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Ansari row: Modi govt apologises for Ram Madhav's rants

June 22, 2015

New Delhi, Jun 22: The government of India today apologised for BJP leader Ram Madhav's vulgar criticism of Vice President Hamid Ansari's absence at the Yoga Day celebrations here over which the Congress accused it of playing "divisive" politics.

Union Minister Shripad Naik cited protocol to say that the Vice President can't be invited to an event where the Prime Minister is chief guest amid reports that the government is upset with the needless controversy triggered by Madhav's tweets.

ram"Unknowingly something happens, we apologise for that. It should have been avoided. It's a mistake, he(Madhav) agrees, he apologised. He withdrew his statement," Naik said when asked to comment on Madhav's controversial tweets yesterday.

About the warrant of precedence, Naik said, "When the Prime Minister is chief guest, then inviting the Vice President is not proper. That is protocol. That's why we did not send the invite to him. President and Vice President are above the Prime Minister as per order of precedence and we cannot invite them accordingly."

Naik is the Minister of State for AYUSH--the Ministry that organised the International Day of Yoga event at Rajpath.

Asked about the controversy and the accusation he was "targeting" the Vice President, Madhav said, "As far as the tweet is concerned, it was withdrawn and the matter is closed there and ends there."

Madhav, who was deputed by the RSS last July to work with the BJP, said there is no further discussion on the issue from his side.

"I want the Yoga event to be remembered for millions and millions of people who have participated in it. I do not want any further controversy over it or any issue," he told reporters in Jammu.

The Vice President's Office said the matter is closed for them as Naik's statement "seems logical".

"For us that's the end of the matter," it said

Congress accused BJP of playing "divisive politics" on the International Day of Yoga by targeting Ansari and demanded that Madhav tender an apology.

"The Vice President has been targeted on International Yoga Day. While yoga is all inclusive, BJP has showed its divisive politics by such an action. Ram Madhav should apologise," party spokesperson R P N Singh told reporters.

Meanwhile, in a veiled dig at Prime Minister Narendra Modi, BJP patriarch L K Advani has said that several senior leaders of the party had made "great contribution" to yoga which is an age old "concept".

"The hypothesis/concept of yoga is not of today. The Jan Sangh, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and senior leaders of BJP made great contribution to it," Advani said at a yoga event in Palampur in Himachal Pradesh yesterday.

AICC general secretary Shakeel Ahmad said Madhav's statement was unfortunate.
"Certainly it is very unfortunate and this shows the mindset of the RSS, because Mr Ram Madhav is the representative of the RSS in the BJP, that how they are trying to divide the society or how they try to politicise Yoga."

...targetting the Vice-President of this country exclusively on the basis of his name or you may call it by basis of his religion is certainly unfortunate and it shows simply the mentality of RSS and BJP," he added.

NCP wondered whether the vice president was excluded because of his religion.
"Is it because he is Muslim? The government and the PM must answer how a vice president was not invited. It is a serious omission," said NCP leader Majid Memon.

Madhav had yesterday stoked a controversy by questioning Ansari's absence at the Yoga Day event but later apologised after he was criticised on the social media platform.

Ansari's office had said he was not invited to the Yoga Day event in the capital after Madhav questioned his absence.

Madhav had deleted the tweet about Ansari's absence and apologised, saying he later learnt that the Vice President was unwell.

The Vice President's office, however, said it was not correct. "Vice President was not sick. He was never invited for the yoga programme," it said, adding, "the Vice President only attends those programmes in which the Minister concerned invites him as per protocol".

According to reports, Ansari practises yoga regularly and did yoga at his residence yesterday.

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Agencies
July 8,2020

New Delhi, Jul 8: India has reported a spike of 22,752 COVID-19 cases in the last 24 hours, taking the country's coronavirus tally to 7,42,417 on Wednesday, informed the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.

Out of the total cases reported, 4,56,830 patients have been cured/discharged from the disease while one patient has been migrated, the Health Ministry informed.

It added that there are 2,64,944 active cases in the country.

482 deaths reported in the last 24 hours due to COVID-19 in the country, taking India's death toll to 20,642.

According to the Union Health Ministry, Maharashtra continues to be the worst affected state reporting 2,17,121 coronavirus cases and 9,250 fatalities.

