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Biden Makes Surprise Visit To Kyiv In The Middle Of Full-Scale Conflict

By LokMarg 20th February 2023

In a display of strong American support for Ukraine just four days before the anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion, US President Joe Biden on Monday made a surprise visit to Kyiv, reported The Washington Post.

Kyiv is no stranger to official visits, but this one is different. The fact the US president is meeting Ukraine’s leader in the heart of the capital in the middle of a full-scale conflict is significant and symbolic.
The high-risk visit, to a Ukrainian capital that has been under threat of missile attacks, signals continued commitment from the United States, the largest financial and military backer of Ukraine’s effort to repel Russians from its territory, reported The Washington Post.

Biden was spotted outside St Michael Golden-Domed Monastery with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

The Ukrainian capital was in a tight security lockdown with car traffic halted and even pedestrians blocked from certain streets. Shortly afterwards, an air raid siren went off in the city, reported The Washington Post.

His visit was shrouded in secrecy. Biden was due to leave for an announced visit to Poland from Washington on Monday evening.

Earlier, major motorcade was spotted in Kyiv amid speculations that Biden is visiting the country.

Heavy US security has been deployed near Ukraine’s border as the White House had in a statement said that Biden is heading to Poland for a two-day visit to mark the one-year anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, returning to the region as the war enters a volatile new phase without a clear path to peace.

Biden will arrive in Warsaw on Tuesday where he will meet with Polish President Andrzej Duda, the White House said in a statement on Sunday.

Biden has insisted the US will continue to back Ukraine for “as long as it takes” despite flagging support among the American public and no near-term prospect of peace talks to end the conflict, reported The Washington Post.

The Biden administration has provided some USD 30 billion in security aid since President Vladimir Putin sent Russian forces into Ukraine on February 24, 2022, initiating the largest ground war in Europe since World War II — one that already has cost his country and Ukraine hundreds of thousands of casualties.

Under Biden’s leadership, the US and its NATO allies have gradually expanded the array of weaponry they have pledged to include heavy tanks.

While other world leaders have visited Kyiv to meet with Zelenskyy over the past year, and tour the war-scarred city, Biden has stayed away due to security concerns and fears about the possibility of conflict between the world’s two largest nuclear powers, sending senior aides in his place.

Notably, First Lady Jill Biden made a surprise visit to Western Ukraine on Mother’s Day in May, reported The Washington Post. (ANI)

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Tourism Infrastructure To Be Taken On Indian Islands: Sitharaman

No Action Executed With Sense Of Revenge On Cong: Sitharaman

By LokMarg 20th February 2023

On a query over the Directorate of Enforcement’s ongoing raids on Congress leaders in Chhattisgarh, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Monday said no action is executed with a sense of revenge.

At the post-Budget press conference in Jaipur, the finance minister said, “Any agency first collects data and only then action is taken. No action is executed with sense of revenge.”
She also said that Congress should learn to listen while sitting in the Parliament.

The Directorate of Enforcement (ED) on Monday conducted fresh searches at nearly a dozen locations in Chhattishgarh in mining and alleged coal levy scam. The places searched include residential and office premises of various Congress leaders namely Ram Gopal Agarwal, Girish Devangan, RP Singh, Vinod Tiwari ad Sunny Agrawal, said sources.

The Finance minister also said if any party or state government wants to bring petrol and diesel under the purview of Goods and Services Tax (GST), then it would be discussed only once it is placed before the GST Council.

The Finance minister was addressing a query about bringing petrol and diesel under the ambit of GST and on the rising price of cooking gas at a press conference in Jaipur on Monday.

She said it does not depend on the government and only the GST Council can decide on this, adding that if any party or state government wants to bring petrol diesel under the purview of GST, it would be discussed only after placing before the Council.

The Finance minister added that it can be brought within the ambit of GST only with the consent of all states.

The conference was also attended by the Union ministers of state for finance Pankaj Chaudhary and Bhagwat Kishanrao Karad. Finance Secretary TV Somanathan and Chief Economic Advisor V Anantha Nageswaran were also present at the conference.

During the post-Budget conference in Mumbai on February 11, Sitharaman said Indian regulators are “very experienced” and seized of the matter related to the Adani Group and are “on their toes” to handle the situation that has arisen following a report by US-based short seller Hindenburg Research.

Addressing mediapersons in Mumbai, Sitharaman said the regulators “are on their toes as always, not just now”.

Recently there was a major crash in the Indian stock market in the wake of a report by US short-seller Hindenburg Research on the Adani Group.

