SC pulls up Karnataka for seeking Rs 15 lakh for Ma’adani’s escort

Agencies
August 3, 2017

Bengaluru, Aug 3: The Supreme Court has pulled up Karnataka government for raising a bill of about Rs 15 lakh for police escort, accompanying Kerala's People Democratic Party leader Abdul Naser Ma’adani on his visit to home state for attending son's marriage.

"Is this the way you carry out the orders of the Supreme Court? Don't scuttle these things. We expect some seriousness on the part of the state," a bench of Justices S A Bobde and L Nageswara Rao told Karnataka standing counsel Joseph Aristotle.

"Why you want to make it impossible," the bench further asked the state.

Advocates Prashant Bhushan and Haris Beeran, representing Maudany, submitted that the apex court's order of July 31 for allowing him to visit Kerala was sought to be frustrated by the state government. They said the state raised a demand of Rs 15 lakh from Maudany for providing him escort during his stay over there from August 2 to 14.

They also questioned huge posse of policemen, 19 in number, in the escort.

Karnataka counsel, for his part, maintained that the amount charged on Ma’adani was as per 1991 circular. He contended that the state had already spent Rs 6 crore on Ma’adani.

The court, however, pointed out these policemen were otherwise being paid salary. The state can only charge to the extent of TA/DA.

The bench granted time till Friday to the state counsel to take instructions on the issue.

During the hearing, the court also came down heavily on Kerala government counsel G Prakash as he expressed readiness of the state to provide security to Ma’adani during his stay.

"You don't have anything to do with it. He is in custody of Karnataka police," the bench told him.

The court had on July 31 allowed Ma’adani to visit his home state to attend his son's wedding. However, it had refused to alter the direction to bear the cost of police escort by him.

51-year-old Ma’adani, facing trial in the 2008 Bengaluru serial blasts case, challenged the city court's order of July 24, declining him to attend son's marriage functions between August 8 to 20. Though the trial court allowed him to visit his ailing mother between August 1 and 7, it refused the permission to attend the marriage function scheduled on August 9.

The Bengaluru court told him to bear cost of police escort, which, petitioner claimed, would be around Rs 20 lakh.

Ma’adani sought permission to visit Thallasery, Ernakulum and Kollam to attend various functions, ceremonies and reception of his son's wedding.

Comments

Khader
 - 
Thursday, 3 Aug 2017

How many years they will crusify him. If he did crime then punish or leave him free. There are some human rights should get even for a criminal

Hari
 - 
Thursday, 3 Aug 2017

Siddu wants to loot money by telling Ma'adani's escort

Sangeeth
 - 
Thursday, 3 Aug 2017

No need of spending this much money. Just arrange to get DVD of his son's wedding and wedding day food also serve to him in jail. 

Vivek
 - 
Thursday, 3 Aug 2017

PDP fools tried to make hartal to protest. They miserably failed and abandoned hartal try

Gokul
 - 
Thursday, 3 Aug 2017

Why govt wasting money for this kind of criminals. Should kill those people soon after their arrest

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News Network
February 26,2020

Mysuru, Feb 26: Twenty-nine students of the Government Primary School fell sick after consuming milk supplied at the school on Wednesday morning at Kiranguru village, in Hanagodu hobli, in the hunsur taluk in the district.

Police said the students were immediately rushed to the primary health centre in Hanagodu and provided first aid.

Tahsildar and Police personnel visited the health centre and inquired about the health of the students. "All the students are responding to the treatment," sources said.

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coastaldigest.com news network
January 8,2020

Mangaluru, Jan 8: No bandh-like situation prevailed in the coastal district of Dakshina Kannada, despite a nationwide strike called by trade union employees. Day-to-day activities are not disturbed, as buses and auto-rickshaws are moving as usual. 

However, in Bunder area, one of the business hubs of Mangaluru city, most of the shops today remained shut. As a result business was partially hit in the coastal city.

In other parts of Mangaluru city business firms, and market places are also open. Schools and colleges have not declared a holiday. government offices are also functioning as usually.

However, branches of many banks, excluding SBI, are closed for customers.

Members of various trade unions took out a rally and staged a protest in front of the Town Hall in Mangaluru.

Along with minimum wages, cancellation of contract labour system, no privatisation, welfare of farmers and other demands were also highlighted by the protestors. 

Slogans were also raised against Prime Minister Narendra Modi and anti-labour policies of his government. 

Members of AITUC, TUCC, AIUTUC, AIDYO, AIBEA, BSNLEU, INTUC, AIIEA, and associations of Anganwadi workers, mid-day meal workers, medical representatives, KSRTC employees, gram panchayat employees, and others took part in the protest.

