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RLD chief directs his MLA to ‘help’ Congress form government in Rajasthan

OpIndia Staff
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RLD chief directs his MLA to ‘help’ Congress form government in Rajasthan

Chaudhary Ajit Singh, the national president of the Rashtriya Lok Dal, has issued an official diktat directing Subhash Garg, the sole MLA of the party who has just won the Bharatpur constituency, to support Congress.


The letter, signed by the national vice president of RLD Jayant Chaudhary, expresses gratitude to the people of Bharatpur for ‘blessing’ their candidate with a victory.

Adding that his party presented a liberal secular alternative to BJP’s politics, he also thanked his party workers for helping the candidates supporting an alliance with the Indian National Congress.

The letter concludes by adding their party is dedicated to uplift the poor and backward sections of the society and states that the party president has directed the MLA from Bharatpur to ‘respect the people’s mandate’ and help the Congress to form the government.

As per latest updates, Congress is leading in Rajasthan with leads in 103 seats. The Communist Party of India is leading in the two constituencies of Bhadra and Dungarpur.

Supreme Court restricts media from revealing the identity of the victims of sexual assault

OpIndia Staff
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Supreme Court restricts media from revealing the identity of the victims of sexual assault

The Supreme Court today passed a verdict in relation to an application filed in the case of Nipun Saxena v Union of India barring the media from revealing the names and identity of the victims of sexual assault in any manner.

A Bench of Justice Madan B Lokur and Deepak Gupta observed that it is unfortunate that the victims of sexual assault are being treated as untouchables. The court also prohibited the police from putting in the public domain the FIRs filed in rape and sexual assault cases, including those against minors. “Police or forensic authorities cannot disclose the names of rape victims either, even with the parents’ consent. Also, FIRs of sexual assault cases, especially those involving minors, should not be placed on the public domain”, the court said.

In the main matter of Nipun Saxena v Union of India, the question relating to the interpretation of Section 23 of the Prevention of Children against Sexual Offences Act (POCSO) and Section 228A of the Indian Penal Code which prohibit the disclosure of the identity of the victims had come up before the court.

The court while issuing the guidelines expressed concern over the social boycott of the victims and at the same time condemned taking out protest rallies in the name of the victims. “It is unfortunate that rape victims are treated as untouchables in our society,” the court said. “We are not impressed by victims being turned into icons at protest rallies. The identities of even the dead or those of unsound mind cannot be disclosed in any manner, even with the parents’ nod. Such an action will need the court’s permission.” the court added.

The court directed the media to report such incidents in a sensitive manner without sensationalizing the matter and refrain from talking to the victims unless approached by the victim.

The court has also included that even if the victim is dead, the identity of the person should not be disclosed, even if the parents give consent.

Senior Advocate Indira Jaisingh, who was acting as Amicus Curiae of the court in this case, requested the court to frame guidelines on how to report the cases of sexual violence claiming that the media runs a “parallel trial” in sub-judice matters. Referring to the Kathua gangrape case, Jaisingh claimed that the police interfere in the administration of justice by leaking information to the media even before filing of the charge sheet before a court. She said that the media had declared the accused in the Kathua rape case as innocent even before the charge sheet was filed.

Congress leader Ashok Gehlot serves ‘chai’ to supporters as Congress surges towards a victory in Rajasthan

OpIndia Staff
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Congress leader Ashok Gehlot serves ‘chai’ to supporters as Congress surges towards a victory in Rajasthan

Senior Congress leader and Congress party Chief Minister contender Ashok Gehlot served tea to the members of the media and supporters gathered at his Jaipur Residence.


Congress leaders like Mani Shankar Aiyar, Shashi Tharoor and Mallikarjun Kharge have regularly taken digs at Prime Minister Modi for his humble beginnings where he used to sell tea with his father on Vadnagar railway station.

Ashok Gehlot, one of the party strongest leaders said that he is confident of a comfortable victory but also said that he will reach out to independents if fail to reach the majority mark. Ashok Gehlot who was two times Chief Minister of Rajasthan in the past is expecting for a third term as Chief Minister of the state. Another Congress leader Sachin Pilot is also in the race to be the Chief Minister of Rajasthan.

There seems to be a tight race in the state of Rajasthan where both Congress and BJP are unable to reach the landmark of 100 seats in a 199 member legislative assembly.
Congress is leading in 96 seats and BJP in 80 seats while other small parties and independents leading in 23 seats.

