Bhopal: Madhya Pradesh’s two top leaders – Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan and state Congress chief Kamal Nath, who have been engaged in a “question war” for over past two months, on Friday saw their verbal spat turn ugly as both used derogatory words for each other.
It all began as Chouhan, at a press meet on Friday, accused the latter of of “inciting communal violence” the state, which he termed an “island of peace” and be it Ram Navami or Hanuman Jayanti, it was celebrated not only peacefully but also with harmony in the entire state.
“But, the Congress and its top leadership want to create communal violence in Madhya Pradesh. Everyone has seen the video of 2018 when he (Kamal Nath) was found ‘instigating’ a group of Muslim voters. Will people be instigated for votes, on the basis of religions and caste? In a recent incident on Wednesday, he again said that riots are breaking out in the country and in the state,” ” he said, referring to Kamal Nath’s statement at a Roza Iftar party.
“Kamal Nath ki voton ki bhukh itni badh gayi hai ki wo pagal ho gaye hain (Kamal Nath has become so hungry for votes that he has become mentally unbalanced),” Chouhan said, sparking off a political controversy and protests by Congress workers in Bhopal.
Hitting back, Kamal Nath said that a few days back, the CM said that he would end him (the Congress leader) and “now he is calling me ‘pagal’ (insane)”.
“The MP CM has forgotten all respect and humanity and ‘sadak chhap bhasha bol raha hai’ (speaking the vulgar language of the street).
“The whole world is watching how the Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh is behaving. All civilised behaviour, dignity within him have ended. He is speaking the language of street gang goons.
“I don’t care about my humiliation. I have been serving the people of Madhya Pradesh for the last 44 years and will continue to do so till my last breath. But, I am sad that a person with such frustrated thoughts is sitting on the chair of the Chief Minister of a great state like Madhya Pradesh. Such a person being the Chief Minister is an insult to the 8 crore people of the state,” Kamal Nath, a former Chief Minister, said.
New Delhi: ‘Make in India’ shipments from Apple grew 65 per cent (on-year) by volume and 162 per cent by value, taking the brand’s value share to 25 per cent in 2022, up from 12 per cent in 2021, a new report has shown.
The contribution of exports in ‘Make in India’ smartphone shipments reached the highest ever in 2022 both in volume (20 per cent) and value terms (30 per cent), according to Counterpoint Research.
Overall, ‘Make in India’ smartphone shipments declined 3 per cent YoY in 2022 (January-December) to reach 188 million units.
The major factor behind this decline was the softening of consumer demand due to macroeconomic headwinds, especially in the second half of the year.
“Apple’s EMS (electronics manufacturing services) partners Foxconn Hon Hai and Wistron were the fastest growing manufacturers among the top 10 in Q4 2022. The growth was also fuelled by increasing exports from Apple,” said senior research analyst Prachir Singh.
In Q4 2022, Samsung emerged as the top smartphone manufacturer, ahead of OPPO whose manufacturing shipments declined 31 per cent YoY due to inventory issues in the entry-tier segment.
“Apple’s EMS partners Foxconn Hon Hai, Wistron and Pegatron were among the top 10 EMS players in India in 2022 in terms of volume. In terms of value, Foxconn Hon Hai and Wistron led the EMS landscape,” said Singh.
Both of these manufacturers also received the PLI incentive in the recent disbursements.
Among OEMs, OPPO led the ‘Made in India’ smartphone shipments in 2022 with a 22 per cent share, followed by Samsung.
Research Director Tarun Pathak said that overall, 2022 has been a good year in terms of manufacturing and localisation in India.
“The increasing exports from Apple, Samsung and other OEMs drove the locally manufactured shipments in 2022 and somewhat offset the impact of the local demand decline. The recent disbursement of PLI incentives from the government as well as other initiatives, both at the central and state levels, has boosted the overall local manufacturing,” Pathak noted.
Going forward, we may see the country reaping benefits of the PLI scheme thanks to increasing exports from Apple and Samsung, said the report.
New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Friday held as bad in law its 2011 verdicts that ruled that mere membership of a banned organisation will not make a person criminal unless he resorts to violence or incites people to violence.
