A Lord Ganesha idol which was installed in at the entrance to the director’s secretariat of the Shillong-based institute on September 23 has now been removed owing to pressure from the student union. Authorities at National Institute of Technology (NIT) Meghalaya have decided to remove the idol, which was installed only a week ago, as local student body believe that it might lead to ‘communal’ tensions in the Christian majority state.
Jaintia Students Union (JSU), the student body that has pressurised NIT to remove the idol had insisted that the Lord Ganesh idol, displayed prominently in the university was hurting the religious sentiments of students who belonged to other faiths.
The JSU on September 26 had sent a memorandum to NIT Meghalaya director BB Biswal demanding the immediate removal of the idol. The JSU had reportedly warned the Director that the decision of NIT Meghalaya to instal an idol of Lord Ganesha prominently in the campus might lead to communal tension in the Christian majority state.
After cowering to pressure, director of NIT-Meghalaya Bibhuti Bhusan Biswal said on Monday that there was no ‘installation’ of the Lord Ganesha statue and it was only a ‘decorative item’, which was put in the passage. “There was no religious angle to it”, he had said.
Further, Bhushan, the Director of NIT Meghalaya said that there was no intention to create any religious issue out of it. But the students thought otherwise. “It will now be removed,” said director Biswal.
The Lord Ganesha idol was reportedly carved by a national award-winning sculptor. JSU had suggested to the university that instead of Lord Ganesha, the university should instal busts of famous scientists, personalities from the field of arts, literature, etc.
NIT Meghalaya started in 2012 and is one of the 31 NITs in the country. The institute is functioning from its temporary campus in Shillong at present and will shift later to the permanent one in Cherrapunjee, which is under construction.
According to the 2011 census, over 74% of the total population in Meghalaya are Christians. The state has three major tribes, Khasi, Garo and Jaintia.
A local journalist named Ripu Dhawan was beaten brutally in Madhya Pradesh’s Lahar in Bhind district earlier today. A video of the incident shows multiple men thrashing the journalist on an open street in broad daylight while the victim lies helpless on the ground.
The entire attack on the journalist by a group of masked hooligans was caught on camera. An FIR has been registered in the case and investigation is underway. The police have arrested one person so far.
The journalist has alleged that the attack was sanctioned on the behest of a Congress minister named Govind Singh.
This is not the first incident where a journalist has been brutally assaulted in Madhya Pradesh. This outrageous act once again throws light on the brutishness of Kamal Nath’s government in Madhya Pradesh. Last year too a Congress leader was involved in a brutal assault on a journalist in Jabalpur, Madhya Pradesh. Congress politicians and builders, Satyam Jain, and Mayur Jain attacked People Observer Weekly’s journalist, Alok Diwakar, and thrashed him brutally.
The video of the assault had gone viral on social media. In the video, the goons can be seen stripping the journalist naked after having thrashed him. At the end of the video, the journalist was lying down on the road, naked, and bleeding profusely.
The reason for the outrageous assault was believed to be Diwakar’s negative reportage of Satyam Jain. His reportage elicited the wrath of the Congress leader who then attacked him on his way back home from the office.
The Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of the Mumbai Police has filed FIR against HDIL and Punjab & Maharashtra Cooperative (PMC) Bank officials in the PMC bank fraud case. The persons named in the FIR include PMC bank’s former chairman Waryam Singh, former Managing Director Joy Joseph Thomas, Housing Development and Infrastructure Limited (HDIL) group promoters Sarang Wadhawan and Rakesh Wadhawan.
After the Reserve Bank put severe restrictions on PMC Bank last week, bank’s former MD Joy Thomas wrote a letter to RBI informing that 73% of its total loan portfolio was given to a single entity, the HDIL, which has gone bankrupt. Thomas has been suspended after the scam came to light. HDIL was defaulting on its loan for a long time, but it was not flagged as NPA, and even after huge outstanding loan, the bank had granted personal loan to HDIL promoters which were used to repay loans of other banks by the bankrupt company.
The EOW has filed cases under Sections 409 (Criminal breach of trust), 420 (Cheating and dishonestly), 465 (forgery), 466 (Forgery of record ), 471 (using forged document as genuine) and 120B (criminal conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code. EOW has also formed a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to probe the case.
