by admin | May 25, 2021 | News, Politics
Mirzapur : Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday launched a number of projects including the much awaited Bansagar canal which is expected to provide a big boost to irrigation.
The Prime Minister arrived in Mirzapur on Sunday, on the second day of his visit to Uttar Pradesh.
The Bansagar Canal project would help at least 1.70 lakh farmers of both Mirzapur and Allahabad with the irrigation sector receiving a huge boost. A joint venture of Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Bihar, the canal is 171 km long.
“The Bansagar project of about Rs 3,500 crore will not just provide irrigation in Mirzapur but also 1.5 lakh hectares of this whole area including Allahabad,” Modi said while addressing a gathering in Mirzapur.
He also laid the foundation stone of the Mirzapur Medical College, inaugurated 100 Pradhan Mantri Jan Aushadi Kendras and a bridge over the Ganga river.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | News, Politics
New Delhi : The Uttar Pradesh government on Friday questioned the Muslim litigants in the Ramjanmabhoomi-Babri Masjid title suit case for making “belated efforts” seeking a relook at the 1994 Ismail Farooqui judgment that had said that mosques were not an integral part of religious practice of offering prayers.
The bench of Chief Justice Dipak Misra, Justice Ashok Bhushan and Justice S. Abdul Nazeer was told that the Muslim parties did not question the 1994 verdict’s legality till the appeal against 2010 Allahabad High Court judgment on the ownership of the disputed land was taken up for hearing by the top court.
Additional Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, appearing for the state, described as “belated efforts” to avoid the adjudications of the long-pending cross appeals against the high Court judgment on the title suit.
Ayodhya appeals were pending in the top court since 2010 and all through the legality of 1994 judgment was never questioned but why this belated effort now, he asked.
The Lucknow bench of Allahabad High Court had by its 2010 verdict had divided the disputed 2.77 acres site between the Nirmohi Akhara, the Lord Ram deity and the Sunni Waqf Board.
Muslim parties are seeking the revisiting a conclusion in the 1994 constitution bench judgment which said that the mosque was not an essential and integral part of the Muslim religious practice of offering namaz and they could offer prayers in open under the sky.
Appearing for lead petitioner M. Siddiqui represented by his legal heir, senior counsel Rajeev Dhavan told the court told the court that the paragraph in the 1994 judgment which says that mosque was not essential to the Muslim religious practices and integral to it was said without examining the tenets of Islam.
He said that there was nothing in the judgment as to show how the court arrived at such a conclusion.
“If you have to say something say it after detailed examination,” Dhavan told the bench pointing to some judgments wherein the top court pronounced on some religious places after detailed examinations of the issues involved.
At this Justice Bhushan observed that nobody was questioning that mosque is essential to Islam but the question is whether offering namaz in a mosque was essential.
Dhavan will address the three judge bench on the issue on July 13 when he will advance arguments to meet the submissions made by the Hindu parties including that the issues being raised by him on mosque not being essential; part of Islamic practices have become res judicata (matter that has been adjudicated and decided) and the issues advanced by senior counsel K. Parasaran and Harish Salve in the course of their arguments.
Dhavan is seeking a relook at the 1994 judgment, contending that 2010 Allahabad High Court judgment relies on this conclusion of the top court.
He on Friday argued that a congregation at the mosque at the time of offering Namaz was essential for Muslims and “if congregation part of Islam is taken away, a large part of practice collapses”.
However, lawyers representing the Hindu parties said that reference to 1994 judgment in no way impacted the 2010 High Court judgment.
Appearing for deity Ram Lalla Virajman, senior advocate K. Parasaran in the last hearing of the matter on May 17, had told the court that the birthplace cannot be shifted to another site, while a mosque with no particular religious significance to the Muslims can be shifted as that will “not affect the right to practice religion by offering ‘namaz’ in other mosques”.
