BJP works for the interest of a few rich people, alleges Rahul Gandhi

Agencies
October 7, 2018

Morena, Oct 7: Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Saturday accused the BJP of working for the interest of a few rich people and ignoring the farmers and other sections of society.

At an event organised by tribal organisation Adivasi Ekta Parishad at Morena in Madhya Pradesh, he also raked up the multi-billion Rafale fighter jet deal with France to attack Prime Minister Narendra Modi .

Mr. Gandhi said his party would ensure the implementation of the tribal rights bill if voted to power in Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan, which go to the polls in November and December.

“If you want to help out the rich, do it… but also help the farmers and other poor sections of the society. If ₹3 lakh crore of the rich can be written off, then why not give such concessions to farmers and other poor sections of the society?” he said.

“The tribal bill is not a gift, but right of the tribal people. The tribal people must have their rights over land, water and forests,” he said.

The Scheduled Tribes and other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006, is a key piece of forest legislation passed when the Congress-led UPA was in power at the Centre.

Also called the tribal bill, it concerns the rights of forest dwelling communities to land and other resources denied to them for decades due to colonial forest laws.

Mr. Gandhi charged the Modi government with diluting the consent clause in the Land Acquisition Bill and also weakening the panchayati raj institutions.

He alleged that in the 2016 demonetisation exercise, black money became white, nobody went to jail and contrary to the BJP’s promise, no one received ₹15 lakh in their bank account.

'I always fulfil the promises I make to people'

He said that before taking a decision, unlike the BJP, he thought whether it would benefit the poor. “If the decision will harm the interests of the poor, I never go ahead with its implementation. On the other hand, the BJP thinks whether its decisions will benefit the rich.” He always fulfiled the promises he made to people, he added..

“I am in politics since 2004 and you can check my speeches. Give me one example where I have made promises like depositing ₹15 lakh in your bank account,” he said.

“In Karnataka, I promised that if the Congress returns to power, farmers will get a loan waiver. Accordingly, the Chief Minister implemented the decision after the new government was formed,” he said.

Mr. Gandhi said the BJP wanted to implement rural employment guarantee scheme MNREGA and Right to Food policies of the UPA through bureaucracy, while the erstwhile dispensation had empowered panchayats and pradhans (village heads) to take decisions regarding them.

“The bureaucracy doesn’t want these schemes, so their budgetary allocations have been reduced,” he alleged.

He accused the Modi government of letting liquor baron Vijay Mallya and diamantaire Nirav Modi flee the country with public money. “Nirav Modi robbed your money from the banks to the tune of ₹35,000 crore and fled the country. Similarly, Vijay Mallya took away ₹10,000 crore from the banks and informed [Finance Minister Arun Jaitley] before leaving the country. So far, no action is being taken in these two cases,” he alleged.

Reiterating his allegations on the Rafale fighter jet deal, he said Mr. Modi cancelled the contract that the UPA had signed with France and inked a new deal to buy the aircraft at a much higher price.

The Prime Minister gave the (offset) contract to his “friend” Anil Ambani instead of the state-run Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL), he alleged.

NDA's denial

The BJP-led NDA government had repeatedly denied any irregularity in the ₹58,000 crore deal.

Mr. Ambani had also rejected Mr. Gandhi’s allegations and emphasised that the government had no role in Dassault, the French makers of Rafale, choosing his company as offset partner.

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News Network
April 29,2020

New Delhi, Apr 29: India's tally of COVID-19 cases has reached 31,332, said the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare on Wednesday. With 73 more deaths reported, the number of deaths due to coronavirus in the country breached the 1,000 mark and stood at 1,007.

The tally is inclusive of 22,629 active coronavirus cases, 7,695 patients who have been cured/discharged and one patient migrated.

According to the Ministry, Maharashtra has the most number of COVID-19 cases with 9,318 cases of which, 1,388 patients have been cured/discharged while 400 patients have succumbed to the virus.

Gujarat has the second-highest number of positive cases in the country with 3744 cases including 434 patients cured/discharged and 181 deaths.

Delhi's tally stands at 3314 cases of which, 1078 patients have recovered while 54 patients have succumbed to the virus.

Madhya Pradesh has a total of 2387 positive cases including 377 patients recovered/discharged and 120 fatalities.

Meanwhile, Goa (seven cases; all seven recovered), Arunachal Pradesh (one case; now recovered), Manipur (two cases; both recovered), Tripura (two cases; both recovered) have reported no new cases of COVID-19.

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Agencies
June 16,2020

As the Indian workforce navigates a shrinking job market in lockdown times, two in five professionals believe that the number of jobs and scheduled interviews will decrease in the next two weeks, a new LinkedIn survey said on Tuesday.

