Tag: Work

‘They come to me’: Jane Roberts’ legal recruiting work involved officials whose agencies had cases before the Supreme Court

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Jane Roberts’ placements included at least one firm with a prominent Supreme Court practice, according to the complaint, which also includes sworn testimony from Roberts herself, in which she notes the powerful officials — whose agencies have had frequent cases before her husband — for whom she has worked.
“A significant portion of my practice on the partner side is with senior government lawyers, ranging from U.S. attorneys, cabinet officials, former senators, chairmen of federal commissions, general counsel of federal commissions, and then senior political appointees within the ranks of various agencies, and I — they come to me looking to transition to the private sector,” Roberts said, according to a transcript of a 2015 arbitration hearing related to her former colleague’s termination.
In her testimony, Roberts also noted the benefit of working with senior government officials: “Successful people have successful friends.”
Jane Roberts and her firm, Macrae, did not immediately respond to requests for comment by email.
A spokesperson for the Supreme Court declined to respond to questions Tuesday about the complaint and whether the court is pursuing the issues raised in it.
In response to earlier questions about the justices’ financial disclosures, the court pointed to a 2009 ethics opinion from the Judicial Conference that judges generally don’t need to recuse themselves in cases simply because their spouse works as a consultant or service provider to a firm involved in litigation before the court.
“As a general proposition, the fact that the spouse or the spouse’s business has a business relationship with an entity that appears in an unrelated proceeding before the judge usually does not require the judge’s recusal,” the opinion says.
The high court also noted that the federal government’s rules for financial disclosures generally do not require public disclosure of the clients of officials’ spouses.