Sachin Pilot earlier thanked Congress President Rahul Gandhi for the victory in Chattisgarh and claimed that party will be forming the government in all the three states of Rajasthan, MP and Chattisgarh. He further gifted the victory to Rahul Gandhi as he is celebrating his first anniversary of becoming the Congress president.

Follow our blog for live updates and breaking news on the counting of votes in five states.

Muzaffarpur sexual abuse case: SC rubbishes claims of Brajesh Thakur being tortured in Patiala Jail

OpIndia Staff
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Muzaffarpur sexual abuse case: SC rubbishes claims of Brajesh Thakur being tortured in Patiala Jail

The Supreme Court on Monday rubbished claims that Brajesh Thakur, prime accused in the Muzaffarpur shelter home sexual abuse case, was physically or mentally tortured in Patiala jail. Brijesh Thakur’s sons’ had alleged that their father was being tortured in the Jail.

The court had ordered Thakur’s medical examination after his sons wrote a letter to the court, levelling the charges.

A bench of justices MB Lokur and Deepak Gupta rejected the charges made by Thakur’s sons and told senior advocate Vikas Singh representing the accused that there was “absolutely nothing” in the medical examination report to suggest that Brajesh Thakur was physically or mentally tortured.

Thakur was moved from Bihar’s Bhagalpur jail to Patiala high-security jail in Punjab following the Supreme court order on October 30, which the court issued after it was told that the accused was found violating jail rules.

The court had earlier said that Thakur was an influential person and was found with a mobile phone and multiple sim cards inside the jail, as per the Central Bureau of Investigation.

It was feared that Thakur’s presence in Bihar could stifle a free and fair probe in the case.

In August, Brajesh Thakur was caught by the jail officials with a list of 40 mobile phone numbers and names of those whom they were issued against. The list, according to district administration officials, had names of some powerful people including a minister.

Its worthy to note here that Thakur had earlier established his closeness with the Congress party by disclosing that he was set to contest elections from the Muzaffarpur constituency as a Congress candidate, and hence he is being ‘targeted’.

Alongside rubbishing the claims of torture, the court also refused to issue an order clarifying that a local tribunal in Muzaffarpur can hear Thakur’s appeal against the demolition notice issued to him by the local civic agency, warning him to pull down the building where the shelter home existed.

Singh said the tribunal there was not taking up the case on the ground that the notice was in accordance with the SC order directing the civic agency to take action against the allegedly illegal building.

An FIR was lodged on May 31 against 11 people, including Thakur, who was running the shelter home after a survey by Tata Institute of Social Sciences highlighted the abuse of over 30 girls living there. The report was submitted to Bihar’s social welfare department. The probe was later taken over by the Central Bureau of Investigation and so far 17 people have been arrested.

Latest updates and breaking news on counting day: EC declares 3 wins in Madhya Pradesh, all 3 go to BJP

OpIndia Staff
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Latest updates and breaking news on counting day: EC declares 3 wins in Madhya Pradesh, all 3 go to BJP

This page will bring you the latest news, updates, and tallies of seats won as counting of votes for the assembly elections begin. By the end of the day, we will know, hopefully, who is forming the government is Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan, Telangana, and Mizoram.

While Congress celebrates and BJP recedes to introspect, Madhya Pradesh remains volatile. Local journalists say the state can still swing either way. Meanwhile, Election Commission declares wins on 3 seats and 3 have gone to BJP.

Live blog will load below. Please wait for a while. You don’t need to refresh the page to get the latest updates:

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Election results: Sachin Pilot ‘gifts’ victory to Rahul Gandhi, confident of forming government in Rajasthan, MP and Chattisgarh

OpIndia Staff
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Election results: Sachin Pilot ‘gifts’ victory to Rahul Gandhi, confident of forming government in Rajasthan, MP and Chattisgarh

As Congress party is leading in the various seats of Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh, senior Congress leader Sachin Pilot has said that Congress party will be forming the government in all the three states of Chattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan.

Speaking to the media, Sachin Pilot went on to credit Congress President Rahul Gandhi for the success of Congress party in the state elections. He dedicated the assembly election result as a ‘gift’ to Rahul Gandhi to celebrate his one year tenure of being Congress party President.


“Trends make it clear that Congress is forming Govt in Rajasthan with full majority, we had 21 seats last time. We should wait for the final numbers. Congress leadership and MLAs will decide who will get what role. Rahul Gandhi became party president exactly a year ago this day, so this result is a gift for him. Congress will form Govt in three states,” said Sachin Pilot speaking to ANI.