The US firm has accused the Indian conglomerate of engaging in fraudulent transactions and share-price manipulation, which the Adani Group has denied. (ANI)

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‘Vandalism’ At JNU: ABVP Wants Union Office Be Named After Chhatrapati Shivaji

By LokMarg 20th February 2023

Members of the BJP’s students’ wing, Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), on Monday accused students of Left-backed affiliates of also being behind the desecration of a portrait of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj on his birth anniversary, at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) on Sunday.

It had earlier accused the Congress-backed National Student’s Union of India (NSUI) of orchestrating the vandalism at the office of the JNU students’ body.

The ABVP also put forward the demand of naming the JNUSU office after Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj.

Speaking to ANI on Monday, Kumar Ashutosh, social media convenor, ABVP at JNU, said, “We had installed a portrait of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj at the JNUSU office. However, members of Left-backed students’ unions removed the portrait and threw the garland around it into a dustbin, resulting in a scuffle (with ABVP members). As many as 5-6 members were also injured in the clash.”

“We demand that the JNU administration and Delhi Police take strict action against them. We also want the JNUSU office to be named after Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj,” the ABVP member said.

He added, “It seems the only job of the Left-backed student activists is to push a narrative against stalwarts and warriors who built India and fought for it. This is a well-thought-out conspiracy of the Left.”

“They raised slogans against India on JNU campus in 2016 and are in indulging in similar mischiefs again. We at ABVP will always rise against such conspiracies to run down India or sully the country’s image,” Ashutosh said.

On whether they have reported the alleged vandalism to the police, Ashutosh said, “A police team arrived on campus after receiving our complaint. We will soon file a written complaint.”

The NSUI had earlier denied any involvement in the alleged desecration of the portrait of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj on the JNU campus.

NSUI general secretary Ganpat Chaudhary said ABVP members kept the portrait at the JNUSU office without permission because of which other students removed it.

He said, “ABVP members kept the portrait at the JNUSU office seeking permission of the JNUSU delegation. Other students came and removed the portrait leading to a scuffle between two groups of students.”

ABVP activists also staged a protest while accusing the Left-backed students’ activists of ‘insulting’ Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj.

ABVP JNU Secretary Umesh Chandra Ajmera said, “We had put up a portrait of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj on the walls outside the student activity centre as a mark tribute. But the Communists couldn’t digest this and vandalised the portrait,” Ajmera told ANI.

He further alleged that those involved in the incident were outsiders who entered the campus without permission.

The ABVP Secretary urged the JNU administration to take strict action against the accused and stop such attempts to destroy the ambience on campus.

“We request the JNU administration to take strict action against the accused and stop outsiders from entering the campus and creating a nuisance. These people should be stopped from giving the university a bad name,” Ajmera added. (ANI)

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Investing In Infrastructure To Generate Jobs In U’khand: Modi

By LokMarg 20th February 2023

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has said his government is heavily investing in infrastructure in Uttarakhand to make life easier for people living in far-flung areas, besides generating a range of job opportunities.

Prime Minister Modi made the remark during the virtual inauguration of the ‘Rozgar Mela’ for Uttarakhand on Monday.
“Be it workers for construction, engineering, or raw material businesses and small traders, job opportunities are growing. With a rise in demand in the transport sector, youth (in Uttarakhand) are getting fresh employment opportunities,” PM Modi said.

On the migration of people from Uttarakhand to urban centres, he said improved digital and road connectivity in the hill-state will provide them with job opportunities, including in the domestic tourism sector, in their own locality.

“We have to change the old thinking which said ‘pahar ka pani aur pahar ki jawani’ doesn’t serve the locals residing in the hills. We must change it,” he said, adding there have been continuous efforts by the government to send back youth to their villages while providing them with better employment avenues.

Prime Minister Modi, on October 22, last year, launched the first phase of the ‘Rozgar Mela’, where appointment letters were handed over to more than 75,000 new recruits.

It marked the beginning of the campaign to provide 10 lakh government jobs. Since then, PM Modi has addressed similar job fairs in several states, including Gujarat, Jammu and Kashmir, and Maharashtra.

The recruitments are done by central ministries and departments themselves, recruitment agencies like UPSC, SSC, and the Railway Recruitment Board. (ANI)

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Ten Female Foreign Mins Condemn Clampdown On Women In Afghanistan

By LokMarg 20th February 2023

Ten women foreign ministers, who attended the 59th Munich Security Conference, in a statement condemned the restrictions imposed on women and girls in Afghanistan, Tolo News reported.

