Month: February 2022

Launching a scathing attack over the incumbent Bharatiya Janata Party government in Uttar Pradesh, Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav said Yogi Adityanath just inaugurated Metro trains and stations built by the previous SP government.

Akhilesh accused the current government of taking the credit for the work done during the tenure of SP.
Referring to Yogi Adityanath as “Baba,” the former CM said, “Baba CM just inaugurated the metro made by SP government.”

“Farmers, students and businessmen have committed suicide under this government because of the hardship they faced. If the SP government comes to power once again, this type of situation won’t arise,” said Yadav during a Samajwadi Vijay Yatra in Lucknow.

Polling in the 59 constituencies for the third phase of the Uttar Pradesh elections took place today.

The seven-phased Assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh commenced on February 10. The first two phases of the elections are complete.

Subsequent phases are taking place on February 23, 27, and March 3 and 7. The counting of votes will be done on March 10. (ANI)

The prestigious Dadasaheb Phalke International Film Festival Awards 2022 were held on Sunday and were graced by several stars including Asha Parekh, Lara Dutta, Sidharth Malhotra and Kiara Advani.

Actors Ahan Shetty, Satish Kaushik and Sanya Malhotra were also part of the event held at Taj Lands End, Mumbai.
Lucky Ali gave a graceful performance of his evergreen song ‘O Sanam’.

Veteran star Asha Parekh, who came dressed in a blue saree, won the award for Outstanding Contribution To Film Industry.

Actor Ranveer Singh won the Best Actor Award for his performance in ’83’ while Kriti Sanon for the Best Actress award for ‘Mimi’.

Here is a complete list of winners:

1. Outstanding Contribution To Film Industry – Asha Parekh
2. Best International Feature Film – ‘Another Round’
3. Best Director – Ken Ghosh for ‘State of Siege: Temple Attack’
4. Best Cinematographer – Jayakrishna Gummadi for ‘Haseena Dilruba’
5. Best Actor in Supporting Role – Satish Kaushik for ‘Kaagaz’
6. Best Actress in Supporting Role – Lara Dutta for ‘Bell Bottom’
7. Best Actor in a Negative Role – Aayush Sharma for ‘Antim: The Final Truth’
8. People’s Choice Best Actor – Abhimanyu Dasani
9. People’s Choice Best Actress – Radhika Madan
10. Best Film – ‘Shershaah’
11. Best Actor – Ranveer Singh for ’83’
12. Best Actress – Kriti Sanon for ‘Mimi’
13. Best Debut – Ahan Shetty for ‘Tadap’
14. Film Of The Year – ‘Pushpa: The Rise’
15. Best Web Series – ‘Candy’
16. Best Actor in Web Series – Manoj Bajpayee for ‘The Family Man 2’
17. Best Actress in Web Series – Raveena Tandon for ‘Aranyak’
18. Best Playback Singer Male – Vishal Mishra
19. Best Playback Singer Female – Kanika Kapoor
20. Best Short Film – ‘Pauli’
21. Television Series of The Year – ‘Anupama’
22. Best Actor in Television Series – Shaheer Sheikh for ‘Kuch Rang Pyar Ke Aise Bhi’
23. Best Actress in Television Series – Shraddha Arya for ‘Kundali Bhagya’
24. Most Promising Actor in Television Series – Dheeraj Dhoopar
25. Most Promising Actress in Television Series – Rupali Ganguly
26. Critics Best Film – ‘Sardar Udham’
27. Critics Best Actor – Sidharth Malhotra for ‘Shershaah’
28. Critics Best Actress – Kiara Advani for ‘Shershaah’ The star-studded night honoured the talented artists for their outstanding contribution to Indian cinema. (ANI)

Congress MP Gurjeet Singh Aujla on Sunday said that party’s president in Punjab Navjot Singh Sidhu has not been amongst people in the last five years and his use of sharp language against leaders has miffed people, which are likely to affect his chances of victory in the Assembly elections.

The Congress MP from Amritsar told ANI, “There is displeasure amongst people towards Sidhu. Being a national leader, in the last five years, he has given less time to them. Moreover, people have also disliked his way of speaking. It is likely to bring him harm.”

Sidhu, who has been vocal on a number of state issues including drugs, sacrilege incident amongst others, since the beginning has used disrespectful language on a public forum which has created an impact in the minds of the people, said Aujla.

“Sidhu is a big leader. A lot of people look up to him and follow him. He should not use objectionable language against leaders including those of the Opposition parties. A big leader should be disciplined in his speech because he has to lead the state and the country,” Aujla said.

