Akhilesh skips SP leaders' meeting; meets them separately

October 21, 2016

Lucknow, Oct 21: The chasm in UP's ruling Samajwadi Party grew wider today with Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav skipping an important meeting called by state party chief Shivpal Yadav to strategise for the assembly polls due early next year where the latter declared him the party's chief ministerial face.Akhilesh-Yadav

Akhilesh, however, met the delegates, who earlier attended the meeting called by Shivpal, at his residence separately.

Shivpal had convened a meeting of SP district and city units presidents at the party headquarters earlier in the day but Akhilesh was conspicuous by his absence.

At the strategy session for the assembly polls due early next year, Shivpal, apparently seeking to bury the hatchet, declared nephew Akhilesh the party's chief ministerial face.

"Akhilesh Yadav will be the next CM, if party is voted to power. He will be our CM candidate," Shivpal said, days after Mulayam virtually left the field open by saying the newly elected legislators will choose their leader, something which did not go down well with the camp followers of the incumbent CM.

Though Shivpal, the younger brother of SP supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav, had met Akhilesh personally last night to invite him to the meeting, the Chief Minister kept away, indicating all was not well in the party despite repeated protestations by its senior leaders to the contrary.

After the meeting was over, a cryptic message went out from 5-Kalidas Marg residence of the Chief Minister that Akhilesh wanted to meet the district party presidents at a short notice.

At the brief meeting, Akhilesh apprised them of his 'rath yatra' scheduled from November 3 and said that they would be kept informed about it.

He asked them to work hard in their respective areas to reap a bumber electoral harvest and "everything will be fine".

The meeting of SP district heads was held a day ahead of the party' state executive meet. Mulayam has also convened a meeting of party legislators and ministers on October 24 to "gauge the mood" of partymen and people of their area.

Shivpal asked the district party chiefs to gear up for elections and also to make the party's silver jubilee celebrations on November 5 in the state capital a big success.

Akhilesh, with whom Shivpal is engaged in a running feud over the last few months, has already made it clear in a letter to the Samajwadi Party boss and his father Mulayam that he would be proceeding on his 'rath yatra' on November 3 to highlight the development work done by his government, in a clear indication that he would skip the November 5 event too.

With the tense stand-off between Akhilesh and Shivpal continuing, speculation about a possible split is rife with some even suggesting that a new party named National Samajwadi Party or Pragatisheel Samajwadi party with motorcycle as its symbol could be formed by the Chief Minister ahead of the assembly elections.

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News Network
July 13,2020

New Delhi, July 13: The number of active Covid-19 cases in India crossed the 3 lakh mark on Sunday even as fresh infections during the day surged to another new peak, crossing 29,000 for the first time. After staying over 500 for the past two days, the daily death toll came down slightly to 492.

While the focus has been on recoveries, the number of active Covid-19 cases in the country has been steadily rising. It hit the 1 lakh mark on June 4 and went past 2 lakh 23 days later. It has taken just 15 days more to reach 3 lakh.

India reported 29,271 new cases on Sunday, the fifth straight day of record rise in daily infections. With this, the country’s coronavirus caseload has risen to 8,79,060, two days after hitting the 8 lakh mark, as per data collated from state governments. Active cases stood at 3,02,466 while more than 5.53 lakh people were declared cured of the infection.

Covid-19 deaths in the country rose to 23,175 after 492 fatalities were added on Sunday, translating to a case fatality rate of 2.6%. The CFR has been steadily dropping with the surge in cases.
 

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News Network
June 23,2020

New Delhi, Jun 23: In an unexpected development, the pump price of diesel is all set to surpass the petrol price in the capital, making it the most expensive transport fuel for the first time in a long time.

Globally, diesel is priced slightly above petrol prices due to the very nature of the product that has a higher cost of production. But in India, due to the lopsided taxation structure, diesel attracts lesser of the tax between the two auto fuels keeping its prices lower than petrol for last several years.

Diesel is currently priced at Rs 79.40 a litre in the Capital, just 36 paise short of petrol price that is being retailed at Rs 79.76 a litre. Going by the trend of price movement in the two products for the last few days where diesel prices have consistently increased by 50-60 paise per litre while the daily increase in petrol prices have fallen to just 20 paise on Tuesday, it is set to surpass petrol prices in next few days.

"Diesel price movement is sharper in international market and if oil companies follow the global price trend, diesel prices will surpass that of petrol later this week. It will be after many years that this would happen and is expected to sustain for some time unless government changes the tax structure of the petroleum products again," said an oil sector expert from one of the big four audit and advisory firms asking not to be named.

Interestingly, even in India the base price of diesel is expensive than petrol. According to the Indian Oil Corporation (IOC), while the base price of petrol in Delhi currently comes to Rs 22.11 per litre, the same for diesel is higher at Rs 22.93 per litre (effective from June 16, 2020). This has been the case for a long time, but retail price of petrol can be higher than diesel due to central and state taxes.

What has now brought diesel prices to a whisker of petrol prices in the capital is the Delhi government's decision early May to increase the Value Added Tax on diesel from 16.75 per cent to 30 per cent and on petrol from 27 per cent to 30 per cent. This increased the retail price of diesel and petrol in Delhi by Rs 7.10 and Rs 1.67 a litre respectively. With Central taxes on the two products already reaching identical levels, the Delhi governments move hastened price parity between petrol and diesel.

Currently, the Central excise on petrol is Rs 32.98 a litre while that on diesel it is Rs 31.83 a litre. The VAT on petrol in Delhi is Rs 17.71 a litre and that on diesel is Rs 17.60 a litre.

While the movement of retail pricing is being seen with a sigh of relief by vehicle owners whose cars run on petrol, those buying the relatively expensive diesel cars are now repenting on their decision. The development is also being seen with caution by automobile companies who have spent millions to ramp up their facilities for diesel run vehicles. The expectation is that demand for such cars will now fall, causing more damage to companies where sales are already impacted due to persistent economic slowdown and now the spread of COVID-19 pandemic.

"The pricing development would push automobile companies to strategies being followed by companies in the western markets where diesel run cars are not sold on fuel pricing differential, but on overall make and quality that puts them ahead of petrol run cars," the expert quoted earlier.

Yes, but for commercial vehicle sector the rising price of diesel had not been welcomed. In fact, the commercial transport sector had time an again threatened strike against the move to raise fuel prices.

With petrol and diesel retail prices closing, the case for adultering fuel has also gone down much to the relief of vehicle owners.

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News Network
February 10,2020

Hyderabad, Feb 10: All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) chief Asaduddin Owaisi continued his tirade against PM Modi and Amit Shah against Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), National Population Register (NPR) and National Register of Citizens (NRC). "We are ready to take bullets in our chests but we will not show our papers.

We are ready to take bullets in our chests as we love our country," Owaisi said further.

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