Delhi court issues fresh death warrants, Nirbhaya convicts to be hanged on March 3

New Delhi, May 19: In a fresh blow to saffronite journalist Arnab Goswami, the Supreme Court of India today rejected his plea seeking transfer of the investigation of a case, filed against him for defaming Congress interim president Sonia Gandhi, to the CBI. The court also refused to quash the FIRs filed against him.

Goswami, editor-in-chief of Republic TV, has been booked in connection with a TV show on the gathering of migrants outside Bandra railway station on April 14. This apart, multiple FIRs have been filed against him for his show on Palghar lynching. In that show, he had posed certain questions on the incident to Congress President Sonia Gandhi, following which Congress workers lodged complaints against him in various states.

Extending Goswami’s interim protection from arrest by three weeks, the Supreme Court said, “Right of a journalist under 19 1 (a) higher…Free citizens can’t exist if news media can’t speak.”

During the earlier hearing, Senior Advocate Harish Salve, appearing for Goswami, had urged the court to transfer the probe to an agency like CBI. He said the “nature of the” second FIR against Goswami over a show on the migrant gathering outside Bandra station on April 14 “shows that it’s arm-twisting tactic”. 

“They are trying to stifle an unpleasant voice. This is a political party targeting a journalist. All complainants are members of one political party. They have a problem with the government. They want to teach this journalist a lesson,” he added.

Objecting to Salve’s plea to transfer the case to the CBI, Maharashtra government counsel, Senior Advocate Kapil Sibal, had said, “CBI investigation will go into your hands”. 

Sibal denied that Goswami was being harassed and said he was only asked relevant questions. He said Goswami should “stop this communal violence and communal mongering”.

New Delhi, Jan 13: Walmart, the world’s largest retailer, has fired around 50 of its India executives as part of its restructuring in the country, three sources with direct knowledge said.

The move underscores the struggles Walmart has faced in expanding its wholesale business in India. The Bentonville, Arkansas based company currently operates 28 wholesale stores where it sells goods to small shopkeepers, and not to retail consumers.

The firings mostly affected executives in the company’s real estate division because the growth in the wholesale model has not been that robust, two of the sources said.

“It’s happening because focus is shifting to e-commerce rather than physical (stores),” said one source, who declined to be identified as the decision is not public.

Walmart did not respond to a request for comment.

Walmart has placed bold bets on India’s e-commerce sector. In 2018, it paid $16 billion to acquire a majority stake in India’s online marketplace Flipkart, in its biggest global acquisition.

The second source added that while Walmart could slow down the pace of opening new wholesale stores, the focus will increasingly be on boosting sales through business-to-business and retail e-commerce.

Some of the executives were sacked last week and more could be let go on Monday, two sources said.

In a statement to India’s Economic Times newspaper, which first reported the news, Walmart said it was always looking for ways to operate more effectively and that “this requires us to review our corporate structure to ensure that we are organized in the right way to best meet the needs of our members.”

Walmart has around 600 staff in its India head office out of a total of around 5,300 nationally, one of the sources said.

The Indian National Congress is considering to move court seeking action against operation lotus,  after an audio clip in which Madhya Pradesh chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan can be heard saying that the Central leadership of Bharatiya Janata Party wanted the Kamal Nath government to fall went viral.

Mr Chouhan is also heard saying in the purported 9.28-minute long audio clip that it was not possible to pull down the Kamal Nath government without the help of Jyotiraditya Scindia and his loyalist, former Congress MLA Tulsi Silawat.

The Congress, which has all along maintained that the BJP had hatched a conspiracy to pull down the 15-month-old Kamal Nath government to “capture” power in MP, threatened legal action.

“I have been maintaining from the very beginning that there was a conspiracy to pull down my duly elected government… The audio has established that the BJP’s Central leadership had conspired to pull down my government even though it enjoyed majority,” former chief minister and Congress veteran Kamal Nath said.

Working president of MP Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC) Jitu Patwari said his party may move court against the BJP for having plotted to dislodge an elected government following the expose in the purported audio.

Mr Chouhan was reportedly addressing BJP workers of Sanware Assembly constituency in Indore on Monday when he allegedly said in Hindi, “The Central leadership (of BJP) decided that the (Kamal Nath) government should fall. They (the Kamal Nath government) will ruin and destroy … Tell me, was it possible to dislodge the government without Jyotiraditya Scindia and Tulsi Bhai? There was no other way.”  

The “Tulsi Bhai” referred to in the clip is former health minister who joined the BJP along with Mr Scindia.

“In the coming bypoll if Tulsi Silawat doesn’t become MLA again, will I be able to remain CM, will the BJP government survive?” he allegedly said, exhorting BJP workers to overcome their differences and work for Mr Silawat’s victory in the upcoming by-elections in the Sanwer Assembly seat.

Twenty-two Congress MLAs, loyal to Mr Scindia, had resigned from the Assembly leading to the fall of the Kamal Nath government on March 20, paving the way for Mr Chouhan to return as chief minister for the fourth time.

All the 22 ex-Congress MLAs later joined the BJP with Mr Scindia. Two of them, Mr Silawat and Govind Singh Rajput, have been inducted into the Shivraj Singh Chouhan Cabinet.

The BJP has vehemently denied any role in the collapse of the Kamal Nath government. Neither the saffron party’s Central leadership nor Mr Chouhan have reacted to the audio clip yet

But the party’s state spokesperson Rajneesh Agrawal dismissed the charge that it had a hand in the fall of the Kamal Nath government.

“Infighting in Congress had led to the fall of the Kamal Nath government,” he said.