The Mumbai unit of the BJP today expressed confidence that the new BJP President Amit Shah, would be able to replicate the performance of the party in Maharashtra, as he did in Uttar Pradesh in the recent Lok Sabha elections.
50-year-old Shah had engineered a massive victory in Uttar Pradesh for BJP during the Lok sabha elections in May this year, where the party bagged 71 parliamentary seat, out of 80.
Congress leader in the Lok Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge today met Speaker Sumitra Mahajan and formally staked the party’s claim to the post of Leader of Opposition in the House, an issue that has got embroiled in a controversy.
“We have submitted a memorandum containing the signatures of 60 UPA MPs. It is for her to take a view on the matter”, Kharge told reporters after the meeting.
He was asked what time the Congress expected a decision on the issue.
India’s wholesale as well as retail inflation is likely to decline by the end of this year, a government survey said Wednesday.
However, it warned that prices may spike if the monsoon remains sub-normal.
The Economic Survey 2013-14 presented in parliament by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said both the Wholesale Price Index (WPI) and the Consumer Price Index (CPI) based inflation have declined in the past two financial years and the trend is expected to continue.
The urban housing shortage in the country was estimated at 18.78 million in 2012, Lok Sabha was informed today.
Out of the total urban housing shortage of 18.78 million, 10.55 million was in economically weaker section category, 7.41 million in lower income groups category and the remaining 0.82 million in the middle and above category, Urban Housing and Poverty Alleviation Minister Venkaiah Naidu said in a written reply to a question in the House.
The government has set a target of providing housing for all by 2022, Naidu said.
Iran’s foreign ministry today condemned Israeli air raids in the Gaza Strip, calling on the West to urge the Jewish state to prevent a “human catastrophe”.
The remarks by Iran, traditional ally of Palestinian militant group Hamas, came after Israeli warplanes pounded targets in Gaza as part of a major campaign to halt rocket fire from the enclave.
The Islamic State extremist group (Isis) has taken control of a vast former chemical weapons facility north-west of Baghdad, where 2,500 degraded chemical rockets filled decades ago with deadly nerve agent sarin or their remnants were stored along with other chemical warfare agents, Iraq has said in a letter circulated at the United Nations.
The US played down the threat from the takeover, saying there were no intact chemical weapons and it would be very difficult to use the material for military purposes.
Over 1,800 appointments in central government departments were allegedly secured on the basis of fake caste certificates, the Lok Sabha was informed on Wednesday.
The central government had undertaken a one time exercise to collect information about appointments secured on the basis of fake or false caste certificates in 2010.
A US-based NRI has been booked for allegedly posting a morphed picture of Goa’s PWD Minister Sudin Dhavalikar in a bikini on social networking site Facebook.
Dhavalikar had recently stoked a controversy by saying that “wearing bikinis should be banned on Goa’s beaches.” Later, Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar had ruled out banning wearing of the swimwear on the state’s beaches.
Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader, Tariq Anwar today said that there is nothing for the poor in the Budget.
Tariq Anwar told ANI, “Nothing new is presented in this railway budget. The lack of basic facilities for railway commuters nowhere seems to be handled in the budget.”
Expressing concern over Sri Lankan government’s recent order on non-governmental organisations, the US has said the move undermines freedom of speech and assembly.
“The United States is concerned by reports that the Sri Lankan Ministry of Defense has ordered registered Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) and civil society groups to cease their media engagements and activities,” State Department spokesperson Jen Psaki said.
“This order undermines Sri Lanka’s longstanding and proud democratic traditions, including freedom of speech and freedom of assembly,” she said.
People may actually sleep 20 minutes less and take longer to fall asleep on a full moon night, a new study has found.
Numerous studies through the years have attempted to prove or disprove the hypothesis that lunar phases affect human sleep.
Michael Smith and his co-researchers from the Sahlgrenska Academy at Gothenburg University in Sweden have analysed data generated by a previous sleep study and compared them with the lunar cycle.
Based on a study of 47 healthy 18-30 year-olds, the results support the theory that a correlation exists.
Reliance Retail which is a subsidiary of Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Industries is planning to close the shutters over 100 Reliance Fresh stores that mostly sell fresh produce and groceries, since it increases its focus on India’s $450 billion wholesale cash-and-carry business.
Presently, Reliance Retail operates around 550 Reliance Fresh stores -a typical store is spread over in the region of 3,500 square feet and caters to a catchment area of two-three km.
Former Pakistan captain Saleem Malik has been given a lifeline by the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) as it has approached the ICC for guidance and advice on whether the ban on the disgraced batsman could be removed.