The FIR says that irregularities worth ₹4,355.46 crores have been committed in the case, although the amount can go up during the course of the investigation. The police will investigate cases of violation of RBI norms in not disclosing NPA and exceeding lending limits for single entities, undue favour given to HDIL, and any instance of quid-pro-quo between the bank’s board of directors and the borrower company. The FIR mentions that the bank kept its NPA data hidden from RBI by using fake loan documents.
The RBI has already dismissed the board of governors of PMC bank and has appointed an administrator. The bank has been put the bank under restrictions, putting a limit of ₹10000 withdrawal by depositors. The bank is also not allowed to give any loan without the prior approval of RBI. The restrictions have been put for six months, after RBI was informed about the PMC Bank fraud by a whistleblower inside the bank.
An official of the EOW said that “the manager has lodged a complaint on the behest of the RBI appointed administrator. His complaint is the starting point of the probe”. He also said that although the police believe the scam amount to be above ₹6000 crore, the amount of ₹4,355.46 crore was mentioned by the complainant and the same has been mentioned in the FIR.
The sacked BSF jawan and Mahagatbandhan (SP-BSP) candidate, Tej Bahadur Yadav who had wished to take on PM Modi from Varanasi during the Lok Sabha polls, has now joined Dushyant Chautala-led Jannayak Janata Party (JJP) and is hoping to contest the upcoming Haryana Assembly polls against Haryana’s CM Manohar Lal Khattar.
Delhi: Tej Bahadur Yadav (BSF constable who was dismissed from service after he had released a video in 2017 on quality of food served to soldiers) joined Jannayak Janata Party (JJP) in presence of JJP leader Dushyant Chautala today. pic.twitter.com/29xMDjZUaB
“I am thankful to JJP and Dushyant Chautala that they nominated me to fight against the chief minister from Karnal,” Yadav was quoted as saying by news agency PTI. He also said that unemployment was a major issue in Haryana. “You know the condition of Haryana and how many people are unemployed in the state,” he said.
During the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, the sacked BSF jawan had filed his nomination papers against Prime Minister Narendra Modi as an SP candidate from Varanasi. His nomination was cancelled by the Election Commission. His nomination was then found ineligible under section 9 of the Representation of the People Act, 1951. According to this clause, if a candidate was a former government employee and was dismissed from the job due to corruption or disloyalty, such employees will be disqualified from contesting elections. As Tej Bahadur was dismissed in 2017, his candidature was found to be invalid by the EC.
Tej Bahadur had grabbed national headlines in 2017 after he had posted few videos on social media alleging poor quality food served at his Jammu and Kashmir camp. He had alleged that senior officers were selling the ration provided to the camp in the market, and the soldiers were being served poor quality.
The Home Ministry and PMO had ordered a detailed probe into the matter, and it was found that Tej Bahadur was making false allegations. Posting videos on social media instead of raising grievances on proper channel was also found to be a violation of rules. Moreover, he had a history of bad behaviour in the force, and he was jailed four times in the past for misbehaving with seniors and abusing and threatening them. After the conclusion of the enquiry, he was dismissed from service in April 2017.
On May 2019, a shocking video had surfaced in which Tej Bahadur was seen in an inebriated state claiming to assassinate PM Modi for a sum of Rs 50 crores. In another video of the same day that has gone viral, Tej Bahadur Yadav can be seen drinking and smoking with other men. One of the persons in the video introduces the other person in the video as Tej Bahadur Yadav, “the former BSF commando in Indian army”. Yadav has himself admitted that he is present in the video and it is 2 years old.
Meanwhile, Haryana will go to poll on October 21 and the results will be declared on October 24 in a single phase. Haryana, along with Maharashtra are the first states to go to polls after the 2019 Lok Sabha elections which marked a historic win for the BJP. The term of the assembly for Haryana ends on November 2.
BJP had swept Haryana from Congress’ command after its victory in the 2014 Haryana Legislative Assembly election. The 2014 Haryana assembly polls saw BJP winning the elections with 47 seats in the 90-member House here too, emerging as the single largest party.