As the most senior officials in the judicial branch, the justices are not bound to follow such guidance or policies. However, they look to those practices for guidance, a spokesperson said.
The complaint included a list of Jane Roberts’ placements between 2007 and 2014 and her alleged commissions, some of which are hundreds of thousands of dollars. It is unclear whether the figures represent her earnings or the firm’s billings for her work.
In an analysis filed along with the complaint, Pace University law professor Bennett Gershman writes that “it is plausible that the Chief Justice’s spouse may have leveraged the ‘prestige of judicial office’ to meaningfully raise their household income.”
“That concern, together with the failure of the Chief Justice to recuse himself in cases where his spouse received compensation from law firms arguing cases before the Court, or at least advise the parties of his spouse’s financial arrangements with law firms arguing before the Court, threaten the public’s trust in the federal judiciary, and the Supreme Court itself,” Gershman wrote.
A sworn affidavit backing the complaint was submitted by Kendal B. Price, a Massachusetts attorney and former colleague of Jane Roberts at the legal recruiting firm Major, Lindsey & Africa, where Price was a managing director in the partner practice group.
Price, who was eventually fired from the firm, recalled in his affidavit being told that Roberts was the company’s highest-earning recruiter and that her early significant commissions, going to someone with so little recruiting experience, represented a “stark anomaly” compared to the rest of the field. When he raised the issue, colleagues did not seem to wish to discuss it, he said.
In a statement to POLITICO, Price said he decided to file a complaint with government authorities in order to expose potential ethical issues regarding the Supreme Court.
“The national controversy and debate regarding the integrity of the Supreme Court demanded that I no longer keep silent about the information I possessed, regardless of the impact such disclosures might have upon me professionally and personally,” Price said. “Not sharing it with the appropriate authorities for purposes of enabling them to investigate weighed on me increasingly, and I felt obligated to make this contribution to this important national conversation.”
A New York attorney who submitted the complaint on Price’s behalf, Joshua Dratel, said his client acted in part out of frustration that there is no official mechanism for raising ethics issues at the Supreme Court and due to previous reporting in POLITICO and elsewhere about ethics concerns at the high court. In September, POLITICO reported that gaps in ethical disclosures enabled justices, including Roberts, to shield their spouses’ clients who may have business before the court.
“The importance of this issue and the unavailability of any viable means of addressing this is what led to us sending it to the places that we sent it to,” Dratel said Tuesday. “This is a gap in transparency that’s only become more critical in the past year in terms of the impact that it has on the integrity of our institutions.”
In 2014, Price sued Major Lindsey over his termination, alleging that the firm had not paid his commissions and that another colleague there had stolen his clients, according to Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly. Jane Roberts was named as a defendant in the case. Price explained in his affidavit sent to Congress that he had been afraid of potential negative consequences of coming forward with allegations against Jane Roberts.
Price’s suit against Major Lindsey was moved from a Massachusetts state court to an arbitrator, who eventually ruled against Price. In his affidavit, he noted that he only directly interacted with Jane Roberts once during his time as an employee of Major Lindsey.
In a statement, John Cashman, president of Major Lindsey, maintained that Roberts, who worked at the firm for more than a decade, was among “several very successful recruiters at [the firm].”
“As a firm, MLA makes placements at hundreds of law firms each year – and like many of our highly-skilled recruiting consultants, Mrs. Roberts had a strong track record of excellent work,” Cashman said in the statement. “The success of our recruiters – and of our organization – stems from the fact that we hold our work and each of our consultants to the highest standards: Candidate confidentiality, client trust, and professionalism are the cornerstones of our 40 years of successful business.”
Dratel, Price’s attorney, rejected the notion that Price leveled the complaint against the Robertses out of lingering spite over his firing or the failure of his legal action against the firm.
“We’re well down the road from that,” Dratel said. “This is about the nation and the integrity of the court and knowing something that contributes to that. … He didn’t publish this. He sent it to Congress.”
Among the officials represented by Roberts at Major Lindsey was former Interior Secretary Kenneth Salazar, who joined the prominent Washington-based law firm WilmerHale in 2013, according to Price. For arranging Salazar’s hiring, Price calculated that Roberts must have received about $350,000, he alleges. And as part of that deal brokered by Roberts, WilmerHale also agreed to open an office in Denver.
In the 2015 testimony in Price’s suit, Jane Roberts said lawmakers she has placed at law firms have started at annual salaries ranging up to $3 million.
WilmerHale did not immediately respond to a message asking for comment.
Salazar is currently U.S. ambassador to Mexico. Efforts to reach him were unsuccessful.
Five years after Roberts received the commission from WilmerHale, the firm’s lawyers appeared before the Supreme Court representing a marine construction company, the Dutra Group, in a case regarding a sailor injured on one of the company’s vessels. Chief Justice Roberts ultimately sided with WilmerHale’s client, that the sailor was not owed punitive damages, Gershman noted.
Beyond the Dutra case, WilmerHale maintains a significant practice before the Supreme Court, and between 2013 and 2017, argued more cases before the court than any other law firm, according to data from SCOTUSBlog cited in the complaint.
Gershman argued that, given his wife’s relationship with the firm, the judicial recusal statute would require the chief justice to recuse himself from WilmerHale’s 27 cases between 2013 and 2017. Alternatively, Roberts could have sought disclosure and waiver. Gershman argued that the chief justice must recuse himself from all cases with counsel that have “made substantial payments to his household or ‘fully disclose’ such payments to counsel and seek a waiver by the litigants.”
Gershman also noted that Roberts’ financial disclosures list his wife’s income as salary, as opposed to commission. The allegations that Jane Roberts may have used her husband’s position for financial benefit, combined with the deficiencies in Roberts’ financial disclosures, is “far from trivial, technical, or harmless,” Gershman writes.
“It directly threatens the public’s trust and confidence in the federal judiciary at the highest level,” he noted.
It’s unclear what action, if any, lawmakers have taken on Price’s complaint, but Senate Judiciary Chair Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said Tuesday that the situation underscores the need for formal ethics rules for the Supreme Court, along with an enforcement mechanism.
“This complaint raises troubling issues that once again demonstrate the need for a mandatory code of conduct for Supreme Court justices,” Durbin said in a statement. “We must work on a bipartisan basis to pass Sen. [Chris] Murphy’s bill, the Supreme Court Ethics Act, which would simply require Supreme Court justices to adhere to the same standard of ethics as other federally appointed judges. Passing this requirement is a common sense step that would help begin the process of restoring faith in the Supreme Court.”
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#Jane #Roberts #legal #recruiting #work #involved #officials #agencies #cases #Supreme #Court
( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