In a tight race, Congress is slightly ahead in Rajasthan, while trailing by few seats in Madhya Pradesh. Congress has managed a victory in Chhattisgarh but has failed to win in Telangana. It is also set to lose in Mizoram to Mizo National Front.

It seems that Congress party and its workers are finally celebrating the claim of its president Rahul Gandhi of finally coming to age after series of election losses in last 4 years despite it has just managed to secure a majority in only one state out of five it had contested. Rahul Gandhi was promoted as the President of the grand old party last year on 11th December, ahead of Gujarat Assembly results, positioning him as the prime ministerial candidate for upcoming 2019 elections.

Follow our blog for live updates and breaking news on the counting of votes in five states.

Media circulates video of wedding celebration at Javed Akhtar’s house as that from Isha Ambani’s wedding in Udaipur

OpIndia Staff
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Media circulates video of wedding celebration at Javed Akhtar’s house as that from Isha Ambani’s wedding in Udaipur

After two glamourous celebrity weddings of Deepika Padukone with Ranveer Singh and Priyanka Chopra with Nick Jonas, the wedding of Mukesh Ambani’s daughter Isha Ambani is making the headlines. The wedding in the family of India’s richest person is expectedly a highly glamorous affair, which will take place on 12th December.

The guest list for the pre-wedding celebrations that started two days ago includes top names from the entire world, including politicians like Hillary Clinton. During the Sangeet ceremony, there were performances by stars including Beyonce, Shah Rukh Khan, Aamir Khan, Salman Khan, Aishwarya Rai etc. Photos and videos of various performances during the wedding ceremonies have gone viral on social media sites, with mainstream media also reporting on the same.

One particular video that caught the attention of many is where Javed Akhtar, Shabana Azmi, Urmila Matondkar, Javed Jaffrey and others are seen dancing. Several media outlets have published the video on their websites saying that it is from the wedding ceremony of Isha Ambani. Times of India, Republic, Times Now, Dainik Bhaskar and many other media houses reported the same.

 

The video can be seen here:

But now it has emerged that the video clip is not from Isha Ambani’s wedding. Shabana Azmi, who is seen in the video, has posted a tweet informing that the celebration seen in the video took place at their house Sukoon in Khandala, and it did not happen at Udaipur as reported by media. She informed that it was part of celebrations for the wedding of Shahana Dasgupta with Chinmaya Jailwala.


If we look at photographs of Isha Ambani’s wedding celebration, we can see that all of them took place indoors during evening hours, while the Javed Akhtar and others are seen dancing outdoors during the day.

Shahana Dasgupta, who works at Fox Star studios, is the daughter of art director Bijon Dasgupta and her wedding took place two weeks ago. Someone circulated a video from that wedding ceremony as from the Ambani wedding and the media published the same video making the same claim, without bothering to check whether it is indeed from Ambani wedding or not.

There is a frenzy of celebrity weddings taking place recently and images and videos of the events are widely being circulated. However, the clips of one wedding being circulated as another are bound to add to the chaos.

Telangana: Congress alleges EVM tampering after TRS surges towards victory

OpIndia Staff
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Telangana: Congress alleges EVM tampering after TRS surges towards victory

Telangana, where Congress is currently leading on 16 seats as against 90 seats of incumbent TRS, is the first state to raise the evergreen ‘EVMs are tampered’ theory.


Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee’s Uttam Reddy has raised questions on the EVMs and suggested that slips should be counted in VVPATs. He said that all Telangana Congress leaders will complain to the Returning Officer and complain to the ECI. On cue of the early trends, the TRS supporters had already started celebrating which made Telangana Congress leaders raise the doubt.

Meanwhile, as per initial trends, Congress is leading in Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh and is neck and neck with the BJP in Madhya Pradesh. Amusingly, none of Congress leaders in these three states have resorted to the ‘EVMs are tampered’ theory.

Supreme Court says mosque located in the Allahabad Court complex not to be removed now, orders to maintain status quo

OpIndia Staff
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Supreme Court says mosque located in the Allahabad Court complex not to be removed now, orders to maintain status quo

The Supreme Court has ordered to maintain status quo in the case relating to the removal of a mosque situated in the Allahabad High Court complex. The Allahabad HC had last year ordered the mosque to be removed from the court premises.

