenant Governor also gave many statements regarding package employees’ security and therefore it is now up to the government to decide the future of employees.
“We also believe that the government so far has neither rejected our demand nor accepted it. We are hopeful that the government will fulfill its promise of security as claimed by it,” they said.
Last year in May, following the killing of their colleagues Rahul Bhat and Rajini Bala, many employees from the KP community had also moved to Jammu from the Kashmir division.
While Bhat was shot dead inside his office in central Kashmir’s Budgam on May 12, Bala, a school teacher, was killed in south Kashmir’s Kulgam district on May 31 last year.
The employees said the core committee of AMEAK will meet to take a decision over resuming their duties in the Valley.
Senior member of AMEAK Ruban Saproo told reporters that since Jammu and Kashmir Lt Governor Manoj Sinha had time and again assured a secure atmosphere to them in the Kashmir Valley, the core committee of the organisation decided to suspend the agitation and wait for the government’s response.
Rohit Raina, an AMEAK member, said that “we have only suspended the protest and the next course of action will be decided by the core committee of AMEAK”.
“Our only concern for which we had fled the Valley is our security,” he said, accusing the administration of twisting arms by stopping their salaries.
The killing of Kashmiri Pandit Sanjay Sharma by militants in south Kashmir’s Pulwama district on February 27 reflects the ground situation but “we hope that the government will ensure our security in the Valley”, Raina said.
RK Bhat, the president of Youth All India Kashmiri Samaj (YAIKS), an organisation of Kashmiri Pandits, urged Kashmiri Muslims to come forward to ensure the security of minority Hindus living in the Valley—(KNO)
New Delhi: Several teachers of Delhi University sat on a 12-hour hunger strike over delay in forming governing bodies in 28 colleges funded by the Arvind Kejriwal government.
The strike called by the AAP teachers wing — Academics for Action & Development Delhi Teachers Association (AADTA) — started at around 7 am at Arts Faculty.
They also demanded the absorption of ad hoc and temporary teachers working in various Delhi University colleges.
Several members of the Executive Council, Academic Council and Finance Committee of the varsity participated in the strike. Some former members and chairpersons of the governing bodies (GB) were also part of the demonstration, AADTA said in a statement.
“The large scale participation shows the anger of teaching community over the way the university administration has politicised the GB formation in these colleges and the recruitment process in a narrow partisan manner,” it said.
Last month, the Delhi government had sent the list of its nominees for the Governing Bodies formation to the university and during the Executive Council meeting on February 3, the list was not brought for approval, the statement said.
When Executive Council members Seema Das and R S Pawar took up the matter in the meeting, DU Vice Chancellor Yogesh Singh said there were some technical problems, the AADTA claimed.
“In mid-February, the university administration arbitrarily sent three GB nominees to Bharati College, violating the varsity’s Statute 30(1) and EC Resolution 51 (2012). When the policy of university administration is to continue with the massive displacements to the tune of 70 per cent ad hoc and temporary teachers, it is making all efforts to evade accountability to the elected government,” the AADTA said in the statement.
Hyderabad: Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) MLC and Bharat Jagruthi founder K Kavitha on Thursday announced a hunger strike at Jantar Mantar, Delhi on March 10 for Women’s Reservation Bill.
Speaking to the media she said, “Parliament sessions will start from March 13 and we want the Union government to bring the Women’s Reservation Bill in these sessions”.
She said that the hunger strike will be held on March 10 instead of March 8, International Women’s Day due to the Holi festival. She invited all the parties to extend their support and join Bharat Jagruthi in the hunger strike.
She alleged that the Modi government has not kept the promise of bringing the Women’s Reservation Bill twice already.
“Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders, when they came into rule in 2014, said that reservations will be created for women. They said that same thing in 2019, as well. They did not keep up their promises,” she stated.
Ranchi: As per estimates, about one lakh people could not be treated in Jharkhand on Wednesday as around 14,000 government and private doctors went on a strike demanding security.
Although emergency services have been kept operational, OPD and routine treatment came to a standstill in the state on Wednesday. The doctors staged dharnas at the hospitals and medical colleges in support of their demands.