A bench of Justices MR Shah, CT Ravikumar and Sanjay Karol, while deciding a reference made by a two-judge bench, held that mere membership of banned organisation will make a person criminal and liable to be prosecuted under provisions of UAPA.
The bench said the subsequent decisions passed by high courts pursuant to its two-judge verdicts in 2011 on membership of banned outfits are bad in law and overruled.
While allowing petitions of the Centre and the Assam government seeking review of the apex court’s 2011 verdicts on membership of banned outfits, the court said the Union government was required to be heard when a provision enacted by Parliament is read down.
The top court said the 2011 verdicts were passed while relying on American court decisions which cannot be done without considering the condition prevailing in India.
“In India right to freedom of speech and expressions is not absolute and is subject to reasonable restriction. However, decisions of the American court can be guiding light”, the bench said.
On February 9, the top court while reserving its verdict on batch of review pleas had noted that the Union of India was not heard by its two-judge benches when the 2011 verdict was passed reading down section 3 (5) of Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act, 1987 (now repealed).
The top court on February 3, 2011, had acquitted suspected ULFA member Arup Bhuyan, who was held guilty by a TADA court on the basis of his alleged confessional statement before the Superintendent of Police, and said mere membership of a banned organisation will not make a person a criminal unless he resorts to violence or incites people to violence or creates public disorder by violence or incitement to violence.
Similar views were taken by the apex court in two other verdicts of 2011 in Indra Das versus State of Assam and state of Kerala versus Raneef, where the bench relied upon the three US Supreme Court decisions which have rejected the doctrine of ‘guilt by association’.
Pune: External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on Thursday said India is “15 percent of the solution” the G20 is looking for in terms of economic growth and development.
He was speaking at the Festival of Thinkers, an event organized by Symbiosis International University here.
The minister cited managing director of the International Monetary Fund Kristalina Georgieva’s statement that in “otherwise a fairly gloomy global economic scenario” India’s GDP base is growing at seven percent and is likely to increase in the coming decade.
“Kristalina Georgieva tells that 15 percent of the world’s growth this year is going to come from India, that means we are 15 percent of the solution that the G20 is looking for in terms of economic growth and development, but it isn’t just growth, the G20 is actually looking at how we handled the COVID challenges,” said Jaishankar.
India’s G20 presidency began in December 2022.
The G20 countries have noted India’s success in effectively vaccinating its vast population against coronavirus, he said.
“Getting shots in the arms” looks very easy, but there are countries which struggled to get it done while the world has seen that India managed to vaccinate all eligible persons, Jaishankar said.
“For them, it is a staggering achievement, it is a staggering achievement with the smoothness and organization with which it was done,” he added.
Soon after COVID-19 became a global concern in January 2020, “there was a sense of the briefing to the G20 that if there is any place in the world (that) is going (to) go under because of COVID, it is India,” the minister said.
“A set of very serious people” who had studied global health concluded that India’s health system, governance and ability as society would not allow it to deal with the pandemic, and “three years later, we showed them to be so wrong,” he said.
Today the same people marvel at how India “managed society, how the country fed people during that period, how money was put in the bank account of people,” Jaishankar said.
Aadhaar has become “a magic number”, and is “actually the backbone on which the daily existence of hundreds of millions of people (hinges), he said.
“If the world today has expectations, the contribution of India, it is the economic contribution that is underpinned by enormous governance record, especially in digital delivery,” he said.
For those close friends who got a text from Nicola Sturgeon in the hours before she publicly announced her resignation as Scotland’s first minister, it was the timing and not the fact of her departure that came as the almighty shock.
But Sturgeon is a woman who likes to craft her own narrative. For months, the first minister has been buffeted by decisions not of her making – the supreme court ruling that she cannot hold a second independence referendum without Westminster approval, the UK government blocking Holyrood’s gender recognition bill – as domestic headwinds around the NHS, education and transport grew ever more unfavourable.
And so on a lacklustre spring morning in the middle of recess, she seized back control of her own story with a delicately detonated political bombshell. She leaves her party with no obvious successor and those same challenges unresolved – and herself, at the age of 52, as she stressed today, with plenty of road ahead of her.