He had argued that to go on a pilgrimage is a practice of religious faith for the Muslims as well as the Hindus, but for the Muslims, “Makkah and Madinah alone are places of particular significance” as pilgrimage centres, but for them such was not the case with Ayodhya/Babri Masjid.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | News, Politics
Ayodhya : Newly elected Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) chief Vishnu Sadashiv Kokje on Monday visited the make-shift temple of ‘Ram Lalla’ here in Uttar Pradesh and said that the dream of billions for a grand Ram temple here will soon be a reality.
The former judge, who also served as governor of Himachal Pradesh, also offered prayers at the fabled Hanumangarhi temple.
Later in the day, he was scheduled to hold wide-ranging meetings with the temple priests and office bearers of the Ramjanma Bhoomi Nyas, a VHP official said.
Kokje would also visit the ‘Karyasewakpuram’ — the place where stone carvings were underway for the last many years, in anticipation of construction of the Ram temple.
On Sunday, before leaving for Faizabad, the VHP chief told reporters in Lucknow that many Muslims were also in favour of construction of the Ram temple at the disputed site.
He also said that before starting work in his new capacity as the head of the Hindu outfit, he wanted to pay obeisance to ‘Ram Lalla’ and that is why he was visiting Ayodhya.
The 79-year-old leader also said that he would soon be holding deliberations with saints from all across the country and would like to take the Ram temple movement forward.
He also expressed hope that the verdict for Ram temple would soon be pronounced in favour of the Hindu claimants.
Calling for mutual dialogue and understanding to thrash out the problem he, however, rued that the litigants were “outsiders” who had no stakes in the decades-old matter.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | News, Politics
Atique Ahmed, who is contesting by-elections to Phulpur Lok Sabha seat as an Independent candidate being taken to be produced before a district court in Allahabad on March 9, 2018.
By Mohit Dubey,
Lucknow : In the political landscape of Uttar Pradesh, by-polls have never attracted so many eyeballs as the ones slated for Sunday when voters in Phulpur (Allahabad) and Gorakhpur cast their votes to send their representatives to the Lok Sabha.
There are two reasons for the curiosity and anxiety the polls have caused. One the one hand, while it’s a test of the almost one year of Maharaj-ji’s (Yogi) rule and on another a dry run for the coming together of the bua-babua (Mayawati-Akhilesh), not long ago sworn enemies.
First because the by polls are a big test for the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BSP) as these two seats were held by UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and his deputy in the state government Keshav Prasad Maurya and the elections would also be a first major test of the popularity of the BJP or the lack of it in the run up to the 2019 general elections when Prime Minister Narendra Modi seeks a second term.
Secondly, this is also the first electoral outing for hitherto arch rivals the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and the Samajwadi Party (SP) when they are on one platform with an objective to “defeat a common foe”. The coming together of the bua-babua (Mayawati-Akhilesh) is no less that a miracle as both parties have been cursing each other since the SP party men led a murderous attack on the BSP supremo some 23 years back. Mayawati never forgot the attempt on her life and refused overtures by the then SP chief, Mulayam Singh Yadav, with whom she briefly ran an alliance government in the 1990s.
Akhilesh played a doting son as far as the relationship with the BSP was concerned and in several measures like building a flyover just across Mayawati’s residence, ending her privacy in the walled Mall Avenue bungalow to shunting out her favorite officials in the previous government. Mayawati’s men in the bureaucracy reciprocated during their tenures when not only were SP cadres targeted but Shivpal Singh Yadav and Akhilesh Yadav were manhandled by the police on more than two occasions. However, with their political existence at risk, the two have buried their differences and stitched a “temporary electoral understanding” for the by polls.
Mayawati has not put up any candidate in Phulpur and Gorakhpur and has asked her cadres to “be proactive, hold as many rallies and ensure the victories of SP candidates”. The narrative explained to the committed Dalit vote bank is that the Modi juggernaut is unstoppable and needs the SP-BSP to cement ties and give up differences. But while Akhilesh has also reciprocated the favour by thanking the Dalit leader for her gesture, the two parties have yet not shared the dais at any election rallies. The Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) of Ajit Singh has also extended its unconditional support to the SP-BSP combine.