The one-day strike was called by the Indian Medical Association (IMA) and the Jharkhand Health Services Association (JHSA) to protest against the recent incidents of assault, abuse and intimidation of doctors in Garhwa, Ranchi, Bokaro, Jamtara, Dhanbad and Lohardaga districts of the state.
The IMA said that it will resort to an indefinite strike if immediate action is not taken on the implementation of the Medical Protection Act and other demands.
More than 2,000 people are treated daily in the OPD of RIMS Ranchi, which is the biggest hospital in the state.
A large number of patients had gathered at the hospital on Wednesday as well, but there were no doctors to treat them.
OPD services at private clinics and hospitals also remained closed and only the pre-admitted indoor patients were attended to.
OPD services were also reported closed in medical colleges located at Hazaribagh, Jamshedpur, Dhanbad, Palamu and Dumka.
State IMA Secretary Pradeep Singh said that they were forced to take this decision, as the government had not taken any concrete step in implementing the Medical Protection Act despite promising the same.
Singh said that how would the doctors be able to save the patients if they themselves are not safe.
Meanwhile, state Health Minister Banna Gupta said that the law and order situation cannot be questioned because of the incidents of attacks on doctors.
He said that the government is sensitive to the doctors’ demands and the issue will be resolved soon after holding discussions.
The courts face their sixth week of indefinite strike with increasingly evident damages. The number of actions postponed due to the strike held since January 24 by the lawyers of the administration of justice (LAJ), one of the crucial gears within the administration, now exceeds 9,300, according to sources from the Superior Court of Justice ( TSJ).
The Ministry of Justice plans to hold its third meeting with the strike committee this afternoon in search of an agreement that will allow the reversal of this conflict, which is keeping the courts of the Region practically paralyzed. Specifically, last week -from February 20 to 24- 767 of the aforementioned hearings and trials could not be held and 861 statements and 28 proceedings stopped being carried out outside the headquarters, according to the data collected by the TSJ for referral to the General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ).
The report also includes the incidence of unemployment of these civil servants by jurisdictions during the last four weeks. Thus, in the civil and commercial jurisdiction, 1,110 trials were suspended, 818 in criminal, 215 in the social order and 490 in administrative litigation. In addition, 608 hearings and 857 proceedings in the civil registries ceased to be carried out.
Anse regrets the delay of ‘Novo Carthago’ and fears that the case will remain “in limbo”
The trial for the ‘Novo Carthago case’, one of the major procedures for alleged urban corruption that the Murcian courts have instructed in recent decades, was scheduled to start this Monday at the Court, but it has remained in the air pending a decision. going out on strike that the lawyers of the administration of justice have been waging for more than a month. The Association of Naturalists of the Southeast (Anse), one of the initial complainants in the case and who exercises the private prosecution, regrets the “feeling of impunity” that this situation projects. “A justice that is applied twenty years later,” remarks the director of the organization, Pedro García, “cannot be called justice.”
He also emphasizes that “the tremendous work that was done, in part, could collapse, especially due to the risk that the sanctions could be lower or even that the case would remain in limbo.”
García also underlines that the resolution of this trial is key to the future of the urban procedure. “There have been appeals due to the refusal of the Cartagena City Council to continue with the process to allow the urban development of the area and what happens here is key.” The director of Anse also stresses that this area has been left out of the plans of the Ministry of Ecological Transition to design a green belt around the Mar Menor because it was pending a judicial decision.
In this sense, the association demands that the regional president shed light on existing plans in the area. “It should explain, if the trial concludes that there is no crime, if the community would allow the area to develop urbanistically,” he stresses.
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( With inputs from : pledgetimes.com )
Shivamogga: In a setback to the ruling BJP, Karnataka Government Employees Union has announced that the government employees will go on an indefinite strike from March 1 in the state if their demand for implementation of the seventh pay commission is not met.
C. S. Shadakshari, the President of the Union, stated that all government employees have decided to not to attend duty and launch the protest across the state.
Speaking to reporters in Shivamogga, Shadakshari said, “Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai has turned a blind eye towards the government employees. The attitude of CM Bommai has saddened nine lakh government employees.”
The protest will be observed by the government employees by remaining absent from work in schools, colleges, and hospitals and other institutions, he said.
