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Dedicated party veterans, ex-bureaucrats in Modi's chosen nine

Agencies
September 3, 2017

New Delhi, Sep 3: The nine new members to be inducted in the Union council of ministers include four former senior bureaucrats and also BJP leaders from the states of Karnataka, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh which go to polls in the near future.

Here are their short profiles:

1) Sixty-four-year-old Ashwini Kumar Choubey was a health minister in Bihar. A BJP veteran, he was born at Dariyapur in Bhagalpur and did BSc (Hons) in zoology from the Science College, Patna University.

At present, he represents the Buxar Lok Sabha seat. Married to Neeta Choubey, he has two sons.

He was an active part of the JP Movement in the 1970s and was taken into custody during the Emergency. Chaubey is credited with for having raised the slogan -- "ghar-ghar me hoshouchalaya ka nirman, tabhihogaladlibitiya ka kanyadaan". He has helped in the construction of 11,000 toilets for Mahadalit families.

2) Virendra Kumar, 63, is the Lok Sabha MP from Tikamgarh in Madhya Pradesh. From the convenor of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), District Sagar in 1977-79 to now being set to become a Union minister, it has been a long journey for Kumar, who was elected for a sixth Lok Sabha term in 2014.

Kumar had participated in the JP Movement and was in jail for 16 months during the Emergency. He hails from the Scheduled Caste community and hold a masters degree in economics and a PhD in child labour.

3) Sixty-five-year-old Shiv Pratap Shukla is a Rajya Sabha member from the electorally crucial Uttar Pradesh. The lawyer-social worker was earlier a minister in UP. He was appointed a vice president of UP unit of the BJP in 2012.

He is a law graduate from the Gorakhpur University and was imprisoned for 19 months during the Emergency.

4) Anant Kumar Hegde, 49, has been a member of the 11th, 12th, 14th, 15th and 16th Lok Sabha from Uttara Kannada in Karnataka. He is an agriculturist by profession.

At the young age of 28, he was elected to the Lok Sabha for the first time. During his multiple stints in Parliament, he has served as a member of parliamentary standing committees on finance, home affairs, human resource development, commerce, agriculture and external affairs.

He has also been a member of the Spices Board of India for four terms. He is a practitioner of martial art Taekwondo.

5) Satya Pal Singh, 61, is a Lok Sabha MP from Baghpat, Uttar Pradesh. A 1980 batch Maharashtra cadre IPS officer, he retired as the Mumbai Police chief.

He was honoured for his services by the Centre in 2008 with Antrik Suraksha Sewa Padak and a special medal for extraordinary work in naxal hit areas of Andhra Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh in 1990. Singh has written books, including on topics like tribal conflict resolution and naxalism.

Born in Basauli village in Baghpat, he has MSc and MPhil degrees in chemistry, an MBA in strategic management from Australia and an MA degree in public administration as well as a PhD on the naxalite movement.

6) Gajendra Singh Shekhawat, 49, is a Lok Sabha member from Jodhpur in Rajasthan. He is also a national general secretary of the farmers' wing of the BJP.

A sports enthusiast, Shekhawat has participated at the national and all-India inter-university level in basketball. He currently is a member of the All India Council of Sports and the president of the Basketball India Players Association. He has MPhil and MA degrees in philosophy from Jai Narain Vyas University, Jodhpur.

7) Hardeep Singh Puri, 65, is a 1974-batch of Indian Foreign Service and served as India's Permanent Representative to the United Nations from 2009 to 2013.

Known for his experience and expertise in foreign policy and national security, he is the president and chairman of think-tank Research and Information System for Developing Countries (RIS) and was the vice president of the International Peace Institute, New York.

His four-decade career in diplomacy included critical roles as India's ambassador to Brazil and the United Kingdom, and Permanent Representative of India to Geneva.

An alumnus of The Hindu College, Delhi University, Puri was a student leader and active during the JP Movement. He briefly taught at St. Stephens College in Delhi before joining the IFS.

8) Raj Kumar Singh, 64, is a former IAS officer of the 1975-batch Bihar cadre and a former Union home secretary. He is a member of the current Lok Sabha representing Arrah in Bihar.

Singh studied English literature at St. Stephens College and is a law graduate. He also studied at the RVB Delft University in the Netherlands.

9) Alphons Kannanthanam is a former 1979-batch Kerala cadre IAS officer. He is also a practicing advocate.

Kannanthanam was known as 'Demolition Man' during his stint at the Delhi Development Authority for having ordered razing of thousands of illegal constructions.

Born in a non-electrified Manimala village in Kottayam district to a World War II veteran, he pioneered the literacy movement in India as district collector of Kottayam by making it the first 100 per cent literate town in India in 1989.

He retired from the IAS and was elected as an Independent member of the Kerala Assembly from Kanjirappally from 2006 to 2011.

Kannanthanam is a member of the committee set up to prepare the final draft of the National Education Policy, 2017. He has authored a book -- Making A Difference.

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Agencies
July 2,2020

Lucknow, Jul 2: Senior BJP leader Uma Bharti Thursday appeared in person before a special court here conducting trial in the 1992 Babri mosque demolition case.      