February 1, 2023
MGNREGS work demand back to pre-pandemic level: Economic Survey

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New Delhi: The work demand under the MGNREGS hovered around the pre-pandemic level between July to November 2022, the Economic Survey released on Tuesday said, attributing it to the “normalisation of the rural economy” and “swift recovery from Covid-induced slowdown”.
According to the Economic Survey, which was tabled in Parliament by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, in the current financial year, 6.49 crore households demanded employment under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) till January 24.
Of them, 6.48 crore households were offered employment and 5.7 crore of them availed it, it said.
“The number of persons demanding work under MGNREGS was seen to be trending around pre-pandemic levels from July to November 2022. This could be attributed to the normalisation of the rural economy due to strong agricultural growth and a swift recovery from Covid induced slowdown, culminating in better employment opportunities,” the Survey said.
According to the Survey, the number of works done under MGNREGS has steadily increased over the years, with 85 lakh completed works in financial year 2021-22 and 70.6 lakh completed works in the current financial year by January
The share of “works done on individual’s land” has increased from 16 percent of the total completed works in 2015-16, to 73 percent in 2022-23.
These works include creating household assets such as animal sheds, farm ponds, dug wells, horticulture plantations, vermicomposting pits etc., in which the beneficiary gets both labour and material costs as per standard rates, the Survey said.
“Empirically, within a short span of 2-3 years, these assets have been observed to have a significant positive impact on agricultural productivity, production-related
expenditure, and income per household, along with a negative association with migration and fall in indebtedness, especially from non-institutional sources,” the Survey said.

It added this will have long-term implications for aiding income diversification and infusing resilience into rural livelihoods.
In 2019-20, 265.4 crore person-days employment was generated under the MGNREGS, which increased to 389.1 crore in 2020-21, and 363.3 crore in 2021-22. In 2022-23, 225.8 crore person-days employment was generated by January 6, according to data provided by the Rural Development Ministry.
Almost 99 percent of wage-seekers are receiving their wages directly into their
bank accounts through Direct Benefit Transfers, it said.
Around 14 crore Aadhaar have been seeded in the Management Information System (MIS) which is 92.0 percent of the total active workers (15.3 crore). A total of 7.9 crore workers have been linked to Aadhaar Based Payment System, it added.
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#MGNREGS #work #demand #prepandemic #level #Economic #Survey
( With inputs from www.siasat.com )

January 31, 2023
Gun safety groups to Biden: Your work isn’t done

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The letter by the coalition — also led by Brady United, Community Justice Action Fund, March for Our Lives and Newtown Action Alliance — illustrates the breadth of the issues the president will be pushed to tackle during this year’s State of the Union, a speech that comes at the halfway point of his first term. It also underscores the degree to which progressive-leaning institutions aren’t simply content to let Biden rest on his accomplishments as he begins gearing up for a likely reelection bid.
The coalition’s latest effort comes amid a flurry of mass shootings. But it is also reminiscent of the early days of Biden’s presidency, when many of the same groups wrote the president a letter outlining executive actions they sought, frustrated he hadn’t come out as aggressively as he promised on the campaign trail.
“Now two years later, we’re circulating another letter,” said Po Murray, chair of the Newtown Action Alliance. “We want Biden to address this and tell the world what his plan is to tackle this issue.”

