Month: September 2014

Officers belonging to All India Services like IAS, IPS, IFS etc., will be allotted to A.P. and Telangana States in a meeting of Pratyush Sinha Committee to be held today in New Delhi. It is most likely that Chief Secretary of A.P. Mr. IYR Krishna Rao and Chief Secretary of Telangana State, Dr. Rajiv Sharma will attend this meeting. These officers will extend their cooperation in the distribution of Officers in both the States. Due to no allotment of Officers, functioning of Telangana State is getting affected.

Former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who is under fire from the former CAG Vinod Rai over the 2G spectrum scam and Coalgate, today said he has done his “duty” and refused to respond to charges levelled against him.

“I, indeed, did my duty. Well, I do not want to comment on other people what they have written,” Singh told reporters on the sidelines of an event here to celebrate the publication of a book titled ‘Strictly Personal: Manmohan and Gursharan’, authored by his daughter Daman Singh.

Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Sunday said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be delivering his forthcoming speech at the United Nations General Assembly in Hindi.

Singh, who was speaking a function organized on the occasion of Hindi Diwas here, said former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee had delivered his speech at the United Nations in Hindi.

Cash-rich China is looking to outwit rival Japan by pledging to invest billions of dollars in India’s railway, manufacturing and infrastructure projects during President Xi Jinping’s maiden visit to the country this week.
As Xi’s visit to India scheduled for September 17 draws close, Chinese officials are becoming increasingly vocal about Beijing’s decision to scale up investments in India regarded widely as the most safe investment destination, especially after Japan made a splash with commitment to invest $35 billion during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Tokyo.

Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) general secretary Rajiv Pratap Rudy on Sunday said that the party will look to contest the upcoming legislative assembly elections in Maharashtra from 135 of the total 288 seats.

Speaking at a press conference here, Rudy said, “The BJP has full faith in all of its allies. We have proposed that the seats remaining after allotting the share of seats to smaller alliance partners be divided equally between BJP and Shiv Sena. We hope to finalise the seat sharing before party president Amit Shah’s visit to Pune on September 18.”

Israeli gunboats Sunday opened fire at Palestinian fishermen off the Gaza coast in a breach of the truce reached late last month.

According to the Palestinian fishermen syndicate, Israeli gunboats have been opening fire daily at fishing boats, MENA reported.

A long-term truce in Gaza was agreed with Israel Aug 26. The ceasefire mediated by Egypt came into effect after the two sides agreed to an unlimited and immediate ceasefire.

Last week, the Israeli navy arrested four Palestinian fishermen in the northern sea off Gaza Strip.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Sunday said he was supporting an increase in defence spending in the upcoming 2015 budget in opposition to the stance of the finance minister, which may lead to the collapse of his political coalition.

Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt announced his resignation Sunday night amid disappointing results of his centre-right government in the 2014 parliamentary election.

Reinfeldt made the announcement in an address to his Moderate Party Sunday night when they were witnessing the disappointing results, Xinhua reported.

“The election is over and the Swedish people have made their decision,” Fredrik Reinfeldt said.

The Israeli military Sunday sharply criticised a conscientious objection letter sent by 43 veterans of an elite intelligence unit who refused to serve their duty due to Israel’s surveillance and information gathering tactics.

Military spokesperson Brig-Gen. Moti Almoz wrote online Sunday that the group used their military service “to express political opinions” in the letter sent last week, saying “disciplinary treatment would be sharp and clear”, Xinhua reported.

Press Council of India (PCI) Chairman Markandey Katju on Sunday stressed on the need for a central command centre to coordinate relief work in flood ravaged Jammu and Kashmir as the agencies engaged in relief and rescue now were doing it in an “uncoordinated manner”.

During a meeting with Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh, Katju said the Union Home Secretary could head such a centre while the Chief Secretary of J&K could be second in command.

Taking a jibe at the shaky alliance between the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP and Shiv Sena ahead of the Maharashtra Assembly polls, Congress leader Manish Tewari on Sunday said it is up to the people of the state to decide as to whom they want.

“It is up to the people of Maharashtra, who have to decide what kind of alliance they want, whether they want an alliance that has been serving the state for 15 years or they want an alliance that has started bickering among themselves before the elections over distribution of seats,” Tewari told ANI here.

Benoy Konar, a front-ranking CPI(M) leader in West Bengal, died at a city nursing home on Sunday after a prolonged illness, party sources said.

He was 84.

Konar, a leading figure in the militant peasants’ movement in the state during 1960s and early 1970s, is survived by his wife, two sons and two daughters.

A former CPI-M central committee and state secretariat member, Konar was the party’s prominent peasant leader from Burdwan district.

Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal on Sunday asked Irrigation department to upgrade drainage system to check water logging in south western districts of the state.

Badal, who talked to affected people in the villages of Sri Muktsar Sahib district, emphasised the need for upgrading, widening and strengthening the existing drainage system in waterlogged districts of state, an official release said.