The special CBI court is currently recording the statements of 32 accused under CrPC section 313 (court's power to examine the accused), a stage in the trial that follows the examination of prosecution witnesses.

The 61-year-old saffron clad BJP leader is the 19th accused to depose before the court in the over 27-year-old case. Thirteen other alleged accused, including former deputy prime minister LK Advani and senior BJP leaders MM Joshi and Kalyan Singh are yet to be examined at this stage. Their lawyers have indicated to the CBI court that they prefer to appear through video conferencing. 

The mosque in Ayodhya was demolished in December 1992 by 'kar sevaks' who claimed that an ancient Ram temple had stood on the same site. The CBI court is conducting day-to-day hearings to complete the trial by August 31, as directed by the Supreme Court.

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Agencies
July 29,2020

New Delhi, Jul 29: Coronavirus infections in India continue to mount as the country's total case tally crossed the 15-lakh mark.

India added 48,513 fresh cases in 24 hours, taking the total tally to over 15.3 lakh, according to the Health Ministry’s 8 a.m. update on July 29.

Key Figures

Total number of confirmed coronavirus cases: 15,31,669
Active cases: 5,09,447
Cured/discharged/migrated: 9,88,029
Deaths: 34,193
Number of fresh cases in 24 hours: 48,513
One-day recoveries: 35,175
One-day deaths: 768
India’s coronavirus epidemic is growing at the fastest pace in the world, increasing 20% over the last week, according to Bloomberg’s Coronavirus Tracker. Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka are among the states where the maximum number of daily cares are being reported.

Fresh cases continued to come in at a heightened pace, hovering just below 50,000 for the last six days.

Moderna Inc.’s vaccine candidate against Covid-19 protected against the virus in a trial that inoculated 16 monkeys, an encouraging step on the path to a defense for humans against the pandemic. Pfizer Inc., however, is preparing for the novel coronavirus to endure, leading to long-term demand for a seasonal shot to protect against Covid-19.

“There is a likely scenario that either the vaccine’s immunity will not be lasting forever,” said Chief Executive Officer Albert Bourla in an interview Tuesday, “or that the virus will mutate, or that the virus will find ways to come back again and again.”

Even as the transmission rate of Covid-19 remains high in India, the pace of recovery has risen too. On Wednesday, India reported its third day of over 35,000 recoveries.

Global Update

Flare-ups in virus cases from Hong Kong to Europe are proving difficult for policy makers to wrangle. The U.S. neared 150,000 deaths from Covid-19, even as daily infections slowed in some hard-hit states. China reported 101 new cases, up from 68 a day earlier, with 98 of the total from local infections, mostly in Xinjiang.

Philippine health authorities warned that hospitals and infirmaries risk getting overwhelmed.

Globally, confirmed Covid-19 cases have topped 16.6 million with over 658,000 dead.

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Agencies
February 9,2020

Panaji, Feb 10: Archbishop of Goa and Daman, Rev Filipe Neri Ferrao, has urged the central government to "immediately and unconditionally revoke the Citizenship Amendment Act" and stop quashing the "right to dissent".

He also appealed to the government not to implement the proposed countrywide National Register of Citizens (NRC) and the National Population Register (NPR).

Diocesan Centre for Social Communications Media, a wing of the Goa Church, in a statement on Saturday said, "The Archbishop and the Catholic community of Goa would like to appeal to the government to listen to the voice of millions in India, to stop quashing the right to dissent and, above all, to immediately and unconditionally revoke the CAA and desist from implementing the NRC and the NPR."

The CAA, NRC and NPR are "divisive and discriminatory" and will certainly have a "negative and damaging effect" on a multi-cultural democracy like ours, the church said.

There is serious concern that NRC and NPR will result in "direct victimisation of the underprivileged classes, particularly Dalits, adivasis, migrant labourers, nomadic communities and the countless undocumented people who, after having been recognised as worthy citizens and voters for more than 70 years, will suddenly run the risk of becoming stateless and candidates for detention camps," it said.

There has been widespread discontent and open protests throughout the country and even abroad against the CAA, NRC and NPR, which are "forecasting a systematic erosion of values, principles and rights" that have been guaranteed to all citizens in the Constitution, the release said.

Eminent citizens, including top intellectuals and legal luminaries, have taken a studied and unequivocal stand against the CAA, NRC and NPR, it noted.

Goa also witnessed several protests, which transcended the confines of religious and caste affiliation and brought people from all walks of life together on one united platform, said the statement.

It said Christians in India have always been a peace loving community and deeply committed to the ideals of justice, liberty, equality and fraternity, enshrined in the
Constitution.

"We have always taken great pride that our beloved country is a secular, sovereign, socialist, pluralistic anddemocratic republic," the church said.

The very fact that CAA uses religion goes against the secular fabric of the country, it said.

"It goes against the spirit and heritage of our land which, since times immemorial, has been a welcoming home to all, founded on the belief that the whole world is one big family," the church said.

"We pray for our beloved country, that good sense, justice and peace prevail in the hearts and minds of all," it added.

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