In the Lok Sabha elections held earlier this year, Haryana had witnessed a saffron surge as BJP had made a clean sweep by winning all 10 seats. The reason for Tej Bahadur Yadav’s disqualification in the Lok Sabha election still remains, so it will be interesting the see whether he is able to contest the elections this time.
As the depositors of Punjab and Maharashtra Cooperative Bank (PMC) wonder whether their deposits in the bank are safe, several questions have emerged on how the crisis was brewing in the bank without being detected. And as more and more information about the malpractices happening at the bank emerge, they pose questions instead of answering any.
A recent news report from PTI show that PMC Bank has an exposure of ₹6500 crore, and not ₹2500 crore as previously reported, towards one single entity, the Housing Development and Infrastructure Limited (HDIL) including its group companies. It is 4 times more than what is allowed as per regulations. RBI rules allow banks to lend maximum of 15% of its their total loan portfolio to a single entity, while the limit is extended upto 20% for group companies. Somehow, the bank had kept this information hidden from everyone. According to media reports, a whistle-blower board member leaked the information to RBI which prompted the now ex PMC Bank MD Thomas to approach the RBI and report the lapse.
HDIL, a slum redevelopment focused company, is in the bankruptcy court after being hit by a severe cash crunch following the failure of some of its key projects.
While RBI has maintained a tight position on the bank, at this point it is yet to confirm the exact irregularities it has detected in the bank. The regulator has suspended the board of the bank and has appointed an administrator. But it has not come forward and admitted that PMC Bank indeed has this exposure to a single entity. If RBI does so, it is going to send the account holders into a tizzy.
PMC bank assures customers
The latest audit report of the bank states that “During the course of our audit, we have not come across material and significant transactions which appear to be contrary to the guidelines issued by the Reserve Bank of India and National Agriculture and Rural Development Bank”.
If the reports that the bank has 73% exposure to one single entity is true, I cannot wrap my head around what exactly do the auditors look for when they audit the bank. How is it even possible to miss this kind of mismanagement is beyond me. Isn’t this as simple as seeing how much loan is given to each entity and adding it up?
According to media reports, the loans to HDIL were not reflecting in the books of accounts at all. It was diverted to the group through thousands of dummy accounts that were created for this purpose. Moreover, reports say that some loans were not reflecting in the accounts of the bank as those were not computerised to hide the faulty credit lines. It is a big question how a bank can conduct such a massive scam to benefit a single entity without getting detected. How the auditors didn’t detect that the bank was lending money to non-existent entities needs to be probed thoroughly.
Most media reports so far are concentrating on how much money can be withdrawn from each account, the RBI has now allowed the depositors to withdraw ₹10,000 from their accounts in the bank, up from original limit of ₹1,000. But this is of little consequence as 80% (9300 cr) of the deposits in PMC Bank are in Fixed Deposits (FD) as per their annual report for 2018-19. Therefore, it is not going to help those people who have FDs which usually runs to lakhs of Rupees.
One interesting tidbit here is that two of RBI’s employee co-op societies also have FDs in PMC Bank. Reserve Bank Officers’ Co-operative Credit Society Ltd has a deposit of ₹105 crore, while Reserve Bank Staff & Officers Co-operative Credit Society Ltd has a FD of ₹86.50 crore with the bank. It would be very interesting to know if that money is still there in PMC Bank or the RBI co-op societies were able to take out their FDs before restrictions were imposed.
PMC Bank account holders have formed groups on WhatsApp, Facebook and Telegram to coordinate the protests and to make our voices heard. We are running hashtag campaigns (#PMCBankCrisis#PMCBank) on Twitter and Facebook for the last couple of days. Getting people on board to join these groups hasn’t been easy for us. Unfortunately, many account holders feel embarrassed to admit that they have lost money among their peer groups. They are on some kind of guilt trip that it was their mistake that they are in this situation. So, they are not coming forward to participate in social media campaign or on the streets as much as we would have liked to. Currently, we have about 850 people in a single group on Telegram with account holders from Mumbai, Pune, Bangalore and Delhi. We have not been able to leverage WhatsApp because of the limit on number of members in a single group on WhatsApp platform. So, it has been a challenge to get people to install Telegram and join the group as well.