For them to win or even pose a decent showing in the by-elections would open prospects of a possible ‘maha-gathbandhan’ in the 2019 elections but a loss could undo whatever rapprochement the two have achieved in this election. The BJP will then be able to tom tom the defeat of the opposition as a failed attempt to stop the BJP ‘vijay rath’ despite them coming together. UP Civil Aviation Minister Nand Gopal Nandi is already taking potshots at the tie-up. A former BSP minister, he says that Mayawati will have to explain to her cadres what forced her to close ranks with the SP, a party during whose tenures the Dalits were the biggest sufferers.
“This is completely an unholy alliance, bereft of any ideology and it will come a cropper” he told IANS. Ashok Kumar Gautam, the zonal coordinator of the BSP for the region, however, differs and says the the “wild run of the BJP will be demolished in the Phulpur polls”. “Inke share samikaran dhwast ho jayenge is baar. Hum janata ko bata rahein hain ki inhone unke saath kya kya dhokhe kiye hain” (All their equations will fall flat this time, we are telling the people on how the BJP has cheated them with false promises) he added.
The opposition unity has been jilted with the Congress deciding to go alone and even going public with its disenchantment with the way the SP-BSP joined hands without even considering it as a “value addition”. UPCC chief Raj Babbar launched a broadside against SP chief Akhilesh Yadav, accusing him of playing the spoiler in opposition unity. The SP has also hit back by saying that Congress is impractical and does not realise the ground realities.
The BJP, which faces the litmus test of not only retaining the two seats, is also closely watching the finishing line to see how the voting contours might change with the coming together of SP-BSP-RLD. “Though the verdict is certainly going to be in our favour, we are pertaining crossing our fingers on the number of votes the opposition polls…that would be crucial for us”, a strategist in the BJP camp told IANS.
In the past, Phulpur has seen interesting fights and many heavyweights of Indian politics — JawaharLal Nehru, Vijay Laxmi Pandit, Ram Manohar Lohia, V.P. Singh and Janeshwar Mishra have contested from this seat, which has about 50 per cent backward and Patel votes. While the final outcome will only be public on March 14 when the votes are counted, the fact that jailed mafia don-turned politician Atiq Ahmad is also contesting the polls in Phulpur is an interesting twist in favour of the BJP.
With Ahmad likely to divide the 15 per cent Muslim voters in Phulpur, the little dicey seat for the BJP, it is likely that the BJP candidate might cruise ahead of the opposition candidate here. In Gorakhpur, its is for the first time in decades that
anybody from outside the Gorakshnath temple is contesting the polls. First it was two terms of Mahant Avaidyanath and then since 1998 it is Yogi Adityanath who has won the seat.
While political observers feel that the BJP has no problems in “Maharaj-ji’s fiefdom” the number of votes polled in favour of BJP’s Upendra Shukla would certainly be of much interest and political currency. So, till March 14, all eyes are set on these two seats as the political establishment, both in Delhi and Lucknow await the verdict.
(Mohit Dubey can be contacted at mohit.d@ians.in)
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Corporate, Corporate finance, Corporate Governance
New Delhi : The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs, chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, on Wednesday approved promotion of agricultural mechanisation for in-situ management of crop residue in Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh and NCT of Delhi to address air pollution in the national capital.
A new central sector scheme was proposed in this Union Budget to address air pollution with total outlay of Rs 1,151.80 crore.
Establishment of farm machinery banks for custom hiring of in-situ crop residue management machinery and financial assistance to the farmers for procurement of such machinery are major components of the scheme.
Also, mass awareness campaigns will be undertaken along with capacity building programme, advertisement in print media, star campaigning, award for village and gram panchayat for achieving zero straw burning.
—IANS