The Wakf Board had moved to the Apex Court challenging November 8, 2017, Allahabad High Court order directing the removal of the mosque from the court premises. Senior Counsel Mukul Rohatgi, speaking on behalf of the High Court, had submitted before the Supreme Court in April year that a mosque structure cannot be accommodated inside the High Court premises.

The court had issued a notice to the State of UP to evaluate if the State could provide alternate land for relocation of the Mosque. A bench of Justice Madan B Lokur and Justice Deepak Gupta had issued notices to the Uttar Pradesh government, Registrar General of the Allahabad High Court and other respondents to the petition.

The Allahabad High Court while hearing a petition had ordered on November 8, 2017, that the Wakf should handover vacant and peaceful possession of the site in dispute to the High Court within a period of three months from the date of judgment. The High Court had cited the reason of acute crunch of space.

The High Court had referred to the need of completing the construction of its Administrative Annexe due to an increase in the number of judges in the court. “Recently, 19 additional Judges have been sworn in, but because of shortage of space, as many as 12 of them are sharing six chambers. The High Court could not arrange and allocate them separate chambers. On one or two occasions, when the Division Benches on Friday had to split and judges were required to sit singly, one judge had to sit in chamber and conduct hearing of the matters assigned to him”, the court said.

The two-judge Bench of the High Court consisting of Justice D B Bhosale and Justice M K Gupta had said, “the unauthorized possession, as well as the unauthorized structures existing over the site in dispute, cannot be permitted to continue any longer”.

Congress leader and advocate Kapil Sibal, appearing on behalf of the Wakf Board said that the Supreme Court had asked the Uttar Pradesh government to find a solution to the problem but nothing happened. He said that the mosque has been there since 1950, therefore, it cannot be removed.

The early trends might change, but both Congress and BJP have something to go back to the drawing board with

Editorial Desk
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The early trends might change, but both Congress and BJP have something to go back to the drawing board with

5 states deliver their verdict today, on 11th December 2018. A hard fought battle in Chattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Mizoram and Telangana culminates with early trends showing Congress inching forward to the majority mark. The trends can of course change in the court of the day, but as of now, it does seem like Congress has fought a hard battle to be resurrected from the dead.

However, there are certain takeaways from the early trends that cannot be missed. The states of Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chattisgarh were handed on a silver platter to Congress.

There was heavy anti-incumbency in Rajasthan with slogans of ‘Modi tujhse bair nahi, Vasundhara teri khair nahi’ (We have no grouse with Modi, but we will teach Vasundhara a lesson) being raised in the state. The Rajput and Jat community of the state were disgruntled especially after the Karni Sena fiasco. However, after PM Narendra Modi’s rallies, the slogans saw a shift. What could be heard in Rajasthan was “Vasudhara ko maaf karenge, Rahul ko saaf karenge”.

After the state being handed to Congress, the party has failed to get a thumping mandate so far (as per early trends) which ideally, Congress should have managed to get. Rajasthan, even if Congress wins (and the tables can turn later in the day), the party has to realise that 2019 is going to be about the Prime Minister and for them to take these early markers of a weak majority as a marker for 2019, would be a mistake.

Madhya Pradesh and Chattisgarh as well saw heavy anti-incumbency with BJP government occupying the seat of power for years. And for those states do not see a landslide Congress victory, will be something that should be taken seriously by the party.

Mizoram, on the other hand, was ruled by Congress. According to early trends, it would seem like the state has slipped out of its hands and is being won by NDA ally MNF. With that, and if the trends hold, the entire Northeast region of India will have no Congress government in power.

Another takeaway from these elections is that the mahagathbandhan are effectively over. With Mayawati bagging a few seats in Madhya Pradesh, she will certainly be at a better bargaining position and the Congress wouldn’t like that. In any case, one would imagine that regional players wouldn’t even want to ally with a strong Congress but perhaps, with a weaker Congress that is depending on the regional parties for survival.

In all, the results of these elections notwithstanding, the Congress would make a mistake in considering these as a marker for 2019 and the BJP would make a mistake if they don’t analyse why the first 2 phases were a wipeout for the party and why it took the Prime Minister to turn the tide. Perhaps strengthening and reigning in local MLAs is the one task that BJP has not mastered yet and perhaps the one task it should be focussing on now.

While these trends are in no way the final results, it would seem like the early trends have given both parties something to go back to the drawing board with.

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