by admin | May 25, 2021 | News, Politics
Lucknow : Heavy security has been deployed across Uttar Pradesh, including Faizabad and Ayodhya, on the 25th anniversary of the demolition of the disputed Babri Masjid structure, police said.
Twenty seven additional companies of the provincial armed constabulary (PAC) have been deployed across the state.
Of these, six companies each have been deployed in the state capital and in Faizabad district, specially to keep vigil on the temple town of Ayodhya.
Ayodhya has been divided into four zones and ten sectors and prohibitory orders under section 144 have been clamped. Any form of protests, demonstrations have been completely banned.
While the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) has been celebrating the 1992 demolition of the Babri mosque as ‘Shaurya Diwas’, some Muslim organisations observe it as a black day.
All fire cracker shops have been asked to shut down and vigil has been stepped up around liquor vends as well.
Orders have also been issued to check roof tops, which in Uttar Pradesh are often used to stockpile stones and bricks to be used during communal clashes.
Director General of Police (DGP) Sulkhan Singh has asked the district police chiefs to step up vigil and keep a tab on elements who could try to foment trouble.
He also directed officials to clamp prohibitory orders if situation arises. There were intelligence inputs that some mischievous elements and various terrorist outfits might try to disrupt peace on the day.
Police deployed on duty has been asked to carry with them riot gears including helmets, body protectors, tear gas shells, rubber bullet guns for any emergency.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | News, Politics
Agra : The Taj Mahal, one of the wonders of the world, is an architectural marvel and it doesn’t matter who constructed it, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath said on Thursday.
“It is an architectural marvel built by the blood and sweat of the local people,” the Chief Minister told a public meeting here, once again distancing his government from BJP leaders who had dubbed the 17th century Mughal monument a “blot” on Indian culture.
Addressing the crowd at the GIC ground for more than an hour, he said his government would make all efforts to boost tourism-related activities so as to increase the duration of stay of the tourists in Agra and also to up the number of their arrivals.
Adityanath accused the previous government of not doing much for tourism promotion.
He said his government was firmly committed to developing the required infrastructure. At the same time, religious tourism would receive high priority in nearby Mathura and Vrindavan, he said.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | News, Politics
By Kushagra Dixit,
Barwar (Lakhimpur Kheri) : With no budget, staff, fodder or infrastructure, the only state government-run cow-shelter or gaushala here in Uttar Pradesh’s Lakhimpur-Kheri, a district that faces a “cow-menace”, is like “a slaughter house without machines”, officials say.
The recent death of a 17-year old girl in Lakhimpur city due to stray cows and encroachment by the animals on roads and farms has now left both public and district authorities miffed with the administrative apathy of the cow-loving Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government of Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath. At present, with nowhere to go, cows and bulls dominate the roads and streets of the entire district, with accidents reported on a daily basis.
According to state animal husbandry officials, the gaushala here has not received a “single penny” in the last few years. Officials have now started saying “no” to police, public and senior officials if they insist on taking more stray and seized bulls, oxen or cows into the shelter.
In fact, the manager of the shelter has been buying fodder from his own salary for the last three years or relying on donations.
“A few years back, I came to know that Rs 40 lakh was sanctioned for this cowshed, but not a single penny had been received.
“Last month we bought seven trollies of fodder, I paid for three trollies from my own salary and the rest were from donations through NGOs, temples and local bank staff,” gaushala manager Surendra Pal told IANS.
“If a cow dies either due to disease or starvation in the gaushala, we will have to face the ire of both the government and the people. There is no fodder or vets on demand,” said an official, who did not want to be named.
“When we send an animal to the cow-shelter, we know that it is going to perish soon, because there are no funds to support it. Those shelters are more like slaughter houses without machines,” another animal husbandry official told this visiting IANS correspondent on condition of anonymity.
“The same is the situation in almost all gaushalas in other districts, be it Sitapur or Hardoi. However, Lakhimpur is one of the worst-affected districts at present due to the very high number of stray animals,” the official said.
To make things more complicated, officials told IANS, the land on which the gaushala animals and other strays are meant to graze is tended by the forest department to grow and sell the green fodder. Thus, the contractors do not allow the shelter’s animals there.
“So, the shelters do not recieve fodder from the government and the animals are not allowed to graze on the proper pasture land,” said an official.
Situated at a remote location with poor connectivity at the outskirts of Barwar village, the gaushala’s staff quarters have turned into ruins and to look after 25 unproductive animals (11 males and 14 females), Pal had to personally hire private staff.
“The staff crunch is another issue. I had to hire a shepard and a cleaner from the village. Thank god that my salary comes on time so I can pay them,” Pal said.
Even though the shed has a capacity to hold 100 animals, Pal said he keeps the number low because he can’t afford to keep more animals.
“Recently Member of Parliament (BJP) from Dhaurahara, Rekha Verma, visited here and asked me to open gates for stray cows. I said that I would be more than happy to do so, but she should first get the fodder crisis resolved,” Pal said, adding that only those animals recommended by the veterinary department are taken in.
Soon scheduled to receive 15 more animals all the way from Jhansi, Pal now has more reasons to worry and more donors to chase.
“We are Hindus and feel that cows should not be slaughtered but no one can celebrate Gau-Mata just for the sake of it being holy. The excessive pressure after slaughtering was stopped is now evident on the roads. Either the government should fix infrastructure or find a way to make them productive,” said Ravi Shanker Srivastav, a former state animal husbandry official who retired recently.
