Month: June 2021

Just a day after being appointed as West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s Chief advisor, Alapan Bandyopadhyay has been issued a show-cause notice by the central government on Tuesday under the Disaster Management Act, 2005.

As per the official statement, “A show-cause notice has been issued to former West Bengal Chief Secretary Alapan Bandyopadhyay under Disaster Management Act 2005 asking him to write within 3 days.”
Yesterday also, a show cause notice was served to Alapan Bandyopadhyay, who was earlier in the day appointed as Chief Advisor to the West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, for failing to report to the Department of Personnel and Training (DOPT) as directed by the central government on Monday, sources said.

“A show-cause notice is being served to West Bengal Chief Secretary Alapan Bandyopadhyay for failing to report to the Department of Personnel and Training,” a source said.

Banerjee, who addressed a press conference yesterday, said Bandyopadhyay has retired from service and will not join in Delhi and has been made Chief Advisor.

“Since Alapan Bandopadhyay has retired today on May 31 from his service, he is not going to join in Delhi. I will not allow Alapan Banerjee to leave Nabanna. He is now the Chief Adviser to Chief Minister,” she had said.

Banerjee said a new Chief Secretary has been appointed in the state.

“We have appointed HK Dwivedi as the new Chief Secretary and BP Gopalika as the new Home Secretary. We just got a letter from IAS cadre rules. The purpose of extension of service is not served,” she said.

Bandyopadhyay was to retire on May 31 and had earlier been given three months extension.

The Central government had on Friday issued an order to recall Bandyopadhyay. The order said that placement of his services with the government has been approved. The state government was asked to relieve the officer with immediate effect and he was directed to report to North Block by May 31.

The development took place after Banerjee along with the state chief secretary skipped the review meeting chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday aftermath of Cyclone Yaas.

Banerjee had on Saturday urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to withdraw the Central government’s order to recall Bandyopadhyay.

“I felt bad. They humiliated me by running the one-sided information circulated by the PMO. When I was working, they were doing this. For the sake of people, I am ready to touch your feet. Stop this political vendetta. I request Prime Minister to withdraw this order of Chief Secretary (being attached to DoPT) and let us work,” Banerjee had told reporters here.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi had held a review meeting at Kalaikunda in Paschim Medinipur district to take stock of the post-cyclonic situation. Mamata Banerjee was supposed to attend the meeting.

However, she arrived late by 30 minutes and handed him over reports of damage caused by the impact of Cyclone Yaas. Following this, she and the state chief secretary left for her “pre-scheduled” meeting at Digha. (ANI)

In view of the coronavirus pandemic, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Tuesday appealed to Central Government to cancel board exams for Class 12 students and to assess the students based on their past performance.

“Children and parents are very worried about the 12th examination. They want that without vaccination, 12th examination should not be held. I appeal to the central government that the 12th examination should be cancelled. They should be assessed on the basis of past performance”, the tweet read.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi is scheduled to chair a meeting regarding the prospect of Class 12 Board Examinations today evening, official sources said.

“Prime Minister Narendra Modi will chair an important meeting regarding Class 12 Board Examinations, this evening. He will be briefed on all possible options, as a result of the extensive discussions with all states and other stakeholders,” the Government of India sources told ANI.

On Monday, the Supreme Court has adjourned hearing of plea seeking directions to the Centre, Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) and the Council for the Indian School Certificate Examination (CISCE) to cancel the CBSE, ICSE Class XII examinations after the Central government sought time till Thursday.

The Central government told the Supreme Court that it will take a final decision on the issue of conducting or cancelling Class 12 CBSE, ICSE Board exam in two days and sought time till Thursday to place its decision before the court.

A bench headed by Justice AM Khanwilkar adjourned the case to June 3 while observing a similar situation last year prompted internal marking instead.

The Bench asked the Centre to take its time to make a decision. It, however, asked the Centre to give some good and tangible reason if it decides to depart from last year’s decision when it agreed to cancel the examination due to Covid-19. (ANI)

Grisly videos have emerged showing stray dogs eating human corpses at Kedar Ghat on the banks of river Bhagirathi in Uttarkashi in Uttrakhand.

Local residents said parts of bodies, some of them half burnt, had drifted onto the bank after a rise in the water level of the Bhagirathi due to rainfall over the past few days.
“I was doing some painting here yesterday and I saw these half burnt bodies and stray dogs gnawing and feeding on them. The District administration and Municipal Corporation should take cognizance of this and do something immediately. It is a matter of concern and I feel that it is death of humanity,” said a local.

Another local said that there is a possibility that the bodies are of Covid-19 infected people who have been cremated and civic body authorities should take immediate action so as to avoid the spread of infection.

“I request to administration to take proper care of this,” adding that despite local resident putting in complaints to the municipality and the district administration, no arrangements were made to dispose of the bodies after conducting last rites.

Meanwhile, Municipality president Ramesh Semwal said that after receiving complaints from locals, they had assigned a person at Kedar Ghat to cremate the half-burnt bodies, washed up on the riverbank.