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News Network
May 28,2020

May 28: Abdul Kareem was forced out of school and into a life of odd jobs like repairing bicycles before he finally managed to pull his family out of abject poverty transporting goods across Delhi in a mini truck.

The job, and the slim financial security that came with it, was the first stepping stone to a better life.

All that is now gone as India reels under the economic impact of its protracted coronavirus lockdown. Mr Kareem's out of a job and stranded in his village in Uttar Pradesh with his wife and two children. Their minuscule savings from his Rs 9,000 a month job have been exhausted, and the money he saved for books and school uniforms is spent.

"I don't know what the job situation will be in Delhi once we go back," Mr Kareem said. "We can't stay hungry so I will do whatever I find."

At least 49 million people across the world are expected to plunge into "extreme poverty" -- those living on less than $1.90 per day -- as a direct result of the pandemic's economic destruction and India leads that projection, with the World Bank estimating some 12 million of its citizens will be pushed to the very margins this year.

Some 122 million Indians were forced out of jobs last month alone, according to estimates from the Center for Monitoring Indian Economy, a private sector think tank. Daily wage workers and those employed by small businesses have taken the worst hit. These include hawkers, roadside vendors, workers employed in the construction industry and many who eke out a living by pushing handcarts and rickshaws.

For Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who came to power in 2014 promising to lift the poorest citizens out of poverty, the fallout from the lockdown brings with it significant political risk. He won an even larger second term majority last year on the strength of his government's popular social programs that directly targeted the poor, such as the provision of cooking gas cylinders, power and public housing. The breadth and depth of this renewed economic pain will only increase the pressure on his government as it works to steer the country's economy back on track.

"Much of the Indian government's efforts to mitigate poverty over the years could be negated in a matter of just a few months," said Ashwajit Singh, managing director of IPE Global, a development sector consultancy that advises several multinational aid agencies. Noting that he did not expect unemployment rates to improve this year, Singh said: "More people could die from hunger than the virus."

Desperate Times

Mr Singh points to a United Nations University study estimating 104 million Indians could fall below the World Bank-determined poverty line of $3.2 a day for lower-middle-income countries. This will take the proportion of people living in poverty from 60% -- or 812 million currently, to 68% or 920 million -- a situation last seen in the country more than a decade ago, he said.

A World Bank report found the country had been making significant progress and was close to losing its status as the country with the most poor citizens. The impact of PM Modi's lockdown risks reversing those gains.

The World Bank and the CMIE estimates were published in late April and early May respectively. Since then the situation has only become grimmer, with harrowing images of people making desperate attempts to reach their villages, on crowded buses, the flatbeds of trucks and even on foot or on bicycles dominating media coverage.

The Rustandy Center for Social Sector Innovation at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business analyzed the unemployment data from the CMIE, collected through surveys covering about 5,800 homes across 27 states in April.

Researchers found rural areas were the hardest hit, and the economic misery was the result of the lockdown, rather than the spread of infections in the hinterland. More than 80% of households had experienced a drop income and many won't survive much longer without aid, they wrote in a report.

The government has promised cheap credit to farmers, direct transfer of money to the poor and eased access to food security programs -- but these help people who have some documentation, which many of the poorest don't. With millions of impoverished people now in transit across the country, the food security situation is dire -- news reports are emerging of people foraging through piles of rotting fruit or eating leaves.

Shattered Economy

The economy was already growing at its slowest pace in over a decade when the virus struck. The lockdown, which came into effect on March 25, has hammered it, stalling business activity and putting a lid on consumption, pushing the economy to what may be its first full-year contraction in more than four decades.

It's dire enough to warrant the country exiting its lockdown, as it has been doing incrementally since May 4, even as its infections are surging. India is now Asia's virus hotspot with infections crossing 151,000 according to data from Johns Hopkins University.

PM Modi, who has come under criticism for the pain inflicted on the poor, has said his government will spend $265 billion or about 10% of its GDP to help Asia's third-largest economy weather the pandemic's fallout. But experts say only a part of it is direct fiscal stimulus, and probably smaller than the total damage done to the economy during the lockdown period.

"What is especially worrying is the government's response," said Reetika Khera, an economics professor at the Indian Institute of Technology in Delhi. "The epidemic will magnify existing -- and already high -- inequalities in India."

Still, the economic measures aren't going to kick in for some time and industry will likely struggle to restart because of the flight of labour from industrial hubs.

And as the harsh summer unfolds more pain lies in store in the villages now dealing with returning migrant workers.

"There are no factories or industries here, there are just hills," said Surendra Hadia Damor, who had walked nearly 100 km from Ahmedabad, Gujarat, before a voluntary organisation drove him to his village in the neighboring state of Rajasthan. "We can survive for a month or two and then try and find a job nearby -- we will see what happens."

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