Congress, DMK form alliance for 2016 Tamil Nadu Assembly polls, seat sharing formula soon

February 13, 2016

Chennai, Feb 13: Senior Congress leader and Leader in Opposition in Rajya Sabha Ghulam Nabi Azad announced on Saturday that the party will contest the upcoming Assembly election in Tamil Nadu in an alliance with DMK.

DMKAzad, after meeting the DMK chief Karunanidhi at his residence in Chennai, announced the news to reporters, “DMK and Congress will fight Tamil Nadu assembly elections in alliance. Our mail goal is to put in place a government led by the DMK.”

When asked about the party's strategy on seat sharing, the senior Congress leader said that further discussion will take place with DMK leaders on the issue. He said that the election would be fought under the DMK leadership and put on Karunanidhi's party the responsibility of roping in more constituents into this alliance, including DMDK.

As to what had changed between 2016 and 2013 when DMK snapped ties accusing the Congress of betraying Sri Lankan Tamils, Azad said that there were "compulsions and pressures" in politics and that the two parties had won elections together in the past also.

The DMK-Congress split had also come against the backdrop of the arrests of former Union Minister A Raja and Karunanidhi's daughter Kanimozhi, a Rajya Sabha MP, in the alleged spectrum allocation scam.

Congress had contested the last Lok Sabha elections on its own and had drawn a blank. It had contested the last Assembly elections along with DMK but secured just five seats. Assembly strength in the state is 234.

Congress is out of power in the key southern state for nearly five decades and has generally been aligning with either of the Dravidian party- DMK or AIADMK. It has contested alone too but without much success.

A Congress delegation led by Azad on Saturday met DMK chief Karunanidhi at his residence in Chennai after which it was decided that the two former allies will join hands once again for the Assembly polls, to be held in April-May this year.

Earlier, reports were doing the rounds that the two parties were looking to revive their alliance and DMK chief Karunanidhi has invited Congress senior leaders at his residence to 'materialise the ties'.

The DMK came out of the UPA government in 2013 charging the then government in Centre of not handling the Sri Lankan Tamils issue properly.

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Agencies
June 26,2020

New Delhi, Jun 26: The Road Transport and Highways Ministry has issued a notification to enable citizens with mild to medium colour blindness to obtain a driving licence.

An official release said that the Ministry has been taking measures to enable divyangjan citizens to avail transport-related services, especially driving licence.

It said the ministry received representations that the colour blind citizens are not able to get a driving licence due to requirements in the declaration about physical fitness (Form I) or the medical certificate (Form IA).

The release said that the issue was taken up with expert medical institution and advice sought.

The recommendations received were that mild to medium colour blind citizens be allowed to drive and restrictions should only be on the severe colour blind citizens.

"This is also allowed in other parts of the world," the release said.

The notification seeks to amend Form 1 and Form 1A pertaining to Central Motor Vehicles Rules 1989.

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News Network
April 15,2020

New Delhi, Apr 15: The Union Health Ministry has identified 170 districts as COVID-19 hotspots and 207 districts as potential hotspots, officials said on Wednesday, reiterating that there has been no community transmission of the disease in the country so far.

Addressing the daily briefing to provide updates on coronavirus situation in the country, Joint Secretary in the Ministry of Health Lav Agarwal said that states have been asked to classify districts which have reported a higher number of cases as hotspots, the districts where cases have been reported as non-hotspots, and green zones where no cases have been reported.

"Hotspots are those districts which are reporting more number of cases or where the rate of growth of COVID-19 cases is high," Agarwal said, adding a detailed direction has been issued to states stating consolidated efforts are required to utilise this period of lockdown to curb the spread of the virus.

"Cabinet secretary held a video conference today with all chief secretaries, DGPs, health secretaries, collectors, SPs, municipal commissioners and CMOs where hotspots were discussed and orientation on field level implementation of containment strategy was given.

"They were told about large outbreak containment strategies, cluster containment strategies. Delineation of buffer and containment zone, parameter mapping, defining of entry and exit points were also discussed in detail," he said.

The joint secretary said movement of people will not be allowed in containment zones except for those related with essential services and special teams will search for new cases and samples will be collected and tested as per sampling criteria.

The officials said that health facilities in buffer zone outside the containment zone will be oriented and people facing SARI and influenza-like symptoms will be tested there.

"Special teams have been formed which will work in containment zone and do contact tracing and house-to-house surveys. Cases of fever, cough and breathlessness will be identified in the survey and requisite action will be taken as per protocol," Agarwal said, adding that there has been no community transmissions so far but some local outbreaks.

The total number of COVID-19 cases in India has risen to 11,439 with 1,076 fresh cases reported in the last 24 hours while the death toll stands at 377, the ministry official said.

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News Network
January 27,2020

New Delhi, Jan 27: Remember the story of two friends coming face-to-face with a bear in a forest? One of the two friends climbs the tree to save his life and the other, not knowing how to, lays on the ground, breathless, pretending to be dead.

Well, that lesson turned out to be useful for this man who pretended to be dead when a tiger had both his paws on the man's chest.

Yes, that is right. IFS officer Parveen Kaswan recently shared a video of a man lying under a tiger, with their faces extremely close to each other with the caption, "You want to see how does a narrow escape looks like in case of an encounter with a #tiger. #Tiger was cornered by the crowd. But fortunately, the end was fine for both man and tiger. Sent by a senior."

Another Twitter user shared the full 30-second video in the comments. He also said that the incident occured in Tumsar in Bhandara district, Maharashtra. The spine-chilling clip shows a tiger running freely in the fields trying to avoid people who have surrounded him and are trying to shoo him away.

In his quest to run away, the scared tiger grabs a human. When he sees that people are still approaching him and trying to scare him away, he gets up and runs away for his life. All this while, the man who was captured by the animal lays still on the ground and does not make an attempt to get free.

This is what stuck with Twitter and they are praising the man for his presence of mind.

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