PMC bank protest
Given that it is election season in Maharashtra where most of the account holders reside, none of the “leaders” of any political party has made any comment on this issue except for Kirit Somaiya, VP of BJP Maharashtra. And unfortunately, he is saying all the wrong things from FD holders POV to score political brownie points. Raising how much money can be withdrawn is not going to help as 80% of the money is in FDs and nothing can be taken out of them.
The administrator appointed by RBI said that it will take about 2 weeks to check and file a report on what is happening. We fear that we are going to run out of steam by then as most of us have to get back to our jobs. Along with the current small set of people we have been able to gather, we are banking on media support for the next few days to keep up the pressure on RBI and the government by asking the right questions and hoping to fix responsibility.
I understand that this is going to be a long fight for all account holders to get back the money, even partially.
Aaditya Thackeray, son of Shiv Sena supremo Uddhav Thackeray, will contest the upcoming state elections in Maharashtra from Worli, becoming the first member of the Thackeray dynasty to contest an election. He is currently the President of Yuva Sena, the youth wing of his party.
On Monday, the Yuva Sena released a song confirming Aaditya Thackeray’s candidature in the Assembly Elections. The song projects him as the future of Maharashtra and someone who could transform the state. “Aala rey aala Aaditya” and “Maharashtra mein hoga Adidtyoday” say the lyrics of the song.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3RNJxhd3pwQ]
A close aide of the Sena chief was quoted by PTI as saying Aaditya Thackeray’s name has been finalised for the Worli assembly segment. Shiv Sena’s sitting MLA Sunil Shinde will vacate his place for Aaditya. “Worli is considered one of the safest constituencies for the Sena, hence Aaditya’s candidature has been finalised. Former NCP leader Sachin Ahir had recently joined the Sena, which will make Thackeray’s win easy,” he added.
Maharashtra will go to polls on the 21st of October along with Haryana and results for both states will be declared on the 24th. The Shiv Sena is expected to fight the elections with its traditional ally BJP, however, the seat-sharing hasn’t been fixed yet. But the leadership of both parties has regularly maintained in public forum that they will fight the elections together.
The manner in which Aaditya Thackeray’s candidature has been announced does signify that the Shiv Sena does fancy the imminent heir to the throne of the Thackerays to become a contender for the post of Chief Minister at some point in the future.
There seems to be no respite for the Congress-era finance minister P Chidambaram who is lodged in Tihar Jail until October 3, as the Delhi High Court today rejects his bail plea in the INX Media corruption case. Justice Suresh Kumar Kait, hearing the petition, reserved the order after the lawyers from both sides concluded their arguments.
According to reports, the bail has been denied since the investigation is in the advance stage and based on the material proof provided to the court by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). The court was also of the view that being a member of the Bar and of Parliament, “there is a chance that he may influence the witnesses”.
During the course of hearing, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta stated, “We are at a stage where we have exposed our evidence to him as we have confronted the accused and hence, the risk of tampering and influencing is much higher.”
He submitted, “Some people are in so powerful position that their mere presence can influence the witnesses.”
“To say that I am a responsible and respected citizen is not an argument altogether. Those who have fleeced the country are the ones who are respected and responsible and having a business empire and what not,” the Solicitor General argued.
Senior Congress leader Kapil Sibal appearing for Chidambaram opposed the claims of the prosecution and said that Chidambaram is not at flight risk, there is no evidence of him tampering with evidence. However, the Delhi HC quashed Sibal’s claims and rejected Chidambaram’s bail plea.
Chidambaram is currently held under judicial custody in Tihar Jail for his alleged role of misusing his cabinet position to grant several clearances to the INX Media house while he was the finance minister in the UPA era. Chidambaram had earlier gone on great lengths to first evade the CBI arrest and then desperately try to skirt his judicial custody in Tihar Jail. P Chidambaram had earlier sought protection from arrest by the ED but the Supreme Court had then turned down his anticipatory bail application.
The hearing against Tehelka magazine’s founder-editor Tarun Tejpal, who has been accused of sexual assault by his former junior colleague, has been adjourned to October 7 by the Panaji Sessions court.