“A better way would be to promote using upla (cow-dung cakes) for cremation and other rituals. I’m sure that the so-called protector of religion would exploit this idea as the animal is holy and this would save timber as well,” Srivastav suggested.
(Kushagra Dixit can be reached at kushagra.d@ians.in)
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | News
Lucknow/New Delhi : At least 74 persons, four in critical condition, were injured when 10 coaches of the Kaifiyat Express derailed in Auraiya district of Uttar Pradesh on Wednesday morning, police said.
The incident took place after the train bound for New Delhi from Azamgarh in Uttar Pradesh hit a dumper, which had overturned on the railway tracks between Achalda and Pata stations around 2.40 a.m, a railway official said.
According to the police, the four persons with serious head injuries were rushed to Etawah district hospital.
Two others have been shifted to Saifai medical college, he said.
Principal secretary (Home) Arvind Kumar said the rescue work concluded around 7 a.m.
The dumper carried sand for the railway work of dedicated freight corridor running parallel to the track, Inspector General of Police (Kanpur Zone) Alok Singh told IANS.
However, railway officials in Delhi said the dumper did not belong to the corridor project.
Senior officials from Etawah, Auraiya and Kannauj rushed to the spot and oversaw the rescue operation, Kumar told IANS.
Kanpur Divisional Commissioner P.K. Mohanty said other injured were shifted to medical facilities in Etawah.
The official said work was underway to repair the tracks and clear the important Delhi-Howrah route from which hundreds of trains pass every day.
At least seven trains were cancelled and 40 diverted due to the incident.
This is the second train accident in Uttar Pradesh within a week after 14 coaches of the Kalinga Utkal Express derailed in Muzaffarnagar on Saturday, leaving 22 dead and over 150 injured.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Interviews
Ram Naik
By Mohit Dubey
LUCKNOW: When the octagenarian Ram Naik walked into the sprawling 40-acre Raj Bhawan complex in the heart of this Uttar Pradesh capital last July, most people in the corridors of power took the new governor as another “tired and retired veteran” who had been eased out in the ‘Modi-fied’ BJP and parked in a constitutional job.
The agile and active Naik, a year down, however, has proved the political epitaph writers wrong and is, in fact, scripting one of the most eventful tenures in the gubernatorial history of Uttar Pradesh. And he has firmly stood his ground on issues he considers worthwhile.
In the process, while he has endeared himself to the teeming thousands who have benefitted from his humility and interventions, he has come in the firing line of the Samajwadi Party (SP) government. Having twice rejected recommendations by the ruling party for nomination to the legislative council and then turning down the name of a retired judge for Lokayukta, Naik has earned the wrath of the likes of SP stalwarts Mohd Azam Khan, Ram Gopal Yadav and Shivpal Singh Yadav.
Having earned sobriquets like “unfit to be addressed as mahamahim” (his excellency), “BJP stooge” and many others, Naik, however, is undeterred by the criticism. Talking to IANS on a busy week day, the former union petroleum minister said he would not react to such comments and barbs.
“People attacking me have their political agenda while I am wedded to the constitution of India,” he said while recalling how the book gifted to him by President Pranab Mukherjee a day before he came here for the oath of office is his guiding force.
Time and the people will judge his actions, he said, adding that he enjoys “cordial personal relations with (Chief Minister) Akhilesh Yadav”.
Naik, however, said that he believes in speaking his mind out and has been doing so. He further stated that he will continue to be a bridge between the state and the union government – like when he brought union Minister of State for Power Piyush Goel and Akhilesh Yadav to the table in wake of the power crisis in the state.
The fact that he has openly castigated the state government on law and order and the power crisis, is for the betterment of the state and in the right spirit of expecting improvement, he said. Asked if the constitutional post bars him from a lot of things, he chuckled and countered: “On the contrary it has given me the joy of doing much more than what the constitution bestows on me.”
Having arranged a musical ‘bhajan sandhya’ by lepers in the Raj Bhawan after reading a newspaper article about their marginalization and humiliation, Naik said he finds immense satisfaction in such small gestures.
Choking while narrating the happiness he noticed on the faces of the lepers, the veteran was asked what forms this formidable conviction to do things and pat came the reply: “I owe it to my father and my formative years at Pune with the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS).” Both, he pointed out, taught him discipline and humility.
As the chancellor of 25 state varsities, Naik is credited with having brought the academic sessions on track. By taking up issues facing the masses, he is fast emerging as a “people’s governor”.
With his rich parliamentary experience behind him – three-time legislator in Maharashtra and five-time Lok Sabha MP – the governor seems to hit just the right chords with the people of the country’s most populous state.
While he is extensively travelling in the state, his doors are open for all and sundry and the visitors are pleasantly surprised by his “grassroot level-like approach.
“I cannot fathom that he is so down to earth and so pro-active. I had come to him with a problem that the education institution I run was facing and within no time, he got the officials working,” said a retired army officer.
Naik’s chief security officer, Inderjeet Singh Rawat, vouched for his humility.
Only recently had a class four employee retired and when Naik came to know of the farewell do, he not only called the retiree but also bade him a respectable farewell.
Talk to him of all these path-breaking changes that he is ushering in and his face lights up as he credits all this to his father, a school teacher, and the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS), which, he said, was responsible for the discipline and the plain, simple lifestyle he leads.
“When I went to do my B.Com at Pune, I came in touch with a lot of RSS ideologues and their sense of commitment and conviction got into my personality development DNA,” he mused, while suggesting that the new generation should simply follow a four-tier mantra – smile, appreciate, do not belittle others and always find a better way of doing things!
(Mohit Dubey can be contacted at mohit.d@ians.in)