The letter by the coalition — also led by Brady United, Community Justice Action Fund, March for Our Lives and Newtown Action Alliance — illustrates the breadth of the issues the president will be pushed to tackle during this year’s State of the Union
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Paul Morigi/Getty Images
The Biden White House has made historic strides on gun policy. The president has taken a slew of executive actions, and his administration has invested in community violence intervention. And following back-to-back shootings in Buffalo, N.Y., and then Uvalde, Texas, in 2022, the White House worked with a bipartisan coalition in Congress to pass the first gun legislation into law in nearly three decades. That deal, signed by Biden in June, toughened background checks for young gun buyers, helped states implement red flag laws and kept firearms from more domestic violence offenders. The following month, the Senate confirmed the first director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms since 2013.
Earlier this month, the administration announced a new rule to tighten regulations on guns with stabilizing braces, used by shooters in Boulder, Colo., and Dayton, Ohio. The White House did not respond to requests for comment on the president’s next policy moves, but press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said last week that Biden’s team would continue to examine avenues for executive action.
“We’ll continue to pursue executive actions to reduce gun violence,” Jean-Pierre said, noting she didn’t have “anything right now to share or preview.” She added the administration is always striving to find ways “to deal with an issue, again, that is devastating communities across the country. But I also want to be very, very clear here. In order to deal with this, we need Congress to act.”
Already in 2023, there have been 41 mass shootings in which four or more people were injured or killed, according to the Gun Violence Archive. At least 69 people have been killed, and that’s not counting the thousands dead this month due to other acts of gun violence or firearm suicide. Now, with a split Congress, the coalition of gun groups argues Biden has more of a responsibility to shoulder the burden for pushing reform — and they insist that he has options on the table.
The groups encouraged Biden to focus on implementation of the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act he signed into law more than six months ago, including by making use of the federal statute outlined in the legislation to target gun traffickers. They also called for the administration to ensure FBI investigators are properly trained in conducting background checks on buyers under the age of 21.

Following back-to-back shootings in Buffalo, N.Y., and then Uvalde, Texas, in 2022, the White House worked with a bipartisan coalition in Congress to pass the first gun legislation into law in nearly three decades.
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Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images
The letter also asked the administration to address the background check loophole by clarifying who is considered “engaged in the business” of selling firearms. The Bipartisan Safer Communities Act updated federal law, requiring anyone who sells guns for profit to be licensed. The coalition argues that by issuing a new rule, the ATF could clarify who qualifies as a firearms dealer and, therefore, who must conduct background checks on gun buyers.
Much of Biden’s rhetoric on guns has been focused on his intent to reinstate the assault weapons ban that he helped pass in 1994 as senator, but which lapsed in 2004.
But Peter Ambler, executive director of Giffords, which sent its own, separate memo to the White House on Monday, said the narrow focus on the ban reduces the need to talk about other weighty issues like background check loopholes and the need for investment in community violence intervention.
“Because when you just say assault weapons, honestly, you just think about mass shootings But gun safety solutions are also critical to combatting crime, intervening in cycles of community violence, addressing suicide, and more,” Ambler said. Along similar lines, the coalition’s letter asked the president to use his office “to communicate the scope of this crisis.”
And though the president doesn’t appear to have the votes for an assault weapons ban in Congress, the groups argue that Biden has tools at his disposal to further limit the proliferation of these guns in the U.S., including by fully enforcing the importation ban of foreign-made assault weapons that do not have a “sporting purpose.” As Giffords notes in its memo, the ATF, which oversees the importation of guns in the U.S., “has not conducted a comprehensive review of semi-automatic assault rifles and handguns under the sporting purposes test” since the Clinton administration.
The groups also are seeking a leader in the White House to oversee this work. Right now, the White House, Department of Justice and ATF are working in silos, Ambler said, and could benefit from greater capacity and coordination across agencies.
Susan Rice, whose portfolio as head of the White House Domestic Policy Council spans across a multitude of issues, is primarily seen as the point-person on gun policy. White House policy adviser Stefanie Feldman also works extensively on the issue. Tuesday’s letter specifically asks the president to establish a federal office of gun violence prevention, a move that would ensure someone is “driving this issue every single day,” said Volsky, who has routinely pushed the White House to place a gun-policy centric portfolio under a cabinet-level aide.
“They’ve clearly failed to do so thus far,” he said. “And so we’re using this opportunity — in light of all the recent tragedies — to call on him not to just ask Congress to do something, but to also do more himself.”
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#Gun #safety #groups #Biden #work #isnt
( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