According to Tolo News, the statement was issued by the foreign ministers of Slovenia, Germany, Canada, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Belgium, Andorra, Albania, Mongolia and Libya.
“We strongly condemn the Taliban’s push to exclude women from all public life: women are kept from strolling in parks, are not seen on TV screens anymore, are deprived of their right to attend schools and universities, and are now also kept from working in humanitarian assistance,” the statement read.

However, according to Islamic Emirate spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid, Afghan women have all the rights within an Islamic framework.

“The rights of women have not been violated in the Islamic community. Their rights have been addressed. The life of women is secured and protected. Their problems are solved by the court. Regarding their activities, there is a need for an environment within Sharia laws and work on it is underway,” Tolo News quoted Mujahid as saying.

The statement added that the restrictions on women will “restore the basis to deliver the help that the women, children and men of Afghanistan so urgently need.”

The three-day Munich Security Conference featured many world leaders but did not have any Afghan representative.

As Afghan women continue to grapple with challenges related to education due to Taliban-imposed bans, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, in a recent statement, said women in war-torn Afghanistan are living in exile in their own country, Tolo News reported.

The UN Chief reiterated that the basic rights of Afghan women and girls are being trampled upon, with the ban on education by the de-facto authorities being a case in point.

The UN said in a statement that Guterres expressed his concerns about the rights of women and girls in Afghanistan.

Mujahid, however, refuted such claims saying that women’s and girls’ rights are upheld in Afghanistan and that the international community should refrain from exerting pressure on the current administration using the subject of women.

“They should not make this a political tool and use it as a means of pressure,” Mujahid said, as quoted by TOLO News.

Girls in Afghnaistan have repeatedly called on the Taliban to let them go back to schools and other educational institutes at the earliest.

“We are calling on the current regime to reopen schools, madrassas and all educational centres for girls,” Nargis Niazi, a student, told Tolo News. (ANI)

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Baghel Writes To Modi, Urges To Announce Census Schedule Soon

By LokMarg 20th February 2023

Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel on Sunday, wrote a letter to PM Modi requesting him to direct authorities to release the Census schedule soon.

In the letter addressed to PM Modi, Baghel said that Census helps in formulating the developmental policies of the country.
“For the last 150 years, Census is being conducted every 10 years. It helps in collecting data related to the social, cultural and economic changes in the last ten years. It helps in formulating the developmental policies for the country,” Baghel said in his letter.

He said that the data provided by the last Census, conducted in 2011, are not applicable 12 years later, in 2023.

“In 2011, for the first time, social, economic and caste census was also conducted, based on which the current welfare schemes are being carried out. But, the census data was only applicable for a period of 10 years. The data provided are not suitable after 12 years. It would be better if a new survey is carried out at the earliest. In the survey, it should also be found how much benefits actually reached to the deprived sections,” the letter further read.

CM Baghel urged PM Modi to direct the relevant authorities to fix the date for conducting the census.

“Keeping in consideration the importance of the census, and interests of the poor, I request you to kindly notify that the dates for the census program soon,” Baghel added. (ANI)

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North Korea Fires Two Ballistic Missiles Toward East Sea

By LokMarg 20th February 2023

North Korea fired two short-range ballistic missiles towards the East Sea on Monday, the second attack within 48 hours and a day after US-South Korea staged joint air drills, Yonhap News Agency reported.

South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said they had detected the launch from North Korea’s Sukchon area between 7 am to 7:11 am.
“While strengthening its monitoring and vigilance, our military is maintaining a full readiness posture in close cooperation with the US,” the JCS said in a text message sent to reporters.

This comes a day after the US and South Korea staged combined air drills, involving at least one B-1B strategic bomber, on Sunday, Seoul’s military said.

During the drills, F-35A stealth fighters and F-15K jets from the South flew together with US F-16 fighters to escort the B-1B aircraft entering the South’s air defence identification zone, according to the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS), reported Yonhap News Agency.

US and South Korea launched its drill after North Korea confirmed that they had fired ICBM on February 18 in a “surprise launching drill.”

The training this time demonstrated the South Korea-U.S. combined defence capabilities and posture featuring the alliance’s overwhelming forces, through the timely and immediate deployment of the U.S.’ extended deterrence assets to the Korean Peninsula,” the JCS said in a press release.

It added that the air drills affirmed Washington’s “ironclad” commitment to the defence of the peninsula and its extended deterrence pledge.

Monday’s launch marks the North’s third missile provocation this year, according to Yonhap News Agency.

Kim Yo-jong, the influential sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, issued another sharp-tongued threat of “corresponding” actions against the allies’ military drills.

“The frequency of using the Pacific as our firing range depends upon the U.S.,” she said in an English-language statement carried by the North’s official Korean Central News Agency.