Tamil Nadu -- the second worst-affected state from COVID-19 -- has a total of 1,18,594 cases and 1,636 deaths due to coronavirus.

While Delhi has a total of 1,02,831 COVID-19 cases including 3,165 deaths.

The Indian Council of Medical Research on Wednesday informed that a total of 1,04,73,771 samples tested for COVID-19 up to July 7. Of these, 2,62,679 samples were tested on Tuesday.

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News Network
April 15,2020

New Delhi, Apr 15: Tablighi Jamaat leader Maulana Saad Kandhalvi has been booked for culpable homicide after some of the attendees of the religious congregation died due to coronavirus, police said on Wednesday.

Kandhalvi had organised the religious gathering at Nizamuddin Markaz last month against the social distancing protocol imposed by the Centre to curb the spread of the deadly disease.

An FIR was registered against the cleric on March 31 at Crime Branch police station on a complaint of the Station House Officer of Nizamuddin.

He was earlier booked for holding the event, police said.

“After several attendees of the Tablighi Jamaat event succumbed to coronavirus, we added IPC section 304 (culpable homicide not amounting to murder) in the FIR against the leader, a police official said.

Some foreigners who attended the event have also been booked for violation of visa norms.

In an audio message, Kandhalvi had said that he was exercising self-quarantine after several hundreds who visited the Tablighi Jamaat congregation at Nizamudddin Markaz tested positive for coronavirus.

The FIR registered against the Tablighi Jamaat event says that the Delhi Police contacted the authorities of Nizamuddin Markaz on March 21 and reminded them of the government order which prohibited any political or religious gathering of more than 50 people.

It says that despite repeated efforts, the event organisers failed to inform the health department or any other government agency about the huge gathering inside the Markaz and deliberately disobeyed government orders.

“The sub district magistrate of Defence Colony inspected the premises several times and found that around 1,300 people, including foreign nationals, were residing there without maintaining social distance. It was also found that there were no arrangements of hand sanitizers and face masks,” the FIR adds.

The Nizamudddin centre, attended by thousands, turned out to be a hotspot for spread of coronavirus not only in the national capital, but the entire country.

More than 25,500 Tablighi members and their contacts have been quarantined in the country after the Centre and the state governments conducted a "mega operation" to identify them.

At least 9,000 people participated in the religious congregation in Nizamuddin. Later, many of the attendees travelled to various parts of the country.

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Agencies
August 6,2020

Mumbai, Aug 6: Former Reserve Bank of India governor Raghuram Rajan said on Thursday that overly focusing on what sovereign rating agencies think can take one's eyes off what needs to be done for the economy.

"It is also important to convince both domestic and international investors that after the crisis associated with the pandemic is over, we will return to fiscal responsibility over the medium term, and the government should do more to convince them of that," Rajan told the Global Markets Forum.

India was placed under one of the strictest lockdowns in the world in late March for more than two months to stem the spread of the coronavirus, but cases have continued to rise steadily since the government eased restrictions in June, stymieing hopes of an economic recovery.

The government has announced several initiatives to help the poor and small- and medium-size businesses, but actual cash outgo from the government's measures has been estimated at just about 1% of GDP.

Several attribute the fiscal prudence to fear of a downgrade after Moody's cut India's rating and outlook in early June followed closely by a change in outlook from Fitch.

The central bank on its part too has reduced the key lending rate by 115 basis points on top of the 135 bps last year and is widely expected to cut rates by another 25 bps later on Thursday.

"The RBI and government have certainly been cooperating, but it seems like it is elsewhere, the ball is in the government's court to do more," Rajan said.

He said the RBI needs to focus on whether credit is reaching the stressed areas of the economy and also if the viable firms were able to access credit and not the unviable ones.

"And I think that's where it has to focus its attentions, because resources, as you well know, are limited in India today."

Recently analysts, however, have cited the growing possibility the RBI may prefer to pause and cut rates only at its October meeting.

Government officials too have suggested the possibility of any more fiscal stimulus being announced, would only come in the second half of the fiscal year, once a recovery has taken root and coronavirus cases have peaked.

"What India should focus on at this point is protecting its economic capabilities, so that when it has dealt with the virus it can go resume activity in a reasonable way. That should be the focus," Rajan said.

"And if it does that, there is no reason why the rating agencies will not see that as an appropriate policy".

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