He said strengthening the drainage system was a part of the state government’s ambitious master plan to tackle the menace of water logging, it said.

As the rescuers battles to save thousands of people in the flood-ravaged Jammu and Kashmir, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday made a humble request to the people to not celebrate his birthday which is due on September 17.

Modi in one of his tweet on the micro-blogging website wrote that he’s hearing about various programmes and event that are being planned by his friends and well-wishers and said “do not celebrate my birthday”.

He instead appealed to the people to dedication themselves towards the relief and rescue work in Jammu and Kashmir through their time and resources.

The two schools girls, who went missing from Ramanthapur on Saturday, were traced to Mumbai on Sunday.

According to Uppal police, a team of police men left to Mumbai along with their parents of two 7th standard girls, Irfana Begum, 13 and Fatima Begum, 14, to Mumbai on Sunday, after receiving a call from them.

Irfana and Fatima are students of Zilla Parishad High School (ZPHS), who went missing on Saturday. The anxious parents, who realised that their daughters failed to return to their homes, approached the Uppal police station and registered a complaint.

A-33-year-old Software employee died of injuries which he suffered after accidentally falling from height on Sunday early hours.

A 25-year-old woman was gangraped allegedly by a youth she trusted as her lover and seven of his friends at Hajo in Rangiya last night.

Sub-Divisional Police Officer Kanteswar Gogoi said the girl from Nalbari came to meet the boy, who had befriended her in past five months over phone, at Ramdiya Bangalpara under Hajo police station and watched a theatre.

The boy, who introduced himself as Rahul Das, was actually Fakhruddin Ali, who had offered to drop the girl home but instead took her to a school building, Gogoi said.

Gujarat Chief Minister Anandi Patel today paid a visit to the Ahmedabad airport as well as the Sabarmati riverfront to take a stock of the preparations for Chinese President Xi Jinping’s one-day visit scheduled on
September 17.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is expected to arrive at the airport on September 16 to welcome Xi, who will land here on September 17. Both the leaders are scheduled to have a dinner at the Sabarmati riverfront in the evening.

Three persons were killed and an equal number of persons injured when their car hit a stationary lorry here today, police said.

The deceasded were indentified as Gavuramma (61), her son Vasudevan (40) and Vasudeavan`s wife Sumathi (35), police said.

The injurd have been admitted to hospital.

—————–PTI

Success of the US campaign against Islamic State militants will come when the group no longer poses a threat to the United States and its allies in the Middle East, a top US official said today.

US national security advisor Denis McDonough appeared to calibrate President Barack Obama’s vow to “degrade and
ultimately destroy” the militant group, in spelling out US objectives in an interview with NBC’s Meet the Press.

The Telangana government is sending 50 water purifier machines costing Rs.2.5 crore to flood-hit Jammu and Kashmir.

Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao said people in the flood-hit state were facing severe shortage of drinking water and in order to help them purify the available water for drinking purposes, the Telangana government was sending the machines.

The water purifier machines, each costing Rs.5 lakh, are being sent to Srinagar by a special aircraft from Hyderabad Sunday, said a statement from the Chief Minister’s Office.

Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan Sunday assured Jammu and Kashmir health authorities of providing assistance to tackle any possible epidemic following the recent floods there.

He met Chief Minister Omar Abdullah and took a detailed review of the health-related relief measures and other healthcare facilities, according to an official statement.

Abdullah sought central assistance to restore health infrastructure affected by floods and also to carry out an extensive measles vaccination programme for the vulnerable age group of 0-15 years.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi Sunday appealed to people that his birthday should not be celebrated, and instead they should help the Jammu and Kashmir flood victims.

In an appeal on his personal Twitter account, Modi said friends and well-wishers were planning to celebrate his birthday Sep 17.

“I am hearing from different places that friends and well-wishers are planning various programmes and events for my birthday,” Modi said.

“My humble request – do not celebrate my birthday. Instead, dedicate yourselves towards relief work in J&K through your time and resources,” he said.

Following the beheading of British hostage David Haines by Islamic State (IS) extremist group, Prime Minister David Cameron Sunday said his country will hunt down the killers of the aid worker, a media report said.

“We will do everything in our power to hunt down these murderers and ensure they face justice, however long it takes,” BBC quoted Cameron, who presided over a British emergency committee Cobra over the issue, as saying.

Hailing Haines as a “British hero”, he said Britain will take “whatever steps are necessary” to keep the country safe.

Schools reopened across the Gaza Strip Sunday following a three-week delay due to damage caused by an Israeli offensive on the enclave that ended late last month.

As many as 700,000 school children went back to their schools at the end of a long summer vacation, which included 50 days of the Israeli war on the Gaza Strip, Xinhua quoted a Palestinian education ministry statement as saying.

“Twenty-four schools were badly damaged and 125 were partially damaged by Israeli bombs,” said the statement.