The latest sabre-rattling raised concerns that the North may continue to engage in such provocations as the allies plan to hold a tabletop military exercise against North Korean nuclear threats this week and their springtime Freedom Shield exercise next month, as per the report in Yonhap News Agency. (ANI)

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Miscreants Pelt Owaisi’s House With Stones In Delhi

By LokMarg 20th February 2023

Unidentified miscreants arrived at the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) chief Asaduddin Owaisi’s residence in the national capital and allegedly pelted stones at it, damaging windows on Sunday evening, the police said.

Following the incident, AIMIM Chief approached the police and lodged a complaint.
In his complaint, Owaisi alleged that stones were pelted at his Delhi residence by some unknown miscreants.

The incident happened at the Delhi residence of the AIMIM chief at Ashoka Road area at around 05.30pm.

Following information, a team of Delhi police led by an Additional DCP visited his residence and collected evidence from the spot.

Owaisi in his complaint to Parliament Street Police Station, alleged that a group of miscreants pelted stones at his residence, and damaged windows.

“I reached my residence at 11:30 pm. Upon returning I found the glass of the windows broken and stones/rocks lying around. My domestic help informed that a group of miscreants threw stones at around at the residence around 5:30 pm,” Owaisi alleged.

The AIMIM chief also said that this is the fourth such attack at his residence.

“This is the fourth time such an attack has taken place. The area surrounding my house has enough CCTV cameras, and the same may be accessed, and the culprits should be apprehended immediately. It is conceived that such acts of vandalism are happening in such a high-security zone,” the letter further stated.

“Immediate action must be taken, and the culprits should be arrested at the earliest,” he added in the letter. (ANI)

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Meghalaya Govt Denied Permission For Modi’s Rally In Tura: BJP

By LokMarg 20th February 2023

Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) national secretary Rituraj Sinha on Sunday questioned the National People’s Party (NPP) government in poll-bound Meghalaya for denying permission for holding a rally of Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Tura.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is scheduled to visit Meghalaya on February 24 ahead of the assembly elections to be held later this month.

The BJP had planned to organise a mega rally of PM Modi in Tura on February 24. The BJP, however, said that permission to hold the rally at Tura’s PA Sangma Stadium was denied by the state government, citing the stadium was still under construction.

Speaking to ANI, Sinha said, “We requested Prime Minister Narendra Modi to hold a roadshow in Shillong and a public rally in Tura, Garo hills. We sought permission for PA Sangma stadium to organise a PM rally but we are surprised to know that the stadium is under construction and not ready. So they sent a letter that PM’s rally could not be held there. The entire country and the people of Meghalaya know that PA Sangma stadium was inaugurated by CM Conrad Sangma on December 16 itself in a grand manner.”

The BJP leader said NPP and other parties sensed a “Modi wave in Meghalaya” and therefore stopping PM Modi’s rally in the state is a deliberated attempt.

“The stadium which was ready on December 16, how come it is under construction again in February end? Why it is not available for the PM’s rally? The reason is political. It seems that opposition parties like NPP, TMC and Congress are scared of the Modi wave here. The people of Meghalaya want a BJP government like other northeastern states,” he added.

Notably, Tura, part of Garo Hills, is considered the bastion of Chief Minister Conrad Sangma and a majority of his legislators elected from this region.

Voting for the 60-seat Meghalaya Legislative Assembly will be held in a single phase on February 27. The counting of votes will be done on March 2. (ANI)

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25 CRPF Jawans Suffer Food Poisoning In C’garh’s Dantewada

By LokMarg 19th February 2023

About 25 Central Reserve Police Force personnel were admitted to a hospital in Bacheli in Chhattisgarh’s Dantewada due to food poisoning, an official said on Sunday.

The official informed that nearly 18 out of the 25 jawans were discharged from the NMDC Apollo Hospital after initial treatment while the rest were being treated further for their earlier medical history.
The incident took place on February 17 afternoon when some jawans of the 230 Battalion Nerli headquarter of Dantewada faced issues of vomiting after the meal.

“We received the information on February 17 that some of the jawans are facing issues like vomiting and food poisoning. We told them to get them admitted to the hospital. Nearly 25 jawans were admitted. Minor issues were there including vomiting. There was no major problem. Nearly 18 jawans were discharged on the second day,” Dr M S Haque, Chief Medical Officer, NMDC’s Apollo Hospital said.

“The rest of them are being treated but they cannot be said to have food poisoning. Some had their earlier medical history like blood pressure and platelets issues. Those with food poisoning (18 jawans) were kept under observation and were discharged,” he added. (ANI)

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