1. Akhilesh Picks Azamgarh for LS Return
Samajwadi Party (SP) president Akhilesh Yadav will contest the Lok Sabha elections from Uttar Pradesh’s Azamgarh, a constituency that is currently represented by his father, Mulayam Singh Yadav, the party said on Sunday, 24 March.
Mulayam, the 79-year-old patriarch of the party, will contest the election from Mainpuri, a seat he has won thrice in the past, including in 2014 when he chose to vacate it and retain the Azamgarh constituency.
Akhilesh has won the Lok Sabha elections from Kannauj three times in the 2000 bypoll, and in the general elections in 2004 and 2009. He vacated the seat in 2012 after becoming the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh.
The announcement of Akhilesh’s candidature ended speculation that he was planning to not contest the Lok Sabha elections, just like Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) chief Mayawati.
(Source: Hindustan Times)
2. ‘Mastermind’ of Gurugram Family Attack Held
The mastermind of the 21 March attack on a family belonging to a minority community in Bhondsi’s Bhoop Singh Nagar was arrested on Sunday, 24 March, said police. The arrest came on a day when the family submitted a new video clip to police that purportedly shows one of the attackers using a pistol.
Dhirender, who runs a dairy, is the second person to be arrested in the case. On 22 March, the police had arrested Mahesh (22). Cops said they had identified four other accused who are expected to be arrested soon.
(Source: The Times of India)
3. India, Pak Spar over Abduction of 2 Hindu Girls
A fresh row appeared to be brewing between India and Pakistan on Sunday, 24 March, after external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj asked India’s envoy in Islamabad for details about the alleged abduction and forced conversion of two Pakistani Hindu girls in a tweet that triggered an exchange on social media with a minister of the neighbouring country.
Reports said that two Hindu teenage girls, 13 and 15 years old, were allegedly kidnapped and forced to convert to Islam before being married to Muslim men in Pakistan’s Sindh province. Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan ordered the provincial Sindh and Punjab governments to retrieve the two girls, who were said to have been moved to Rahim Yar Khan from Ghotki in his country’s south-east.
In videos circulating on social media over the last two days, the father and brother of the girls can be heard saying the two were abducted and forced to change their religion.
(Source: Hindustan Times)
4. Missing in National Job Market: 2.8 Crore Rural Women over the Last 6 Years
Over 5 crore rural women have left the national job market since 2004-05. Female participation has fallen by 7 percentage points since 2011-12, amounting to approximately 2.8 crore fewer women looking for jobs.
The decline, according to the Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) 2017-2018 report by NSSO which the government has withheld, is more acute in the working age group of 15-59 years.
In this bracket, the rural female participation rate fell from 49.4 percent in 2004-05 to 35.8 percent in 2011-12 and further to 24.6 percent in 2017-18. In effect, participation of rural women of working age has been halved since 2004-05.
In the urban segment, though, female participation increased by 0.4 percentage points in the six years ending 2017-18, amounting to 12 lakh more job seekers. This bucks the trend as female participation in urban job market had fallen by 2.2 percentage points between 2004-5 and 2011-12.
(Source: The Indian Express)
5. Jet Emergency Loans Get Green Signal
Minority lenders that are part of the consortium which has lent to Jet Airways have agreed to grant priority status to funding that would be provided by State Bank of India (SBI) and Punjab National Bank (PNB). This will enable SBI and PNB to provide emergency funding to keep the airline afloat until a resolution plan is in place.
Earlier, SBI was not in favour of emergency funding and wanted a durable plan rather than a ‘band-aid’ solution.
However, the crisis at Jet Airways is deepening by the day with promoter Naresh Goyal playing a brinkmanship game. So far, over 80 planes in Jet Airways’ fleet have been grounded by lessors for non-payment of dues.
(Source: The Times of India)
6. BJP Kicks off Campaign Blitz as Poll Heat Picks up
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) launched a concerted attack on the Opposition on Sunday, 24 March, at over 200 rallies across the country — many of which featured top leaders — as part of a mega opening to the party’s 2019 election campaign, focussing on national security and the NDA government’s welfare schemes over the past five years.
BJP president Amit Shah, foreign minister Sushma Swaraj, home minister Rajnath Singh, defence minister Nirmala Sitharaman, road transport and highways minister Nitin Gadkari, and railways minister Piyush Goyal, among other heavyweights, hit the ground running in the first leg of the blitzkrieg comprising over 450 rallies.
“Through these rallies, we are drawing a comparison between the government of [Prime Minister] Narendra Modi, which is dedicated to the country’s development, self-respect and honour, and the team of [Congress president] Rahul Gandhi, which is dishonouring the valour of India’s armed forces,” said Anil Baluni, a Rajya Sabha member and the BJP’s media cell chief.
(Source: Hindustan Times)
7. Mumbai Car Density 5 Times That of Delhi
The density of private cars in Mumbai soared by 18 percent in just two years, making it the most car-congested city in the country. The metropolis has 510 cars for every km of road, almost five times higher than the corresponding number in Delhi, which is 108.
Pune is the next most dense city with 359 cars per km, ahead of 319 cars per km in Kolkata, 297 in Chennai and 149 in Bangalore, show statistics from the respective state transport departments.
Mumbai’s high car density is mainly because of lack of road space. While Mumbai’s private car population is less than a third of Delhi’s, the city has just 7 percent of the national capital’s road length — 2,000km as compared with 28,000km in Delhi.
(Source: The Times of India)
8. Govt Probe on Raman Singh Son-In-Law: Fraud, Overspending, Fake Audit
A three-member probe panel of senior government officials, looking into financial irregularities at the Dau Kalyan Singh (DKS) government super speciality hospital in Raipur, has submitted a report alleging expenditure worth crores without official approvals, overspending, and the submission of false audit reports.
It is based on this 18-page report that Chhattisgarh Police last week registered an FIR against Dr Puneet Gupta, son-in-law of BJP leader and former three-time Chief Minister Raman Singh. Gupta served as Superintendent of DKS hospital from January 2016 to January 2019, when he was shifted out by the Congress government — he later resigned from government service.
Police charged Gupta on 16 March for alleged “financial irregularities worth Rs 50 crore” and booked him under clauses of criminal conspiracy, forgery and cheating. The charges are based on a police complaint, filed by the new DKS Superintendent, Dr K K Sahare, who cited the report submitted by the committee set up by the Chhattisgarh government.
(Source: The Indian Express)
9. Karnataka Govt Lifts Ban on Ola Cabs
The Karnataka government on Sunday, 25 March, allowed cab aggregator Ola to resume its service which was suspended two days back for running bike taxis without permission.
“Ola Cabs will run their business as usual from today. However, there is an urgent need for policies to catch-up with new technologies and also industries too should work closer with the government to help evolve policies for innovations,” Karnataka social welfare minister Priyank Kharge said in a tweet on Twitter.
Matrix Partners India, an investor in Ola Cabs, appreciated quick resolution of the issue.
“This speed of resolution is much appreciated and augurs well for the new India! Great to see younger ministers shedding the ways of the older ones and promoting speed and innovation,” Matrix Partners India founder and managing director Avnish Bajaj said.
The Karnataka transport department had on Friday suspended the licence of taxi aggregator Ola for six months, saying it was running bike taxis without permission.
(Source: PTI)
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