January 31, 2023
Hyderabad: Traffic advisory issued due to ongoing construction work

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Hyderabad: The city traffic police have issued an advisory for the ongoing construction work at the Amberpet flyover on NH-163.
In a release on Sunday, the road from the Gandhi statue to Amberpet T Junction (near Sree Ramana) will be closed for 40 days from January 30 to March 10.
Citizens are requested to take alternate routes to avoid inconvenience.
District RTC buses and other heavy vehicles coming from Uppal towards 6 No. Junction should take a route via Habsiguda X Road – Tarnaka – Osmania Distance Education Road – Adikmet Flyover – Vidyanagar – Fever Hospital – Barkathpura – Tourist Hotel – Nimboliadda– Chaderghat.
General traffic including city RTC buses coming from Uppal towards 6 No. Junction will be diverted at Gandhi Statue – Prem Sadan Police boys hostel – Saldana Gate (CPL Amberpet) – Ali Cafe X Roads & Right turn towards 6 No. Junction – Golnaka – Nimobliadda–Chaderghat.
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#Hyderabad #Traffic #advisory #issued #due #ongoing #construction #work

( With inputs from www.siasat.com )

January 29, 2023
I work all day, then go home & play work simulator: Musk

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San Francisco: Describing his daily routine, Twitter boss Elon Musk on Saturday said that he works all day, then goes home and plays the work simulator.
“I work all day, then go home & play work simulator,” he tweeted.
Musk is known for working long hours to run his five companies — Tesla, SpaceX, Twitter, Neuralink, and the Boring Company.
His tweet so far has garnered over 8.8 million views, 127.8k likes, and 7,803 retweets.
However, his tweet was flooded with hundreds of comments, with some advising him to take a break from work, and some taking a dig at him.
One user commented: “I tweet all day, then stay home & play tweet simulator.”
Another user wrote: “I work all day and then do different work to relax from the all-day work.”
Earlier this week, Musk changed his name to “Mr. Tweet” on the micro-blogging platform and now he cannot reverse it.

Musk revealed that he got stuck with his new name as Twitter is not letting him change it back.
“Changed my name to Mr. Tweet, now Twitter won’t let me change it back,” he tweeted accompanied by a laughing emoji.
It is well-known that the billionaire owner makes out-of-the-blue decisions and tweets at times.
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#work #day #home #play #work #simulator #Musk
( With inputs from www.siasat.com )

January 28, 2023
UK mulls allowing foreign students to work for longer hours

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London: International students, including Indians, in the UK, are likely to be allowed to work for longer hours and take up more part-time jobs to plug labor shortages in various sectors across the country, according to a report.
Presently, foreign students in the UK, who number around 6,80,000, are allowed to work for a maximum of 20 hours a week during term time.
However, discussions have begun within the government to raise this cap to 30 hours or remove it entirely in a bid to boost its economy, The Times reported.
International students made up 476,000 of the 1.1 million migrants who arrived in the country last year.
Of these, India became the largest source of students with 161,000 students, including 33,240 dependents, coming to the UK last year.
There are 1.3 million empty posts, almost half a million more than before the pandemic, and according to Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, “businesses are crying out for workers”.
Government sources told The Times that lifting the cap on foreign students’ hours was “part of a swathe of ideas being considered”, adding that the idea is at a nascent stage.
But what could put a spanner in the works is Home Secretary Suella Braverman’s plans to reduce the number of foreign students coming to the country.