The superlatives flooded in from supporters and opponents alike, describing Scotland’s first female first minister, who has led her party to political dominance for nearly a decade, as “formidable”, “unparalleled”, “tireless”.
So began the inevitable parsing of her resignation speech, itself praised for its honesty and humility – particularly in contrast to recent UK prime ministerial resignations. Those familiar with Sturgeon’s sensibility were mindful too of recent remarks from former New Zealand premier Jacinda Ardern, someone with whom Sturgeon is known to feel a kinship.
That Sturgeon was ready to leave the role she has occupied since she seamlessly replaced Alex Salmond in 2014 was no secret. For at least 18 months, she has been dropping regular hints and allusions to her post-Holyrood future: telling Vogue in October 2021 that she and her husband, SNP chief executive Peter Murrell, had discussed fostering, and the Guardian in August 2022 that she looked forward to “just not feeling as if you’re on public display all the time”.
All of which seemed jarring for a politician who was also claiming to be up for the fight over a second referendum and the gender bill.
But still the abruptness of the announcement was a surprise, although the explanation given was straightforward enough: with a special conference in March to decide the next steps on independence strategy, she wants to leave the SNP – and her successor – “free to choose” without her.
The immediate speculation was whether Sturgeon was anticipating heavy and humiliating opposition to her preferred option of running a future election as a de facto referendum at the special conference – or what other domestic catastrophes had yet to emerge.
While she insisted at her press conference that the ongoing row over the placement of transgender offenders in women’s prisons was not “the final straw”, this was also the moment when she revealed most emotion, appearing close to tears as she told reporters: “I will always be a voice for inclusion … I will always be a feminist.”
While Sturgeon has been consistently robust in her defence of her reforms, those working closely with her acknowledge how difficult the last few weeks of relentless and increasingly personal criticism have been, overlaying the regular denunciations of her deeply held feminist beliefs during the passage of the gender recognition reform bill through Holyrood, with hundreds of (mainly) female protesters booing her outside the parliament building and wearing T-shirts with the slogan: “Nicola Sturgeon, destroyer of women’s rights.”
“People can only take so much” says one SNP veteran, but this applies as much to her experience leading the country through the pandemic, and the Salmond saga which played out concurrently.
Jeane Freeman, whose friendship with Sturgeon was cemented when she worked as her health secretary during the pandemic, told the Guardian: “It’s inevitable that going through something as relentless and all-consuming takes its toll, as I know personally. I don’t think any of us know the impact it has had on us until we’ve had space and time to reflect on it.”
Sturgeon has also previously discussed her lack of time to fully reflect on the “toxic horribleness”, as she described it last summer, as the Salmond saga – which saw two high-profile investigations into the Scottish government’s handling of harassment complaints made against the former first minister, constant calls for her to quit, and ultimately her being cleared of misleading parliament.
Maybe now the time has come for such reflection for the woman whose mammoth contribution to post-devolution politics has yet to be fully assessed.
Her unerring ability to “speak human” brought her to an audience well beyond Scotland, particularly during her daily Covid briefings, and she remains one of the few politicians in the UK recognised by her first name alone – an electoral boon not enjoyed by any of her potential successors.
While the level of adoration may have calmed since the high point of “Nicola-mania” during the 2015 election campaign when she was regularly mobbed by adoring and sometimes tearful admirers demanding selfies, she remains a popular and trusted figure.
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In her resignation speech she warmly thanked “my SNP family”, the party she joined as a serious-minded 16-year-old in the 1980s, when support for independence was marginal and membership was not about forging a career in politics.
Sturgeon’s leadership style is often criticised for her keeping a tight-knit group around her – unlike Salmond’s unruly court – with regular complaints from both Holyrood and Westminster groups that she fails to engage with the party’s rank and file.
This can partly be explained as personality: she describes herself as naturally reserved and shy, but has spoken out about profoundly personal experiences of miscarriage and menopause, saying she feels an obligation as the first woman in her office to “move the dial a little bit”.
Meanwhile, younger women politicians emerged to salute her as a personal inspiration, with social media this afternoon peppered with testimony – not only from SNP members – from those who say they would not have considered entering public life without her example.