He further pointed out that despite Sidhu himself being a star campaigner, Punjab Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channi had to takeover campaigning on his assembly seat to vouch for him.

Amritsar (East) is witnessing a key battle where Sidhu will take on former state minister and senior Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) leader Bikram Singh Majithia, who is the brother-in-law of SAD President Sukhbir Singh Badal. Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on the other hand fielded a female candidate Jeeven Jyot Kaur from the seat.

Speaking on the battle over the seat, Aujla also said that there is a “triangular” political battle on the Amritsar East assembly seat.

“With the mobilisation by the AAP and Akali Dal on the Amritsar East seat, there is a triangular battle,” he said.

Amritsar particularity holds great prestige value for all parties.

Punjab is witnessing a multi-cornered contest this time with Congress, Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), Shiromani Akali Dal-Bahujan Samaj Party alliance, and the coalition of Bharatiya Janata Party-former chief minister Amarinder Singh’s Punjab Lok Congress party as key players.

Assembly elections on 117 seats in a single phase were held on Sunday. The counting of votes will be done on March 10. (ANI)

The ruling Imran Khan-led Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) government is considering a proposal to borrow gold biscuits and bars from the people to increase the country’s foreign exchange reserves that remain on a sliding path despite taking over USD 5 billion loans in the past three months from bilateral and multilateral creditors, according to a local media on Sunday.

The proposal has been discussed in the Economic Executive Council (EEC) – the body comprising all Finance Ministers and the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) governor, The Express Tribune newspaper reported, citing sources in the Ministry of Finance.

According to the proposal, the commercial banks will issue a negotiable discounted instrument to the gold owner and pay an interest rate on the precious metal. The commercial bank will deposit the gold with the SBP that can monetise it to increase the foreign exchange reserves -already largely built by taking expensive foreign loans, the Pakistani newspaper reported.

The central bank already has 2.01 million fine troy ounces of gold reserves valued at USD 3.8 billion, according to the SBP’s reserves position statement of December 31, 2021.

The central bank’s reserves have constantly been on a declining path and further slid to USD 17 billion as of February 11, The Express Tribune newspaper reported citing the SBP statement.

In the past three months, the government took a USD 3 billion loan from Saudi Arabia, raised the most expensive debt of USD 1 billion in Pakistan’s history by pledging motorways and received another USD 1 billion from the International Monetary Fund. But still, the reserves could not be stabilised due to lower exports and higher imports along with growing foreign loans repayments.

The proposal to borrow gold from people against a negotiable instrument had initially been floated by an expatriate, Tahir Mehmood, to Prime Minister Khan. The premier then referred the matter to the EEC that has now fine-tuned it to increase reserves and bring more cash into the market against an idle asset, the Pakistani newspaper reported.

In the last EEC meeting, Finance Minister Shaukat Tarin said that the objective of the gold-based negotiable instruments was to “translate gold into foreign currency to enhance foreign exchange reserves”.

According to some estimates shared with the EEC, people have roughly 5,000 tonnes of gold bars and biscuits. But there were no firm numbers available, The Express Tribune newspaper reported citing the sources.

The EEC also discussed the issue of low tax contributions by the jewellers, directing the FBR to prepare a plan for the collection of due taxes from the gold industry. There are roughly 36,000 jewellers and only over 50 registered for sales tax purposes with the FBR.

Last month, the government slapped a 17 per cent sales tax on the sale of gold and jewellery, the Pakistani newspaper reported. (ANI)

Superstar Ranveer Singh and Kriti Sanon have bagged Dadasaheb Phalke International Awards for ‘Best Actor’ in the prestigious award ceremony held on Sunday.

The star-studded night honoured the talented artists for their outstanding contribution to Indian cinema.
Ranveer and Kriti bagged the ‘Best Actor’ award for their acclaimed performances in notable movies ’83’ and ‘Mimi’.

The official Instagram account of the Dadasaheb Phalke International Film Festival announced the news.

For the ‘Mimi’ star, they wrote, “Congratulations to @kritisanon for winning the award for Best Actress – Mimi at Dadasaheb Phalke International Film Festival Awards2022. Your hard work and perseverance have paid off. Team DPIFF wishes you good luck in your future endeavors.”

Kriti Sanon played the lead role in the comedy-drama ‘Mimi’ that was released digitally on July 26. This Hindi remake of Samroudhhi Porey’s National award-winning, Marathi film, ‘Mala Aai Vhhaychy!’ (2011), has been directed by Laxman Utekar and also features Pankaj Tripathi, Manoj Pahwa, Sai Tamhankar, and Supriya Pathak.