The news comes as bittersweet for Indian professionals as more than one in three stated they will now spend more time working on their resumes and preparing for interviews.

Professionals from healthcare, manufacturing and corporate service industries anticipate a decrease in personal spending and personal investments in the next six months, according to the findings of the fortnightly LinkedIn Workforce Confidence Index based on responses from 2,903 professionals in the country.

This findings showed that while India's overall confidence remains steady, the country's confidence in jobs is beginning to trend downward.

However, employees at large enterprises (firms with over 10,000 workers) are more confident about the future of their employers when compared to their peers from mid-market and SMB companies.

The findings showed that 41 % of enterprise professionals think their companies will do better in the next six months, while 63 % think their companies will be better off one year from now.

However, "the enterprise professionals are least confident about the future of their jobs, finances and careers, when compared to their SMB and mid-market peers".

The findings showed that 52 % of healthcare, 48% of corporate services, and 41 % of manufacturing professionals anticipate a decrease in investments in the next 6 months.

Over the past three months, many organizations have shifted to a remote working model to circumvent the pandemic and ensure business continuity.

Three in five marketing professionals feel confident about being effective when working remotely, joined by more than half of project management and engineering professionals, who are also confident about the effectiveness of remote working.

In contrast to this optimism, only 39 % of HR, 36% of finance, and 31 % of education professionals think they would be effective when working remotely, said the survey.

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News Network
May 14,2020

May 14: The UN’s children agency has warned that an additional 6,000 children could die daily from preventable causes over the next six months as the COVID-19 pandemic weakens the health systems and disrupts routine services, the first time that the number of children dying before their fifth birthday could increase worldwide in decades.

As the coronavirus outbreak enters its fifth month, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) requested USD 1.6 billion to support its humanitarian response for children impacted by the pandemic.

The health crisis is “quickly becoming a child rights crisis. And without urgent action, a further 6,000 under-fives could die each day,” it said.

With a dramatic increase in the costs of supplies, shipment and care, the agency appeal is up from a USD 651.6 million request made in late March – reflecting the devastating socioeconomic consequences of the disease and families’ rising needs.

"Schools are closed, parents are out of work and families are under strain," UNICEF Executive Director Henrietta Fore said on Tuesday.

 “As we reimagine what a post-COVID world would look like, these funds will help us respond to the crisis, recover from its aftermath, and protect children from its knock-on effects.”

The estimate of the 6,000 additional deaths from preventable causes over the next six months is based on an analysis by researchers from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, published on Wednesday in the Lancet Global Health Journal.

UNICEF said it was based on the worst of three scenarios analysing 118 low and middle-income countries, estimating that an additional 1.2 million deaths could occur in just the next six months, due to reductions in routine health coverage, and an increase in so-called child wasting.

Around 56,700 more maternal deaths could also occur in just six months, in addition to the 144,000 likely deaths across the same group of countries. The worst case scenario, of children dying before their fifth birthdays, would represent an increase "for the first time in decades,” Fore said.

"We must not let mothers and children become collateral damage in the fight against the virus. And we must not let decades of progress on reducing preventable child and maternal deaths, be lost,” she said.

Access to essential services, like routine immunisation, has already been compromised for hundreds of millions of children and threatens a significant increase in child mortality.

According to a UNICEF analysis, some 77 per cent of children under the age of 18 worldwide are living in one of 132 countries with COVID-19 movement restrictions.

The UN agency also spotlighted that the mental health and psychosocial impact of restricted movement, school closures and subsequent isolation are likely to intensify already high levels of stress, especially for vulnerable youth.

At the same time, they maintained that children living under restricted movement and socio-economic decline are in greater jeopardy of violence and neglect. Girls and women are at increased risk of sexual and gender-based violence.

The UNICEF pointed out that in many cases, refugee, migrant and internally displaced children are experiencing reduced access to protection and services while being increasingly exposed to xenophobia and discrimination.

“We have seen what the pandemic is doing to countries with developed health systems and we are concerned about what it would do to countries with weaker systems and fewer available resources,” Fore said.

In countries suffering from humanitarian crises, UNICEF is working to prevent transmission and mitigate the collateral impacts on children, women and vulnerable populations – with a special focus on access to health, nutrition, water and sanitation, education and protection.

To date, the UN agency said it has received USD 215 million to support its pandemic response, and additional funding will help build upon already-achieved results.

Within its response, UNICEF has reached more than 1.67 billion people with COVID-19 prevention messaging around hand washing and cough and sneeze hygiene; over 12 million with critical water, sanitation and hygiene supplies; and nearly 80 million children with distance or home-based learning.

The UN agency has also shipped to 52 countries, more than 6.6 million gloves, 1.3 million surgical masks, 428,000 N95 respirators and 34,500 COVID-19 diagnostic tests, among other items.

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