Goa: Hearing in the sexual assault case against journalist Tarun Tejpal adjourned to 7th October, by Panaji Sessions Court. pic.twitter.com/cTQgAPFspf
The Supreme Court had on August 19, 2019, dismissed a plea seeking quashing of charges against journalist Tarun Tejpal. The bench comprising Justice Arun Mishra and Justice MR Shah said that the case against the Tehelka founder-editor would continue. The bench also directed the lower court to complete the trial against Tejpal within six months. Reportedly, the Supreme Court bench termed the plea as an offence “morally abhorrent” and an “assault on the privacy of the victim”.
In the petition filed before the top court, challenging the Bombay High Court’s December 20, 2017 order, Tejpal had sought quashing of charges pertaining to sexual assaults and kidnapping.
Prior to this, the Mapusa court had on August 3, 2018, adjourned the hearing following a plaint from the defence that the CD containing Whatsapp messages exchanged between the victim and accused was not opening due to a technical snag.
A journalist colleague of Tejpal had accused him of raping her inside an elevator in a Hotel Grand Hyatt, Goa, during Tehelka magazine’s THiNK 2013 festival in Goa on November 7, 2013.
The case came to light when a number of media houses published a leaked trail of emails exchanged between the woman, Tejpal and the managing editor of Tehelka, Shoma Chaudhary. This further led Tejpal to step down from his post of editor-in-chief of the media house in November 2013, for six months to ‘recuse’ himself.
Based on the media reports, the crime branch of the Goa Police launched a preliminary probe leading to an FIR against Tejpal on three charges of sexual assault harassment and rape.
Tejpal had arrived at Goa from Delhi on November 30, 2013, where he was arrested by the Crime Branch after his anticipatory bail plea was rejected by the court. He was lodged in the Sada sub-jail in Goa’s Vasco. On 1 July 2014, the Supreme Court granted him bail and he has been out on bail ever since.
After years of delay, the trial against the Tehelka’s former editor-in-chief finally started in Goa’s Mapusa in March 2018.
Incidentally, over the years Tejpal has been openly defended by a section of the liberal brethren, owing to him being “one of their own”.
This includes a Mid Day column, urging media persons who were voicing their views against Tejpal, to rethink their stand, since in the day and age of ‘rising intolerance’ a ‘liberal voice’ was the need of the hour. One Outlook article by Manu Joseph actually sought to “raise questions” over the whole incident.
What can be the reason behind Arvind Kejriwal’s hatred for Purvanchalis? The real reason is his love for Bangladeshis and Rohingyas. The NRC sword which is looming on the heads of these illegal immigrants is the fear because of which Kejriwal is giving such statements against the Purvanchalis.
If you pay attention, you will notice that he has started making such insulting comments about people from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar from the day NRC was announced.
India’s capital Delhi is a mini-India in itself. It offers a glimpse to art, culture, identity, festivals of the entire country. Delhi is home to people from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar to Punjab to Mizoram and Sikkim, too. It is natural for people living in Delhi to invite their relatives to Delhi for further studies, getting medical treatment and even vacation. Since it is the national capital, it is obvious that there are better facilities than some other parts of the country.
Kejriwal, who is born in Haryana and then lived in Uttar Pradesh’s Ghaziabad, has a different reason to hate on the migrants from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.
First they lost Punjab, then AAP lost badly in the municipal elections. That was followed by a thumping victory of the BJP in Uttar Pradesh. Then in some places, AAP even lost the deposits. In Haryana, where Kejriwal had himself campaigned, not only the deposits were forfeited but in some parts even NOTA (none of the above) got more votes than AAP candidate. Kejriwal has taken this as a personal insult. Kejriwal’s confidantes blamed it on the voters. It became a habit to blame the EVMs or the voters.
Furthering this hate, Kejriwal first banned free medical treatment in Delhi government hospitals to those people who do not have a voter card or Aadhaar with a Delhi address as proof. Thousands of people cannot even call their parents in Delhi to get them medical treatment because of this.