MP Amy Callaghan toppled the former Lib Dem leader Jo Swinson in 2019 and Sturgeon’s delighted fist-pumping reaction, caught unintentionally on camera, went viral at the time. Callaghan, who suffered a brain haemorrhage in 2020, spoke warmly of Sturgeon as “a great source of knowledge and strength during my campaign, and also through my ill-health”.
Those who know Sturgeon well highlight her comments on Wednesday on the polarisation of Scottish politics, and its “brutal” nature – especially for women. They praise her insight in recognising the point where her own leadership, or the perception of it, has itself become a barrier to change.
While she leaves the independence question in deadlock, she insisted her decision to step down was anchored in what was right “for the country, for my party and for the independence cause I have devoted my life to”.
While she indicated she may not stand again for Holyrood at the next Holyrood elections in 2026, she said that her commitment to that cause was unwavering.
“Whenever I do stop being first minister,” Sturgeon told the Guardian in August 2022, “I’m still going to be relatively young. This would not always have been true of me, but a life after politics doesn’t faze me.
“The world is my oyster.”
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( With inputs from : www.theguardian.com )
Washington: Air India will purchase 220 planes from Boeing for USD 34 billion, with an option to buy 70 more aircraft that could take the total transaction value to USD 45.9 billion, a deal that US President Joe Biden described as a “historic agreement”.
While announcing the Boeing-Air India deal on Tuesday, Biden also asserted that together with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, he was looking forward to deepen the ties between India and the US.
As per an announcement from the White House, Boeing and Air India have reached an agreement under which the airline will purchase 190 B737 MAX, 20 B787, and 10 B777X for a total of 220 firm order valued at USD 34 billion at list price.
The deal will also include customer options for an additional 50 Boeing 737 MAX and 20 Boeing 787, totalling 290 airplanes for a total of USD 45.9 billion at list price.
“I am proud to announce today the purchase of over 200 American-made aircraft through a historic agreement between Air India and Boeing,” Biden said.
The Air India order is Boeing’s third biggest sale ever in dollar value and second in terms of number of planes.
This purchase will support over one million American jobs across 44 states, and many will not require a four-year college degree, Biden said, adding that this announcement also reflects the strength of the US-India economic partnership.
“Together with Prime Minister Modi, I look forward to deepening our partnership even further as we continue to confront shared global challenges — creating a more secure and prosperous future for all of our citizens,” Biden said.
This announcement follows the inaugural launch of the US-India initiative on Critical and Emerging Technology (iCET) last month. The initiative is aimed at expanding the strategic technology partnership and defense industrial cooperation between the governments, businesses, and universities of the two countries.
Biden and Modi announced the iCET in May 2022.
Biden’s economic plan is about building an economy from the bottom up and the middle out, and revitalising American manufacturing, the White House said.
Over the course of production and delivery, the agreement will have USD 70 billion in total economic impact across the United States and support an estimated 1.47 million direct and indirect jobs.
The production of the aircraft supports three separate US-based manufacturing lines that include aerospace suppliers across 44 different states, the White House said.
SRINAGAR: A Special Judge (Designated) under NIA Act here has sentenced a militant, arrested in 2020, to five years in jail.
The court passed the verdict in a case FIR (No. 07/2020) under section 16, 18, 19, 20, 39, UA (P) Act and 7/25 I.A Act of police station Saddar Srinagar.
The convicted militant, Nisar Ahmad Dar alias Usman of Wahabpora Hajin Bandipora, was held along with one AK-47 Rifle with two Magazines, 60 live rounds and two Chinese-made hand grenades with one pouch, police said. “The Court while pronouncing judgement has awarded 05 years of simple imprisonment for each offence U/S 18, 19, 20, 39, UA (P) Act and 7/25 I.A Act to the accused. The punishment shall run concurrently,” news agency GNS quoted police as having said.
Similarly, on February 2, he said, the Court of Special Judge (Designated) under NIA Act, Anantnag convicted one LeT affiliate Dawood Ahmad Dar son of Mushtaq Ahmad Dar of Ashmuji Kulgam and sentenced to undergo simple imprisonment for a period of four (04) years and eight (08) months U/S 5 of Explosive Substance Act in a case (FIR No. 42/18) filed with police station Devsar. “The accused has been guilty of having illegally one grenade in his possession”.