“During the last few days, number of deaths has been increased in our area. I also came to know that bodies are not burnt properly so I have directed the administration to arrange at Kedar Ghat for the cremation of half-burnt bodies,” said Ramesh Semwal.

Previously there have been incidents reported from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, where large number of bodies were found floating in the river Ganga.

Authorities believe the relatives of those who succumbed to the Covid-19 virus, may not have been able to find space or afford the last rites.

The Centre had last month directed authorities in these states to prevent the disposal of bodies in the river.

Meanwhile, Uttrakhand on Monday reported 1,156 fresh cases of Covid-19, taking the overall tally to 3,29,494. The state’s Covid-19 toll reached 6,452. (ANI)

Bollywood actor Kriti Sanon who wrapped the shoot for her upcoming film ‘Bhediya’ in Ziro, Arunachal Pradesh right before the second lockdown was imposed, recently shared an adorable BTS image with a local child from the city.

The ‘Heropanti’ actor took to her Instagram Story and posted the picture as she spent some happy moments with the locals at the beautiful location.
The photo sees Sanon in a plain mint green tracksuit holding the cute girl while exuding happiness as the duo smilingly glare into the lens. The photo also read, “#ziro diaries.”

For the unversed, this same child, seen in a blue sweater and pink frock, had earlier gone viral when Kriti had shared a video of the girl getting ready to eat a piece of cake which Varun Dhawan gave to the person behind her without realising the little girl was waiting for her turn to eat it.

The film, which went on floors earlier in March in Arunachal Pradesh, will bring together the dynamic duo of producer Dinesh Vijan and director Amar Kaushik, who also helmed the 2018 blockbuster movie ‘Stree’.

Starring Kriti Sanon, Varun Dhawan, Abhishek Banerjee, and Deepak Dobriyal, the story is written by National Award Winner, Niren Bhatt who also wrote intriguing scripts for ‘Bala’, ‘Made In China’, ‘Wrong Side Raju’.

The film is slated to release in cinemas on April 14, 2022.

The 30-year-old actor has an envious line-up of films including the pan-India film, ‘Adipurush’ that will see her in the role of goddess Sita opposite South Indian superstar Prabhas.

She has also got ‘Bachchan Pandey’ opposite Akshay Kumar, ‘Hum Do Hamaare Do’ and ‘Mimi’ as the solo lead. Kriti will also be seen in ‘Ganapath’ with Tiger Shroff and she has got an unannounced project in her kitty. (ANI)

A study led by the University of Sydney’s Charles Perkins Centre observed medical data from nearly half a million people and found that people who are obese and overweight worsens liver-damaging effects of alcohol.

“People in the overweight or obese range who drank were found to be at greater risk of liver diseases compared with participants within a healthy weight range who consumed alcohol at the same level,” said senior author and research program director Professor Emmanuel Stamatakis from the Charles Perkins Centre and the Faculty of Medicine and Health.
“Even for people who drank within alcohol guidelines, participants classified as obese were at over 50 per cent greater risk of liver disease.”

The researchers drew upon data from the UK Biobank – a large-scale biomedical cohort study containing in-depth biological, behavioural, and health information from participants in the United Kingdom (UK).

According to the researchers, this is one of the first and largest studies looking at increased adiposity (overweight or obesity) and level of alcohol consumption together, in relation to future liver disease.

Information was examined from 465,437 people aged 40 to 69 years, with medical and health details collected over an average of 10.5 years.

The findings were published in the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

Lead author Dr Elif Inan-Eroglu, a postdoctoral research fellow with the Charles Perkins Centre, said the results suggest people carrying excess weight may need to be more aware of risks around alcohol consumption.

“With the most recent data suggesting two in three people – or 67 percent of the Australian population are in the overweight or obesity range, this is obviously a very topical issue.”

Key findings:

The researchers reviewed data on participants classified as overweight/obese based on their body mass index (BMI) and waist circumference, self-reported alcohol consumption according to UK alcohol guidelines, and liver disease incidence and liver disease as a cause of death.

BMI is based on both weight and height. A BMI of over 25 denotes overweight, and over 30 denotes obesity. For waist circumference, researchers used the World Health Organization (WHO) classification: normal (<80 cm for women, <94 cm for men), overweight (>80 cm for women, >94 cm for men), and obese (>88 cm for women, >102 cm for men).

The level of risk was given a number called a ‘hazard ratio’. The higher the number than 1, the higher the risk.

• People who drank above UK alcohol guidelines had, compared to within guideline drinkers:
• A nearly 600 per cent higher risk of being diagnosed with alcoholic fatty liver disease (5.83 hazard ratio).
• A nearly 700 per cent higher risk of death caused by alcoholic fatty liver disease (6.94 hazard ratio).
• People with overweight or obesity who drank within or above alcohol guidelines had over 50 per cent greater risk of developing the liver disease compared to normal-weight participants who consumed alcohol at the same level. (ANI)