Central government’s Ayushman Yojana was applicable to hospitals run by central government. Hence, in hospitals like AIIMS, Ram Manohar Lohiya, patients could get free treatment.
The success of central government’s Ayushman Yojana and absolute failure of services provided by Delhi government hospitals is also one of the reasons for Kejriwal’s hatred.
A small example of this is: Rabies vaccination is available in only central government run hospitals in Delhi. In hospitals run by Delhi government, there are on an average 15,000 such cases which are then directly referred to central government without any medicine.
Everyone saw how ahead of elections, Kejriwal got his MLA Amanatullah Khan to rough up BJP leader Manoj Tiwari. After this, when everyone started talking about NRC, Kejriwal got completely flabbergasted. He had to save his fast vanishing vote-bank. Illegal Bangladeshi immigrants and Rohingyas are responsible for many crimes in the national capital. From chain-snatching to burglary to murder, illegal Bangladeshi immigrants are also running a drug mafia network. These form the vote-bank for Kejriwal and also provide financial support.
Kejriwal wants to save these illegal immigrants at any cost.
Today Kejriwal hates migrants from UP-Bihar, Bengal and Rajasthan and loves illegal immigrants from Bangladesh and Myanmar. Kejriwal’s message is clear, ‘I will not let NRC get implemented in Delhi and save the tukde tukde gang‘.
The same man who came with Rs 500 and became the chief minister of Delhi, is today angry at people from UP-Bihar coming to Delhi after paying fare of Rs 500 to take free treatment under Ayushman Yojana. The man who keeps appealing to the entire country for nation and looking for volunteers wants to ban them from coming to Delhi.
That Delhi BJP President is also a Purvanchali is also one of the reasons for Kejriwal’s hatred for people from that region. In Delhi, under leadership of Manoj Tiwari, BJP gave a resounding defeat to AAP in corporation and recently concluded Lok Sabha elections. His personal hatred for Manoj Tiwari has escalated to hatred for people from the entire Purvanchal.
Kejriwal’s ego has now turned into arrogance. The kind of language he is using for people from UP-Bihar will give birth to a bigger hatred in the society.
In the self-respecting community of UP-Bihar, especially in the youth, will give a befitting reply to Kejriwal. He will have to pay for this insult.
Incessant rainfall in Bihar has left many parts of the state flooded which has claimed 29 lives till now as per Bihar State Disaster Management Authority. The state government has requested the Indian Air Force for helicopters for lifting and airdropping food packets and medicines in flood-affected areas of Patna.
In this atmosphere of panic and chaos, certain video clips have gone viral on social media which claim to be of crocodiles on the prowl during the floods in Bihar. The video clips claim to be from Rajendra Nagar in Patna. In the video, people can be seen trying to tackle a crocodile that somehow ended up in a residential area.
However, we can confirm that the said video isn’t from Patna or even from Bihar. Actually, the scenes are from Vadodara in Gujarat and it was captured during the floods that had hit the state in July-August this year. Several incidents of crocodiles roaming on the streets of Vadodara had happened during the floods this year, and this was one such incident. On 3rd and 4th July this year, several media housed had reported that a 10 feet long crocodile was rescued by a joint effort of NDRF and forest department officials on 3rd July from the Vadsar area in Vadodara. In a video posted by Times of India on 5th August, the same visuals of the crocodile can be seen.
In a longer form of the video which is available on YouTube posted by Desh Gujarat later on 31st August, people can be heard conversing in Gujarati. Even in the videos posted claiming to be from Patna, a person can be heard saying ‘O Bappa’, an expression that comes naturally to a Gujarati.
The same video was shared by a Telugu News channel claiming that it was from Nandyal Road. In the comment section of the video shared on YouTube, people can be seen calling out the news channel for spreading fake news.
The same video has also been shared on YouTube claiming that it is from Kerala. This is from the 11th of August, 20 days before Desh Gujarat uploaded its video.
Thus, it’s quite clear that the video is not from Bihar as it is being claimed by some people, and it is from Gujarat. People should refrain from believing these viral videos as it might worsen an already bad situation by spreading further fear and panic among people. It appears that not even media outlets like NTV Telugu are exercising the necessary amount of caution that one should in these tense times.