With the net migration numbers rising to an estimated record of 504,000 last year, Braverman has drawn up proposals to reduce the number, which includes shortening the duration foreign students can stay in Britain post their course.
Curbs are also being considered on the number of dependents allowed into the UK and restricting foreign students from attending “low-quality” courses.
However, according to the Department of Education, the restrictions will bankrupt UK universities, which depend on foreign students for money.
According to UK-based New Way Consultancy, foreign students and their dependents contributed to the UK economy not just through fees of 10,000 pounds to 26,000 pounds but also via an NHS surcharge of 400 pounds a year for the student and 600 pounds for a dependent.
It warned that curbs on graduate work visas will force Indian students to shift to countries like Australia and Canada, ultimately leading to the end of the student market in the UK.
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#mulls #allowing #foreign #students #work #longer #hours
( With inputs from www.siasat.com )

January 28, 2023
Ready to take taunts, will work for Telangana people’s welfare: Tamilisai

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Puducherry: Telangana Governor Tamilisai Soundararajan on Thursday said the state government has ‘undervalued’ the importance of the Republic Day and has not held any official function to mark the occasion.
Soundararajan, who is the Lt Governor of Puducherry, voiced concern over violations in observing conventions by the BRS regime in Telangana, which went against the vision of Dr B R Ambedkar, the architect of the Constitution.
The Governor said she was, “fed up with such breaches” and “as the going goes, even if someone spits at me, I will simply wipe off.” Seen as a hint at the strained relationship between the Telangana Raj Bhavan and the state government and taunts hurled at her, the governor said the scenario would not deter her from working for the people’s welfare in the Telugu state.
By not holding any official function, the BRS government has ‘committed violations’ and this necessitated a citizen in the State to move the High Court for relief, she told reporters here on the sidelines of ‘At Home’ reception in Raj Nivas.
The Telangana High Court has also ‘strongly condemned’ the state government for its failure to celebrate the day in the state. “I have however felicitated some persons at Raj Bhavan and gave respect to the national flag before coming to Puducherry,” she said.
Soundararajan, who flew down to Puducherry from Telangana said she had written to the Centre on the developments.
“I keep sending reports to the Centre on several developments in Telangana every month,” she noted.
The Telangana government should have held the ceremonial function at Parade Ground in Hyderabad. “It is amusing that the government has cited coronavirus as the reason for not holding the function in the ground. But a function was held recently with more than five lakh people being present.”

On delay in commencement of the R-Day celebrations in Puducherry, she said, “I am not responsible for this. The flight I was coming to Puducherry could not land on time because of bad weather and only after getting clearance of the Meteorological department did the flight land at Puducherry. I however tender my apology for the delayed start of the celebration.”
She was all praise for the territorial government for holding the Republic day celebrations in a grand manner.
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#Ready #taunts #work #Telangana #peoples #welfare #Tamilisai
( With inputs from www.siasat.com )

January 26, 2023
Congress’ 2018 return in Rajasthan because of my previous work: Ashok Gehlot

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Jaipur: In an apparent rebuttal to his former deputy, Sachin Pilot, Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot on Thursday said the Congress returned to power in 2018 because of the work done by him in his previous dispensation.
As he said this, he set the target of winning 156 seats in the assembly election due later this year.
Pilot, who has been locked in a power tussle with Gehlot for long, had recently said the return of Congress to power was due to the struggle of the party leaders and workers from 2013 to 2018, when he was the PCC chief.
In one of the public programmes, Pilot also spoke about the need for the older lot to make way for the younger generation of leaders.
Pilot has repeatedly said that the number of Congress MLAs, which had been reduced to 21 in 2013, was shot up only after the party high command made him the Pradesh Congress Committee chief in the state.
Gehlot, without naming Pilot, said the 2013 rout was largely because of the ‘Modi wave’ but within six months of the BJP government in state, people had realised their mistake.
“So an atmosphere was created and that was a big reason for the Congress to come back. Other reasons are always there, such as the party workers’ struggle on the streets. But the main reason was that it was in the mind of people that they had made a mistake by changing the government in 2013,” he told reporters after a state Reupulic Day function at Sawai Man Singh Stadium here.
Gehlot said that the BJP has no issues to rake up against his government and there is no anti-incumbency feeling among the people, who are happy with its schemes and programmes.