The protest would be recalled only if the government passes interim orders for implementing recommendations of the seventh Pay Commission.
“If not, we will continue the agitation,” Shadakshari added.
LONDON — The U.K. and the EU finally reached a deal after months of talks over contentious post-Brexit trade rules for Northern Ireland.
Already, both sides are pitching it as a major reset in frayed relations — but U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak still has to sell it to skeptics in his own party and beyond.
The so-called “Windsor Framework” comes after a final day of talks between Sunak and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in Windsor.
In key developments Monday:
— Sunak and von der Leyen talked up the deal as a “new chapter” in EU-U.K. ties at a Windsor press conference.
— The U.K. PM urged his MPs to get behind him in a Commons statement, as key Brexiteers gave supportive early comments.
— Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) vowed to study the text closely before deciding whether or not to back it.
— And Brexiteers in the U.K. hit out at No. 10 Downing Street over a meeting between King Charles III and von der Leyen on the same day a deal was struck.
‘New chapter’
Details of the new agreement are now being pored over by lawmakers on both sides of the English Channel, but the plan is aimed at easing customs red-tape, equalizing some tax rules across the United Kingdom, and giving Northern Ireland’s lawmakers more of a say over the future of the arrangement.
“The United Kingdom and European Union may have had our differences in the past, but we are allies, trading partners and friends, something that we’ve seen clearly in the past year as we joined with others to support Ukraine,” Sunak said at the joint press conference. “This is the beginning of a new chapter in our relationship.”
That line was echoed by von der Leyen, who said the plan would allow the two sides “to begin a new chapter,” and offer up “long-lasting solutions that both of us are confident will work for all people and businesses in Northern Ireland.”
Sunak — under pressure to hold a House of Commons vote on the agreement — told MPs Monday evening that the arrangement would end “burdensome customs bureaucracy” and “routine checks” on goods moving from Great Britain to Northern Ireland, and claimed he had “delivered what the people of Northern Ireland asked for … We have removed the border in the Irish Sea.”
He now faces the sizable task of convicing Brexiteer lawmakers on his own Conservative benches, many of whom will be closely watching the verdict of Northern Ireland’s fiercely anti-protocol DUP, to get on board.
“Our judgment and our principled position in opposing the protocol in Parliament and at Stormont has been vindicated,” said DUP leader Jeffrey Donaldson Monday night. “Undoubtedly it is now recognized that the protocol does not work. When others said there would be no renegotiation and no change, our determination has proved what can be achieved.”
Stormont brake
The protocol has been a long-running source of tension between the U.K. and the EU, and the two sides have been locked in months of talks to try to ease the way it works.
Under the arrangement, the EU requires checks on trade from Great Britain to Northern Ireland in order to preserve the integrity of its single market and avoid such checks taking place at the sensitive land border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.
The DUP has been boycotting the region’s power-sharing government while it pushes for major changes to a set-up it sees as driving a wedge between Northern Ireland and the rest of the U.K.
Speaking at the press conference, Sunak and von der Leyen talked up a host of changes to the protocol that they hope will be enough to restore power-sharing in Northern Ireland.
Under the revised plan, goods moving from Great Britain but destined only for Northern Ireland will travel through a new “green lane” with fewer checks, while a separate, more stringent, “red lane” for goods at risk of moving on to the Republic of Ireland — and thereby entering the EU’s single market — will now operate.
Sunak said food retailers would “no longer need hundreds of certificates for every lorry” entering Northern Ireland, while food made to U.K. standards will be able to be freely sent to and sold in Northern Ireland. He also vowed that the new pact would scrap customs paperwork for people sending parcels to family or friends or shopping online.
UK PM Rishi Sunak and EU Commission president Ursula von der Leyen hope that the host of changes to the Brexit protocol announced today will be enough to restore power-sharing in Northern Ireland | Dan Kitwood/Pool/AFP via Getty Images
The two sides have also amended the text of the protocol, Sunak said, to allow U.K. VAT and excise changes to apply in Northern Ireland — while a “landmark” settlement on medicines will mean drugs approved for use by the U.K. medicines regulator will be “automatically available in every pharmacy and hospital in Northern Ireland.”