The film narrates a quirky tale of a feisty and carefree girl (Kriti) who becomes a surrogate mom to make money. Laxman Utekar has also written the movie’s story and screenplay along with Rohan Shankar, who has penned the dialogues as well.

Meanwhile, for Ranveer Singh, the official Instagram account of Dadasaheb Phalke International Film Festival wrote, “Congratulations to @ranveersingh for winning the award for Best Actor – 83 at Dadasaheb Phalke International Film Festival Awards2022. Your hard work and perseverance have paid off. Team DPIFF wishes you good luck in your future endeavors.”

Ranveer won the best actor award for ’83’, a sports drama film directed by Kabir Khan and produced by Deepika Padukone, Kabir Khan, Vishnu Vardhan Induri, Sajid Nadiadwala, Reliance Entertainment, and 83 Film Ltd. Based on the India national cricket team led by Kapil Dev, which won the 1983 Cricket World Cup, the film’s story and dialogues were co-written by Kabir Khan, along with Sanjay Puran Singh Chauhan, Vasan Bala, and Sumit Arora.

It stars Ranveer as Kapil Dev and Padukone as Romi Bhatia, Dev’s wife, featuring an ensemble cast of Pankaj Tripathi, Tahir Raj Bhasin, Jiiva, Saqib Saleem, Jatin Sarna, Chirag Patil, Dinker Sharma, Nishant Dahiya, Harrdy Sandhu, Sahil Khattar, Ammy Virk, Adinath Kothare, Dhairya Karwa, and R Badree. (ANI)

iPhone 14 Pro models will feature 8GB of RAM, the most memory ever offered in an iPhone, according to recent reports.

As per GSM Arena, a rumour that surfaced out of Korea this week says 8GB of RAM would match the amount of RAM in Samsung’s new Galaxy S22 models, and it would be an increase over the 6GB of RAM in iPhone 13 Pro models.

It’s unclear how much RAM the standard iPhone 14 models will have, but it will likely be less than the Pro models. (ANI)

Delhi on Sunday reported 570 new COVID-19 cases and four fatalities with a positivity rate of 1.04 per cent.

The Delhi Government in its COVID-19 health bulletin said that of the 570 cases, 92 positive cases pertaining to earlier weeks were added on the ICMR portal yesterday. The number of tests conducted a day ago stood at 54,614 and there are 2,545 active cases in the metropolitan city.
In the last 24 hours, Delhi reported 730 recoveries. With this, the total recoveries climbed to 18,27,425.

With four more deaths due to the virus, the death toll reached 26,101. The case fatality rate is at 1.41 per cent.

The national capital has so far recorded 18,56,071 positive cases of COVID-19. The cumulative positivity rate is 5.16 per cent.

As per government data, Delhi has 8,583 containment zones. In COVID dedicated hospital, the bed occupancy is at 1.73 per cent, in COVID Care Centres it is 0.32 per cent and in COVID Health Centres it is 0.51 per cent.

A total of 1,742 COVID positive patients are in home isolation.

In the ongoing vaccination drive against COVID-19, 80,310 beneficiaries were vaccinated in the last 24 hours. Of these, 10,018 took their first dose and 65,755 took their second dose. The number of beneficiaries in 15 to 17 age group who were vaccinated in last 24 hours is 36,345. The cumulative number of children in this age group is 13,64,257.

Total 3,85,530 precaution doses have also been given to the eligible beneficiaries. Of these, 4,537 precaution doses were administered in the last 24 hours. (ANI)

Amid the third phase of the Uttar Pradesh assembly election, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday attacked the previous Samajwadi Party government saying that the SP during their regime gave free hand to the people of Katta and Satta.

PM Modi while addressing an election rally in Hardoi, said, “People of Hardoi have seen those days when these people had given a free hand to those using ‘katta’ and those in ‘satta’ (power).”
PM Modi recalled the Ahmedabad blasts, saying some parties were sympathetic to such terrorists. He accused the Samajwadi Party government of seeking withdrawal of cases against those involved in terror attacks in the state.

Expressing confidence that the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) will record another victory in the Uttar Pradesh Assembly election, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday said that the people in Uttar Pradesh will play Holi twice this year-first one on BJP’s victory on March 10.

PM Modi said, “People of Hardoi, of UP, have made preparations to play Holi twice. First Holi will be played with BJP’s bumper victory on March 10. But if you want to play Holi on 10 March, you will have to do the needful at polling booths. Those who used to stop our festivals will get an answer on March 10.”

