Swachh Bharat Drill In Parliament
Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla and MP Hans Raj Hans participate in ‘Swachhata Abhiyan’ at Parliament House, in New Delhi on Sunday.
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Month: July 2019
Indian Team Reaches Wagah For Kartarpur Talks
Indian delegation arrives at Wagah border in Pakistan on Sunday, to hold bilateral meeting with their Pakistani counterparts on Kartarpur Corridor issue.
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Sidhu Resigns From Punjab Cabinet
Congress leader Navjot Singh Sidhu on Sunday announced his resignation as minister from the Punjab Cabinet. “My letter to the Congress President Shri Rahul Gandhi Ji, submitted on 10 June 2019,” he tweeted.
Sidhu, who was given Power and New and Renewable Energy Sources ministry after a cabinet reshuffle in June, on Sunday shared his resignation letter addressed to Rahul Gandhi.
“My letter to the Congress President Shri Rahul Gandhi Ji, submitted on 10 June 2019,” he tweeted.
The Congress leader chose to submit his resignation letter to Gandhi instead of Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh. Almost 30 minutes after the first tweet, Sidhu posted, ” Will be sending my resignation to the Chief Minister, Punjab.”
However, it is unclear as to why the resignation was not sent to the chief minister in the last one month.
“I hereby resign as Minister from the Punjab Cabinet,” he stated in his letter to Gandhi.
Singh and Sidhu have been at loggerheads since his controversial visit to Pakistan for the swearing-in ceremony of Imran Khan where he had hugged the Army Chief leading to a huge controversy back home.
The rift was further widened during the general elections when Sidhu and his wife accused Amarinder of having had a hand in the denial of ticket to her to from either Chandigarh or Amritsar.
On June 6, the Congress leader was stripped of the portfolios of Local Government and Tourism and Culture by the Chief Minister after the party could only win eight parliamentary seats out of 13 in the state in Lok Sabha election.
“We swim and we sink together… It is a collective responsibility. My department has been singled out publicly. One must have the ability to see things from the right perspective. I cannot be taken for granted. I have been a performer throughout. I am answerable to the people of Punjab,” he said.
(ANI)
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Rebel MLAs Back In Party: K'taka Cong
Amidst intense efforts by Congress to placate and woo its rebel legislators in the state, MLA MTB Nagaraj late on Saturday night announced that he was withdrawing his resignation and would remain with the Congress party.
Congress leader Siddaramaiah also said that he was confident of getting most MLAs on board in the floor test of the Congress-JD(S) coalition government.
“Sudhakar and I had given resignations from MLAs’ post. All the leaders are asking me to stay in the Congress since morning. I have decided to stay in the party,” Nagraj told media persons here.
Hoskote MLA Nagaraj and Chikballapur Congress MLA K Sudhakar Rao were among the rebel Congress- JD(S) MLAs, who resigned from the Assembly on July 10.
This development comes after Chief Minister HD Kumaraswamy met the Hoskote MLA Nagaraj at the Congress Legislature Party (CLP) leader Siddaramaiah’s residence in the city.
“We will try to convince Sudhakar and both of us will take our resignation back,” Nagraj said.
Nagaraj had earlier in the day hinted about his return and credited colleague DK Shivakumar for helping him make the decision.
“Situation was such that we submitted our resignations, but now DK Shivakumar and others came and requested us to withdraw resignations. I will speak to K Sudhakar Rao and then see what is to be done. After all, I have spent decades in the Congress,” Nagaraj said.
Siddaramaiah also expressed hope that Chikballapur MLA Sudhakar will follow Nagraj in returning to the party fold.
“I couldn’t talk to Sudhakar. I am hopeful that he would come back. Nagaraj and Sudhakar had taken the decision jointly. Nagaraj had decided to stay back in the party. After getting Sudhakar, they both will take back their resignation,” Siddaramaiah said.
“We are trying to get in touch with everyone. When we are moving the vote of confidence, at that time most of the MLAs would come back. We are in touch with Ramalingareddy, ” he said.
The dissident MLAs Ramalinga Reddy, a former state Home Minister, refused on comment on the political situation prevailing in the state.
“I have already told that I do not talk about any political issues till 15th of this month. I don’t know which leader went to whose house. The Speaker has called on July 15 to meet him,” he said.
