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Rohith Vemula's dalit status not established, says Commission

October 6, 2016

New Delhi, Oct 6: Raising questions on Rohith Vemula's dalit status, a commission constituted by HRD ministry after the Hyderabad university scholar's death has said the material on record did not establish it and attributed his suicide to personal reasons.

rohitThe Justice Roopanwal Commission, in its report to the HRD ministry, has given a clean chit to Union Ministers Smriti Irani and Bandaru Dattatreya, sources said.

The University authorities too have been absolved of any blame for Vemula's death as the Commission has held that they were not working under political pressure.

The Commission is learnt to have raised questions about Vemula's caste status as a dalit saying that there is no proof that his mother V Radhika belonged to "Mala" community.

The commission is learnt to have said that Vemula's mother could have given the statement that she belonged to the 'Mala' community to support the caste certificate which was issued to Vemula.

The Commission in its report noted that Vemula's mother was not told the names of her biological parents by her foster family, according to the sources. It is therefore unlikely that she would have been told the caste of her biological parents, the Commission is understood to have said.

HRD ministry officials have, however, maintained that ascertaining the caste status of Vemula was not part of the Terms of Reference of the Commission. Therefore they would only focus on those recommendations which aim at ensuring that such incidents do not happen in the future.

The suicide of Vemula had triggered a huge political furore with the then HRD minister Smriti Irani coming under attack along with Labour minister Bandaru Dattatreya for having written a letter related to the matter.

It is learnt that the Commission felt that Vemula have committed sucide because of his "personal frustrations".

In its recommendation, the Commission has emphasised that there should be a proper counselling mechanism not just for students but also for research scholars.

The sources said that in its recommendations, the Commission has also emphasised that there should be proper grievance redressal mechanisms and equal opportunity cells so that unfortunate incidents like Vemula suicide can be prevented.

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Mohidin
 - 
Thursday, 6 Oct 2016

No Surprise since commissioner was nominated by HRD under (Manu)Smriti Irani and her god father.

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News Network
March 25,2020

Mumbai, Mar 25: Maharashtra Health Minister Rajesh Tope on Wednesday confirmed that five people from a family in Sangli and four others from Mumbai tested positive for coronavirus, taking the total count to 116, which is the highest in any state of the country.
"The current count of COVID19 patients in the state of Maharashtra is 116. In Sangli, 5 people from one family are identified as positive due to contacts and 4 people from Mumbai are identified as positive due to travel history or contacts," Tope tweeted.
The state Health Minister informed that out of 116 people, 14 people have recovered and are in the process of being discharged from the hospitals.
"14 people from these have been recovered and are in the process of being discharged from the hospitals," he said in another tweet.
Meanwhile, the Sangli district administration in Maharashtra has released contact numbers for citizens to get home delivery of essential items during the 21-day lockdown to prevent the spread of coronavirus.
The police personnel and district administration will be in charge of facilitating delivery for the essential commodities during the lockdown.
The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) on Wednesday confirmed 539 positive cases of coronavirus in the country.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi had on Tuesday announced a 21-day lockdown in the entire country effective from midnight to deal with the spread of coronavirus, saying that "social distancing" is the only option to deal with the disease, which spreads rapidly.

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Agencies
July 30,2020

New Delhi, Jul 30: India's gold demand in 2020 is expected to fall to the lowest level in 26 years with domestic bullion prices hitting a record high and as falling disposable incomes could curtail retail purchases, the World Gold Council (WGC) said on Thursday.

Lower demand by the world's second-biggest bullion consumer could limit a rally in global prices, which hit a record high earlier this month, although it could also reduce India's trade deficit and support the ailing rupee.

"Fast rising gold prices could act as headwinds," said Somasundaram PR, the managing director of WGC's Indian operations.

Local gold futures have jumped 35% so far this year after rising a quarter in 2019.

India's gold consumption in the first half of 2020 plunged 56% on-year to 165.6 tonnes. Meanwhile, the coronavirus-triggered lockdown also slashed demand by 70% in the June quarter to 63.7 tonnes, the lowest in more than a decade, the WGC said in a report published on Thursday.

Millions of Indians have lost their jobs or taken a pay cut after the country imposed a lockdown on its 1.3 billion people to curb the spread of the virus that has infected more than 1.5 million Indians.

Consumption is generally high during the June quarter due to weddings and key festivals such as Akshaya Tritiya, but lockdown restrictions kept shoppers indoors this year.

The weak demand in the first half could drag down India's gold consumption in 2020 to the lowest since 1994, when demand stood at 415 tonnes, Somasundaram said, adding that it is still difficult to provide an estimate for full-year demand as the coronavirus crisis is still unfolding.

"Indian demand has previously jumped as much as 300 tonnes in a quarter. Latent demand could come out in the second half," Somasundaram said.

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Agencies
July 15,2020

New Delhi, Jul 15: Air India has started the process of identifying employees, based on various factors like efficiency, health and redundancy, who will be sent on compulsory leave without pay (LWP) for up to five years, according to an official order.

The airline's board of directors have authorised its Chairman and Managing Director Rajiv Bansal to send employees on LWP "for six months or for a period of two years extendable upto five years, depending upon the following factors - suitability, efficiency, competence, quality of performance, health of the employee, instance of non-availability of the employee for duty in the past as a result of ill health or otherwise and redundancy", the order said on Tuesday.

The departmental heads in the headquarter as well as regional directors are required to assess each employee "on the above mentioned factors and identify the cases where option of compulsory LWP can be exercised", stated the order dated July 14.

"Names of such employees need to be forwarded to the General Manager (Personnel) in headquarter for obtaining necessary approval of CMD," the order added.

In response to queries regarding this matter, Air India spokesperson said,"We would not like to make any comment on the issue."

Aviation sector has been significantly impacted due to the travel restrictions imposed in India and other countries due to the coronavirus pandemic. All airlines in India have taken cost-cutting measures such as pay cuts, LWP and firings of employees in order to conserve cash flow.

For example, GoAir has put most of its employees on compulsory LWP since April.

India resumed domestic passenger flights from May 25 after a gap of two months due to the coronavirus pandemic.

However, the airlines have been allowed to operate only a maximum of 45 per cent of their pre-COVID domestic flights. Occupancy rate in Indian domestic flights has been around 50-60 per cent since May 25.

Scheduled international passenger flights continue to remain suspended in India since March 23.

The passenger demand for air travel will contract by 49 per cent in 2020 for Indian carriers in comparison to 2019 due to COVID-19 crisis, said global airlines body IATA on Monday.

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