“Be it cleanliness campaign or in any other central scheme, I was not allowed to work in UP. I am an MP from UP. But these people (Samajwadi Party) did not allow the Central government to work. During the Samajwadi Party regime, 34,000 toilets were made for the poor. When Yogi Adityanath came to power, he built 5 lakh toilets for the poor. See the difference-all the extra money used to go into the pockets of the Samajwadi Party people”, said the Prime Minister from Hardoi.

While speaking about the electricity connection in Uttar Pradesh, PM Modi said, “Samajwadi Party kept the people in dark while they illuminated their own house.” BJP gave electricity connection to every village. Remember for how many hours in a day the electricity used to be there. Electricity came like a guest. Remember how long it used to take the electricity to come back when a transformer got burnt and how you had to fall on those Babu’s feet to get the transformer repaired. The situation is not the same now.”

Votes will be cast in Hardoi on March 23. Polling in 59 constituencies for the third phase of the Uttar Pradesh elections is underway. Subsequent phases are taking place on February 23, 27, and March 3 and 7. The counting of votes will be done on March 10. (ANI)

Taking a jibe at Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav, Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan on Sunday called him “today’s Aurangzeb” and questioned that when he could not be loyal to his father, how could he be loyal to the people of the state.

Addressing the election rally in Deoria, MP CM said, “Akhilesh is today’s Aurangzeb. One who wasn’t loyal to his father, how will he be(loyal)to you. Mulayam Singh himself said this statement. Like Aurangzeb jailed his father and killed his brothers, the same Akhilesh did with his family. Mulayam also said that no one has humiliated him the way Akhilesh did.”
Citing on the Akhilesh comment (Baba bulldozer) on UP CM Akhilesh, former Lok Sabha MP said, “BABA means Brave, one whose family is people, one who shows mafia their places. ‘A’ means Active, always working for people. Another ‘B’ means Brilliant takes instant decisions, punishes with bulldozers & ‘A’ means Attentive- Saviour of people. This is Yogi Adityanath.”

Chauhan also mentioned the achievements of Narendra Modi and Yogi Adityanath. He said that this is the golden era of the nation when Modi is the Prime Minister and Yogi is the CM of the state. He also mentioned that Rs 9,802 crore were sanctioned for the water project and 2.60 crore farmers received the money in their account through PM Kisan Samman Nidhi.

He also stated that the UP’s finance has improved and moved upward from 7th rank to 2nd rank in the nation. While the crowd was enchanting Jai Shree ram.

“BJP took an oath to give free cylinder to women in Holi and Diwali. Farmers won’t have to give electricity bills for irrigation,” Shivraj said. He also made satirical comment on Bahujan Samaj Party chief Mayawati and said, “After losing the previous election, Mayawati doesn’t want to contest in any election.” (ANI)

Amid the ongoing polling for the third phase of the Uttar Pradesh assembly polls, Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav took a jibe at incumbent Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on Saturday by calling him “Baba Bulldozer” and said that “Baba” will lose election just like contentious farm laws were withdrawn.

“BJP leaders are now learning abcd, I want to tell them, “agar Kaka chale gaye toh Baba bhi chale jaenge” (if black farm laws were taken back, CM Yogi will also go back),” said Yadav while addressing a raaly in Rudauli of Ayodhya district.
Akhilesh further said, “He (Yogi Adityanath) changed the name of everything. Till now we were calling him “Baba Chief Minister” but today one of the reputed English newspapers called him “Baba Bulldozer”. I have not kept this name, this name was kept by a reputed English newspaper. And the time the vote is held, the government will change.”

“Bulldozer” is a reference to the action taken by the Yogi government to vacate illegally occupied land and properties using the machine Bulldozer.

In the third phase of the Uttar Pradesh polls, 59 assembly seats across 16 districts went to the polls on Sunday. As many as 627 candidates are in the fray.

Over 2.16 crore voters are eligible to exercise their franchise at 25,794 polling places and 15,557 polling stations in the third phase of Assembly elections.

Uttar Pradesh in its third phase of the Assembly elections recorded an average voter turnout of 48.81 per cent till 3 pm on Sunday.

According to the data released by the Election Commission of India (ECI), in Uttar Pradesh, Lalitpur recorded a high average voter turnout of 59.18 per cent till 3 pm, followed by Etah with 53.20 per cent.

Manpuri had an average voter turnout of 52.51 per cent, in Mahoba it was at 51.72 per cent and in Firozabad it is 51.09 per cent. The lowest voter turnout till 3 pm was in Kanpur Nagar till 41.41 per cent.

Subsequent phases are taking place on February 23, 27, and March 3 and 7. The counting of votes will be done on March 10. (ANI)