He said that state schemes such as Chiranjeevi Health Insurance are being talked about across the country, and employees are happy with the revival of the Old Pension Scheme.
“Our path is clear. When our government came in 1998, there were 156 seats, I was the PCC chief then. I would like to move ahead with ‘Mission 156’. We have already started work in that direction,” he said.
Gehlot said his MLAs supported him and helped him tide over the infight during the political crisis in 2020 that saved his government.
He said he fought hard to save his government and to serve people, and will continue to do so till his “last breath.”
“When I speak, I speak after thinking, I do not speak anything without thinking. It is a God’s gift to me that when I speak, the voice of my heart comes on my tongue,” he said.
“This time there is no resentment among the public, no displeasure with the government, nor is there the Modi wave which was there earlier. I hope people will support me,” he said.
On the Opposition, he said that the BJP has mastered the art of “horse trading” and toppling governments, which it has done in other states, but they failed in Rajasthan because of support of the MLAs and the public to him.
The CM said the state BJP has no real issues to target his government with and this is why it has been reprimanded by the high command.
Gehlot said that he and Rajasthan are on the target of BJP and this is the reson BJP chief JP Nadda and other leaders repeatedly come to Rajasthan.
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#Congress #return #Rajasthan #previous #work #Ashok #Gehlot
( With inputs from www.siasat.com )

January 26, 2023
Bigg Boss 16’s Tina Datta bags work opportunity in Hyderabad

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Hyderabad: ‘Is Bigg Boss 16 house turning into campus placements spot?’ is the question that is popping up in viewers’ mind as contestants continue to bag new projects every week. Recently, we saw host Salman Khan hinting at offering Priyanka Chahar Choudhary a Bollywood movie after her exit from BB 16. We also saw Nimrit Kaur Ahulwalia and Shalin Bhanot bagging two separate projects with Ekta Kapoor.
And now, we hear that Tina Datta too got a big offer from south. Yes, you read that right! Latest reports suggest that Tina has been roped in for one of the upcoming Tollywood films which will have a big star in the lead role. The ‘TinaTribe’ is going gaga after the actress bagged this big opportunity in Hyderabad which will mark her Telugu debut.
As per the recent reports by the Mid-Day, she will be seen playing the role of an obedient daughter of a rich politician who falls in love with a boy who works for his dad. The untitled film’s storyline revolves around a couple who come from different family backgrounds. The film will witness a major drama and keep viewers hooked to the screens.
More details about the film are still awaited.
Apart from this, she has also been roped in to play the lead role in Durga Aur Charu which currently airs on Colors channel.
We all saw that Tina gained a lot of fame with the ‘Uttaran’ show in which she played the role of Ichcha for which she received the best actress award. She later also took part in the stunt-based reality show Khatron Ke Khiladi 7. She is currently fighting for the trophy in Bigg Boss 16.
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#Bigg #Boss #16s #Tina #Datta #bags #work #opportunity #Hyderabad
( With inputs from www.siasat.com )

January 24, 2023
Opinion | Interpol Is Doing Russia’s Dirty Work

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That’s false. Interpol was formed to disseminate information to aid the search for alleged criminals while preventing the abuse of its systems by member states. But the organization’s highest responsibility isn’t actually to help catch criminals.
Interpol’s own Constitution famously states that it must operate in the spirit of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which enshrines the presumption of innocence and the right to private property. But authoritarian regimes like Russia and China often abuse Interpol in order to harass their critics or to justify their theft of business assets.
Interpol wants to avoid anything that would lead any of its member nations to quit or be suspended, for fear of diluting its global influence. For that reason, it asserts there’s no provision in its Constitution for suspending a member.
That’s technically true; the provision for suspension isn’t in Interpol’s Constitution. It’s in Article 131 of Interpol’s Rules on the Processing of Data, which entitles Interpol to suspend the access rights of any member state for up to three months.
Moreover, if Interpol’s Executive Committee approves, a nation can receive a “long-term suspension.” Unfortunately, that committee is currently dominated by autocracies and Interpol abusers. It’s unlikely that the UAE, China, Egypt and Turkey will vote to suspend one of their comrades in abuse.
Interpol’s defense for its inaction — a defense regularly reiterated by its secretary general, Jürgen Stock — is that Interpol was founded on neutrality and on apolitical cooperation against ordinary law crimes: offenses like murder, rape and robbery.
But practicing neutrality doesn’t mean ignoring systemic abuse. Interpol regularly allows spurious allegations of fraud, or false allegations of ordinary crimes, to be used to attack political or business opponents.
Stock has argued that there is no trade-off between offering “the widest possible mutual assistance” to police and Interpol’s neutrality.