And London and Brussels are now jointly pitching a new “Stormont brake,” claiming this will allow the devolved assembly in Northern Ireland — currently on ice amid a DUP boycott over the protocl — to prevent changes to EU goods rules “that would have significant and lasting effects on everyday lives” from applying in the region.
“This gives the institutions of the Good Friday Agreement in Northern Ireland a powerful new safeguard based on cross-community consent,” Sunak promised.
DUP’s next move
As he departed for London, DUP leader Jeffrey Donaldson said he and senior party colleagues would “take time to look at the deal” – a process likely to run at least through the weekend and to involve specially-commissioned analysis by constitutional lawyers. Early word from some Conservative Brexiteers was positive, with David Davis — who quit Theresa May’s government over her own EU deal-making — hailed it as a “a formidable negotiating success.”
Before flying out of Belfast, Donaldson briefed his party’s 25 members of the Northern Ireland Assembly about the expected key points. The DUP lawmakers met at Stormont, the seat of the power-sharing legislature that the DUP has blocked since May.
Donaldson said the DUP’s legal counsel would produce a detailed analysis for consideration by the party’s executive officers.
“It is vital that Northern Ireland’s place within the U.K. and its internal market is restored. We will have lawyers assess the legal text to ensure that this [is] in fact the case,” Donaldson told the Belfast News Letter, the main unionist newspaper in Northern Ireland.
Later, Donaldson told the BBC he was “neither positive nor negative” when assessing whether the DUP should accept the compromise package on offer.
“We need to take time to look at the deal, what’s available, and how does that match our seven tests,” he said, referring to the DUP’s July 2021 list of demands for “replacing” the protocol.
Other DUP officials said the party’s senior leadership would convene at party headquarters in Belfast, possibly on Saturday, to review the party’s legal verdict on the deal – and whether concessions won by the U.K. government were sufficient to end the DUP’s obstruction of power-sharing at Stormont.
Donaldson will seek maximum support at that meeting before committing to any policy pivot on the protocol. Other senior officials, including former deputy leader Lord Dodds, have explicitly rejected the idea of reviving Stormont if the revised protocol agreement retains any oversight role for the CJEU. Both Donaldson and the DUP’s “seven tests” have stopped short of drawing this red line.
Ever since narrowly losing May’s assembly elections to the Irish republicans of Sinn Féin, the DUP has refused not only to form a new cross-community government – the assembly’s central function under terms of Northern Ireland’s 1998 peace accord – but also has blocked the election of a neutral speaker for the assembly, preventing it from sitting.
This developing story is being updated. Annabelle Dickson and Noah Keate contributed reporting.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.eu )
Damascus: Syria has urged the United Nations to take necessary measures to deter Israel’s attacks and hold it accountable after a deadly Israeli missile attack on the Syrian capital Damascus.
“When Syria was trying to heal its wounds, bury its martyrs, and receive condolences, sympathy, and international humanitarian support in the face of the devastating earthquake, the Israelis launched an air aggression targeting civilian-populated neighbourhoods,” the Syrian Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Sunday.
There has been no comment from the Israeli authorities on the attack, Xinhua news agency reported.
Five people, including a soldier, were killed and 15 others wounded by the Israeli missiles launched from the Golan Heights early Sunday, the Syrian army said, adding many of the wounded are in critical conditions.
Many residential buildings in Damascus and the city’s countryside were damaged, it noted.
At least 15 people were killed, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a war monitor. Nine of the victims were Syrians, including two civilians, four soldiers, and three military officers. The identities of the other victims remain unknown, the Britain-based watchdog group said.
According to local media reports, the missiles hit the upscale neighbourhood of Kafar Sousah, the historic citadel of Damascus, and the al-Mazraa area.
The observatory said the target in Kafar Sousah was an Iranian school, adding that the Israeli missile attack also targeted positions of the Iranian militia and the Lebanese Hezbollah group in the Sayyida Zainab area, as well as a military site in the southern Syrian province of Sweida.
The Israeli attack comes as Syria is still coping with the devastating earthquakes that struck the north of the country on February 6. The tremors have killed and injured thousands of people in the war-torn country.