“We have written to the ICC and asked it to guide us as this is a complicated case. Malik claims that a lower court removed his life ban way back in 2008,” chief operating officer, Subhan Ahmad told PTI.
“Malik had requested the PCB Chairman to review his case and ask for guidance from the International Cricket Council as well,” he said.
The opposition BJP on Wednesday demanded a judicial inquiry into police firing at Rohtas in which two persons were killed and nine others injured yesterday.
Leader of Opposition in Legislative Council Sushil Kumar Modi told reporters that police firing on people reflected poor law and order situation in the state under JD(U) government. He demanded a judicial inquiry into the incident.
Sushil Modi said that the incident triggered by exchange of “objectionable” MMS by two friends of different communities on Monday was a fallout of “lapse” on part of district administration.
President Barack Obama today said the US is committed to the goal of developing a “new model” of relations with China defined by increased practical cooperation and “constructive management” of differences.
“The United States welcomes the emergence of a stable, peaceful, and prosperous China,” Obama said here as the annual US-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue (S&ED) began in Beijing.
A 17 year old girl allegedly committed suicide by jumping off the bridge into Phalguni river at Gurupur near here on Wednesday, police said.
Locals found the body of the girl, working as a sales girl in a textile shop, floating near the river bank at Gurupur Kaikamba Bridge, police said.
According to the local people, she was seen coming near the bridge in an auto rickshaw and jumped into the river as soon as the auto left. The reason for the suicide is not immediately known, police said.
……..PTI
The controversial remark that those not voting for the party should be send off to Pakistan courted by Giriraj Singh, the BJP’s Lok Sabha member from Nawada, is under the scrutiny of police and income tax officials after a robbery at his Patna flat led to recovery of Rs 1.14 crore and $600 in cash.
A 20-year-old woman was allegedly raped by three men, including her cousin, after she was forced to consume a cold-drink laced with sedatives by the accused here, police said on Wednesday.
The incident took place yesterday when the woman, a resident of Arya Nagar Ballabhgarh, was on her way to the market when she stopped by her cousin Bhupendra, they said.
Bhupendra asked her to have a cold-drink with him which she refused, police said, adding that later she had the cold-drink on his persistence, following which she fainted.
A new study has found that the light from tiny galaxies more than 13 billion years ago played a larger role than previously thought in creating the conditions in the universe as we know it today.
According to a new study by researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology and the San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC) at the University of California, ultraviolet light from stars in these faint dwarf galaxies helped strip interstellar hydrogen of electrons in a process called reionization.
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) workers on Wednesday celebrated as the party announced Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s close aide and general secretary Amit Shah as their new president.
Celebrations also took place in Kanpur and Lucknow, with party workers dancing to the beat of drums.
Party spokesperson Meenakshi Lekhi congratulated the leader and said that the party had taken the right decision by electing Shah as the new party President.
Taking exception to TMC disrupting the proceedings in the Lok Sabha over Rail budget, Parliamentary Affairs Minister M Venkaiah Naidu on Wednesday appealed to all political parties to maintain decency and decorum in the House.
“I appeal to all political parties to maintain decency and decorum in the House. You have the right to protest, but MPs should not deprive their fellow parliamentarians of the opportunity to express their views about their regions,” Naidu told reporters outside Parliament House.
Iraqi security forces found the bodies today of 53 men who had been bound and executed in a confessionally mixed province south of the capital, police and medical officials said.
The men were found in orchards south of Babil provincial capital Hilla, all with gunshots to the head or chest, in killings reminiscent of the brutal sectarian bloodshed that gripped Iraq in 2006-7.
A mortuary official said the victims were killed at least a week ago.
It was not immediately clear why the men were killed, the officials said.
Special steps are being taken and instructions issued to ensure safety of women travelling alone in all classes of trains, railway minister Sadananda Gowda said.
He said to ensure security of ladies travelling alone, special instructions are being issued for their safety in each class of travel. He said to strengthen security in trains and at stations, 17,000 RPF constables have been recruited and they will be shortly available for deployment. “We also propose to recruit 4,000 women RPF constables,“ he said.
A 19-year-old newly-wed woman was allegedly raped by her brother-in-law at Bhiwandi town in the district and was subjected to torture by her husband and other members of his family, police said today.
The incident of rape had taken place on July 1, police said.
Call it birth pangs or teething troubles, everything still remains unsettled over a month after Andhra Pradesh and Telangana came apart as two states.
Two new governments are in place but yet there is no tangible sign of governance, more so in Andhra Pradesh, say political observers.
The “order to serve” (in the two states) issued for bureaucrats and other government officers and staff actually seems to be not serving any purpose in the absence of clear allotment orders.