But when the police are the criminals, there is indeed a trade-off. Regimes like Russia and China don’t recognize the distinction between ordinary crimes and political offenses — a distinction on which Interpol is based.
By ignoring that distinction, Interpol winds up “acting as an arm of a criminal regime to go after its enemies,” in the words of Bill Browder, the Putin critic and foremost target of Russia’s Interpol abuse. The Kremlin has repeatedly asked Interpol to arrest Browder, who has called out Russian corruption, though Interpol has rebuffed the requests.
Interpol’s neutrality on Russia’s membership amid the war in Ukraine comes down to refusing to do anything that could be perceived as taking sides. That isn’t neutrality; it’s blindness. True neutrality means enforcing Interpol’s rules against all comers, regardless of the identity or the reaction of the rule-breaker.
Interpol’s blinkered vision of neutrality doesn’t just affect courageous activists like Browder. It threatens the U.S. In 2018, the U.S. requested, and got, an Interpol Red Notice to try to apprehend Yevgeny Prigozhin, a Putin crony and the founder of Russia’s notorious mercenary Wagner Group.
But in 2020, after a complaint was filed by Prigozhin’s attorneys, Interpol withdrew the Notice on the grounds that it “would have significant adverse implications for the neutrality of Interpol” by causing it to be “perceived as siding with one country against another.”
Interpol’s vision of neutrality rests, as Stock states, on the belief that “if there is any state activity, Interpol is not conducting any activity.” But if the state is the one committing the crimes, Interpol’s efforts to remain neutral put it tacitly on the side of criminal states like Russia.
Unfortunately, after taking a strong stand last March in demanding Russia’s suspension, the Biden administration has backtracked. In August, the State Department and the attorney general published a report that found — in defiance of the evidence published by Interpol itself — that there has been no Interpol abuse since 2019.
Incredibly, the U.S., which pays the largest share of Interpol’s bills, is now so afraid of pointing fingers at the abusers and standing up for Interpol’s rules, that it can’t bring itself to cite the State Department’s own Country Reports on Human Rights, which testify to the ongoing reality of Interpol abuse.
Interpol’s critics are not always on target. The organization is right to resist calls, such as a recent one from the Wall Street Journal’s editorial board, to get involved in areas outside the ordinary crimes to which it is restricted by its Constitution. Interpol isn’t supposed to pursue offenses of a “military character,” even ones as well-documented and massive as Russia’s violations of human rights and commission of war crimes in Ukraine.
The question is not whether Russia is in the wrong in Ukraine. Russia is in the wrong, and Russia should be held to account. But Interpol is not the right tool to use for that purpose.
Interpol has enough trouble preventing abuse of its systems already. If it gets involved at the behest of the combatants in pursing war crimes, it will be faced with rampant politicization. Those who are concerned about Russia’s politicization of Interpol should not respond by urging Interpol to break its own rules.
At the same time, there is a right way to get Interpol involved in this fight. The international community could establish a tribunal to try Russians for offenses related to genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes. The tribunal could then enter into cooperation with Interpol and make requests to locate and detain suspects.
This is the procedure established in 2010 by Interpol’s General Assembly, which is designed to ensure Interpol does not turn into a judge of the rival claims of warring combatants. The European Parliament’s recent designation of Russia as a terrorist state is a significant step in this process.
Until an international tribunal is established, Interpol has plenty of work to do. Above all, it needs to stop telling half-truths about its rules, abandon its biased vision of neutrality, and start living up to its fundamental requirement to enforce its own rules, even if Russia and China perceive that as taking sides.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

January 24, 2023