Five more dissident legislators — Anand Singh, K Sudhakar, N Nagaraju, Munirathna and Roshan Baig — approached the Supreme Court seeking its direction to Speaker KR Ramesh Kumar to accept their “voluntarily” resignations and not proceed to disqualify them.
Karnataka unit BJP chief BS Yeddyurappa has asked Chief Minister HD Kumaraswamy to prove his government’s majority in the Assembly on Monday.
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Countdown Begins For Chandrayaan 2
The 20-hour countdown began on Sunday morning for the launch of Chandrayaan-2, India’s Moon mission to the unexplored south polar region of Earth’s natural satellite.
The country’s second lunar spacecraft will be launched onboard a Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV) Mk-III from Satish Dhawan Space Centre at Sriharikota in Nellore district of Andhra Pradesh at 2:51 am on Monday.
The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) said that the countdown started at 6.51 am today.
Chandrayaan-2, which has home-grown technology, will explore a region of Moon where no mission has ever set foot. According to ISRO Chairman Kailasavadivoo Sivan, the landing site, at a latitude of about 70 degrees south, is the southernmost for any mission till date.
The spacecraft consists of an orbiter, a lander and a rover together referred to as “composite body”. The probe’s total mass is 3.8 ton and it is expected to land on Moon’s south polar region on September 6 or 7 this year.
It will be the first Indian expedition to attempt a soft landing on the lunar surface. This mission will make India the fourth country after the US, Russia and China to carry out a soft landing on Moon.
Ahead of the launch, Sivan visited Sri Venkateswara temple at Tirumala on Saturday.
After visiting the shrine, he told the media, “On Monday early morning, we are going to launch the most important and prestigious mission, Chandrayaan-2. A GSLV Mark-III vehicle is going to be used for the mission. After a successful launch, it will take nearly two months to land on the South Pole of Moon.”
He said, “In future, the nation will depend more on planetary missions. After the country’s first Moon mission Chandrayaan 1, which was launched in October 2008, we are now entering into Chandrayaan-2 mission.”
Mylswamy Annadurai, Project Director of Chandrayaan-1, told ANI, “The data showed evidence for water in the exosphere of Moon, on the surface of Moon and also sub-surface and it triggered back to the Moon slogan. The South Pole is more of a resourceful place in case man has to land in future.”
On the significance of the expedition, he said, “From a scientific point of view, there are also craters which have gone very deep into Moon and that will tell about possible origin and evolution of the solar system.”
On Thursday, ISRO had conducted checks on the GSLV rocket at the launch pad in Sriharikota. (ANI)
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‘My Skin Itches After Every Holy Dip In Ganga’
Manoj Kumar, 40, a priest on the ghats of Ram Ganga in UP, says his skin itches after he takes a dip in the holy river. Kumar believes Namami Gange should involve all stakeholders it its plans.
In my 12 years as a priest (panda), I have seen that people often get contemplative in the presence of Ma Ganga (river ganges). I often try to make people contemplate more deeply and spare a thought for the environment and the irreversible damage we, humans are causing to our rivers, trees and other natural resources. I always make it a point to talk to my jajmans (clients) about how the environment (our rivers in particular) is getting polluted, in the little time I get to interact with them.
Every day, I sit on the ghats of River Ganga from morning till late in the noon. That Ganga and its tributaries remain clean is of great importance to everyone, but more specifically for us, because it is so closely connected to our ajeevika (livelihoods). When the Namami Gange Project was launched in 2014, the priests as well as the shraddhalus (devotees) had high hopes.
In the past five years, the water has definitely seems cleaner than before, but there’s still a lot of scope for improvement. I live in Bareilly, the tributary of the Ganga flowing here, that is, Ram Ganga needs more attention from the authorities. Every year, after Holi, the river starts drying up, but the authorities visit the ghats only during Jyaishtha Dussehra (also known as the Ganga Dussehra) in the month of June and Kartik mela in the month of November. I wish they would visit the ghats more regularly and communicate clearly with all the stakeholders involved.
