After Rampal, Gurmeet Ram Rahim's Dera Sacha Sauda under scanner

December 1, 2014

Ram RahimChandigarh, Dec 1: After Sant Rampal, Gurmeet Ram Rahim of the Dera Sacha Sauda sect has come under the scanner.

While hearing a case relating to Rampal, the Punjab and Haryana High Court observed on Friday that activities of the Sirsa-based sect should be monitored periodically by the top brass of Haryana, including government and police.

The court also observed that there was a need to carry out searches inside the Dera premises to recover any illegal arms and ammunition in order to prevent any bloody confrontation in the future similar to the one witnessed during the operation against Rampal.

The court made the observations just days after Rampal was arrested from his Satlok Ashram at Barwala in Haryana's Hisar district following a pitched battle between police and his supporters. A cache of arms was later recovered from the ashram.

The HC observations came after it took note of inputs that private commandos were being trained by some former Army personnel and armed with illegal weapons inside the Dera Sacha Sauda premises. The court said such developments pose a challenge “to the State”.

While making the observations, the court recalled that Dera head Gurmeet Ram Rahim was facing cases of murder and rape, and in one instance had brought thousands of followers along with him to a sessions court.

"We take judicial notice of the fact that Gurmeet Ram Rahim, head of said Dera Sacha Sauda is facing two graver cases of murder punishable under Section 302 IPC and one equally serious case of rape punishable under Section 376 IPC. He had also chosen to bring thousands and thousands of followers to the premises of the Sessions Division where the sessions trial was originally taken up," the division bench headed by Justice M Jeyapaul observed.

"Search of Dera to unearth illegal arms and ammunitions and monitoring its activities on periodic basis is the absolute need of the hour to avoid future bloody confrontation. Casualty will be more in dimension compared to the one we had faced while executing warrant of arrest as against contemnor Rampal," the bench added.

The court has, meanwhile, referred the matter to the chief justice's bench for appropriate action.

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Agencies
March 6,2020

New Delhi, Mar 6: After Yes Bank was placed under moratorium, digital payments were impacted as PhonePe, which depends on the cash-strapped lender for its transactions, could not operate.

It can be noted that the bank's own net banking facilities have not been operational since last evening. Other fintech operators who rely on Yes Bank to settle their transactions are also down.  “We sincerely regret the long outage. Our partner bank (Yes Bank) was placed under moratorium by RBI. Entire team's been working all night to get services back up asap (as soon as possible),” the app's chief executive Sameer Nigam tweeted early in the morning.

PhonePe, one of the country's largest digital payment platforms, is dependent on Yes Bank to process its transactions.

He added that the app hopes to be live in a “few hours”.

Yes Bank placed under a moratorium Thursday evening, with the RBI capping deposit withdrawals at Rs 50,000 per account for a month and superseding its board.

Yes Bank will not be able to grant or renew any loan or advance, make any investment, incur any liability or agree to disburse any payment.

For the next month, Yes Bank will led by the RBI-appointed administrator Prashant Kumar, an ex-chief financial officer of SBI.

He added that the app - one of the most popular interfaces for UPI transactions - hopes to be live in a “few hours”.

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News Network
February 14,2020

New Delhi, Feb 14: AAP convenor Arvind Kejriwal has invited Prime Minister Narendra Modi to his swearing-in ceremony scheduled to take place at the Ramlila Maidan on February 16, senior party leader Gopal Rai said on Friday.

Rai, the convenor of the Aam Aadmi Party's Delhi unit, said a letter was sent to the prime minister on Friday morning.

All seven Delhi MPs and eight newly-elected BJP MLAs have also been invited for the oath-taking ceremony, Rai told news agency.

No chief minister or political leaders from other states will be part of the event as it will be a "Delhi-specific" ceremony, Rai had said on Thursday.

Kejriwal, through front-page advertisements in newspapers, has urged Delhiites to attend his oath-taking ceremony as he is set to become the chief minister of Delhi for the third consecutive term.

Kejriwal will take oath as Delhi Chief minister along with his cabinet at Ramlila Maidan at 10 am on Sunday.

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News Network
January 9,2020

Srinagar, Jan 9: Envoys from 15 countries including the United States were shown around Srinagar on Thursday, the first visit by New Delhi-based diplomats since the government stripped Kashmir of its semi-autonomous status and began a harsh crackdown five months ago.

The diplomats were driven by Indian authorities in a motorcade amid tight security from the airport to the military headquarters in Srinagar, where they were briefed on the security situation, an army officer said. He spoke on condition of anonymity as he was not authorized to speak to reporters.

They also held discussions with civil society members and some Kashmiri politicians, said Raveesh Kumar, spokesman for the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA).

The objective of the visit, organized by the Union government, was for the envoys to see first-hand “how things have progressed and how normalcy has been restored to a large extent'' in Kashmir since August, Kumar told reporters in New Delhi.

In October, a group of European Parliament members had visited the region, which is claimed by both India and Pakistan.

The delegation that visited Kashmir on Thursday included US ambassador to India Kenneth Juster and diplomats from Bangladesh, Vietnam, Norway, the Maldives, South Korea, Morocco, Niger, Nigeria, Argentina, the Philippines, Fiji, Uzbekistan, Peru and Togo.

Offices, shops and businesses were open in Srinagar on the cold winter day, but the diplomats did not stop to talk to people as they moved to different venues of their meetings.

They were to fly to Jammu, the winter capital of Kashmir, later Thursday and return to New Delhi on Friday.

Congress leader Jairam Ramesh pointed out the oddity of taking foreign diplomats to the troubled state but not allowing allowing Indian political leaders to freely visit it.

The National Conference said it was "disappointed" with the way the government brought envoys from various countries to "endorse" its "claims of normalcy" in the union territory. The party alleged that it was no more than a "guided tour" with access limited to "handpicked individuals who toe the government line".

“The NC wishes to ask these envoys that if the situation in Jammu & Kashmir is "normal", then why are scores of people, including three former chief ministers, under detention for almost 160 days and why have the people been denied access to the internet for over 5 months?" a statement issued by the party said.

Kumar dismissed as unfounded criticism of the visit, and said more such visits to Kashmir by New Delhi-based diplomats are likely in the near future.

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