Also, the authorities need to understand that just the physical cleaning of the river isn’t the solution, we need a more holistic approach. We need more safai karmacharis on the ghats, who can stop people from throwing the pollutants in the river. As a priest, I make it my duty to put all the leftovers from the puja (mainly biodegradable items) in a pit so that it can be composted. My fellow priests also try to practice this and we plan to do everything in our capacity to keep the ghats clean. The government should create mass awareness about why people should not throw the leftover material that is generated during home pujas into rivers and what they can do instead. This way a huge amount of pollutants can be stopped from entering the rivers.
Apart from all this, the Namami Gange project should also look at building infrastructure to fulfil the basic needs of the pilgrims as well as the people who work at the ghats. There is an urgent need for changing rooms for women so that our mothers and sisters can perform their pujas comfortably. Washrooms also need to be built in large numbers, but at quite a distance from the ghats. We need a tree plantation drive too. Even in the dead heat of Indian summers we have to sit under the Sun; there’s no shade or cool breeze. Even if we want to wash our faces or want to take a dip to ward off the excess heat, we can’t do it very regularly because our skin starts itching from the river water.
My children, who are studying in another town, often come to visit me. Whenever, they are here, they update me about what other countries are doing for the environment. They have told me all about climate change and how it is slowly killing our planet. Polluted rivers too, can contribute to climate change, leading to extreme weather events. We don’t have much time and we need to put all our collective intelligence, heart and soul into cleaning our country’s most precious natural resource, the river Ganga, our Ganga Maiya.
HDK Seeks Permission For Floor Test
Beleaguered Karnataka Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy on Friday sought permission from Speaker KR Ramesh Kumar for facing a floor test during the ongoing session of the state Assembly.
“After all these developments, I am seeking your permission and time to prove the majority in this session,” he told Speaker K R Ramesh Kumar in the Assembly while the House was paying condolences to former members who died during the inter-session period.
Reacting to the chief minister’s statement, former Home Minister and BJP leader R Ashok said Kumaraswamy should fix a time like Monday or Tuesday to face the floor test. He cannot make a vague demand, he said.
Earlier in the day, the Supreme Court had ordered a status quo until Tuesday on a plea filed by 10 dissident MLAs of Congress and JD(S) seeking a direction to the Assembly Speaker to accept their resignation and not proceed with the applications for their disqualification.
A three-member bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and comprising Justices Aniruddha Bose and Deepak Gupta will again hear the matter on Tuesday.
The order on status quo was given after hearing counsels–Mukul Rohtagi for the rebel MLAs and Abhishek Manu Singhvi for Speaker K R Ramesh Kumar.
The bench had on Thursday directed the Speaker to meet the rebel MLAs who were asked to give their resignations afresh in person. The speaker met them and took their resignations but did not take any decision saying he has to follow procedures and satisfy himself whether they were genuine and voluntary.
The 13-month-old Congress-JD(S) government had earlier this month slumped into crisis following the resignation of 10 MLAs.
(ANI)
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Water Train Reaches Parched Chennai
Adorned by garlands and banana saplings with a poster “Water for Chennai”, the first train carrying water from Jolarpet railway station in Vellore district reached water-starved Chennai on Friday.
The train had left Jolarpet, more than 200 km from Chennai, with 50 wagons of water at 7:30 am and reached Villivakkam near Chennai before noon.
The water is expected to be conveyed to the Kilpauk Water Works, three km away which is one of the facilities that feeds water to the metro.
Pipes have been specially laid for the purpose carrying water from the railway station to Kilpauk. Two trips are planned everyday for the water special.
Chennai needs about 800 miliion litres of water (MLD) daily and authorities are able to supply only 525 MLD in the current situation as the city faces an acute water shortage after failure of monsoons for the last two years.
The state government had announced plans to bring water from Jolarpettai by rail wagons as Chennai faces an acute watger shortage after failure of monsoons for the last two years.
The work on bringing water from Jolarpettai was started a fortnight ago and Water Board officials had worked day and night to bring water from Jolarpet to Chennai by train. (ANI)
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Haj Pilgrims Get Vaccinated
Vaccines being given to selected Haj Pilgrims at the immunization camp for the pilgrimage at Haj House Nampally in Hyderabad on Thursday.
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Goa Cong MLAs Who Joined BJP Meet JP Nadda
BJP National Working President JP Nadda and Goa Chief Minister Pramod Sawant along with 10 Congress MLAs from Goa as they joined BJP, at party headquarters in New Delhi on Thursday.
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