EC asks political parties to desist from displaying photos of defence personnel

May 13: Senior Congress leader P Chidambaram on Wednesday mocked the prime minister's announcement of a Rs 20 lakh crore financial package as a "headline and blank page", and said he was looking forward to the finance minister filling the blank page.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday announced massive new financial incentives on top of the previously announced packages for a combined stimulus of Rs 20 lakh crore.

Chidambaram said he would count every additional rupee the government infuses into the economy and examine what the poor, hungry and devastated migrant workers get after walking hundreds of kilometres to their home states.

"Yesterday, PM gave us a headline and a blank page. Naturally, my reaction was a blank!

"Today, we look forward to the FM filling the blank page. We will carefully count every ADDITIONAL rupee that the government will actually infuse into the economy," he said on Twitter.

The former finance minister said "We will also carefully examine who gets what?".

"And the first thing we will look for is what the poor, hungry and devastated migrant workers can expect after they have walked hundreds of kilometres to their home states.

"We will also examine what the bottom half of the population (13 crore families) will get in terms of REAL MONEY," he said in a series of tweets.

Congress leader Jairam Ramesh also slammed the prime minister's announcement.

"Last night the Prime Minister did what comes to him best. Maximum packaging, Minimum meaning.It was a case of classic NAMO. No Action Message Only," he said on Twitter.

New Delhi, May 22: Reserve Bank Governor Shaktikanta Das on Friday extended the moratorium on payment of loans by another three months till August to provide much-needed relief to borrowers whose income has been hit due to the coronavirus crisis.

In March, the central bank had allowed a three-month moratorium on payment of all term loans due between March 1, 2020, and May 31, 2020.

Accordingly, the repayment schedule and all subsequent due dates, as also the tenor for such loans, were shifted across the board by three months.

As a result of this moratorium, individuals’ EMI repayments of loans taken were not deducted from their bank accounts, providing much-needed liquidity.

The EMI payments will restart only once the moratorium time period expires on August 31.

Feb 29: The "Dadi of Shaheenbagh" on Friday said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi does not understand the pain of losing children, as speakers at an anti-CAA rally here called on protesters to maintain peace and not give in to any provocation.

Tushar Gandhi, the great-grandson of Mahatma Gandhi, said that the battle is not for a day or two, but the protesters will have to be prepared to continue it for years to come.

Asma Khatoon, who has earned fame as the "Dadi of Shaheenbagh" in Delhi, asked how can a person take care of the whole country when he cannot maintain his own family.

"He would have realised how it feels to lose a child if he had his own children," she told a gathering at the Park Circus Maidan, which is being termed as the Shaheenbagh of Kolkata with women holding a sit-in for the last 53 days to protest the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, proposed nationwide NRC, and the NPR.

The death toll Delhi's communal violence has gone up to 42.

She said it is not biryani that has attracted women to the protest at Shaheen bagh while holding that such vilification campaigns will have no effect on the agitation.

State BJP president Dilip Ghosh has claimed that "uneducated men and women" are protesting at Delhi's Shaheen Bagh and Kolkata's Park Circus as they get money and biryani purchased with foreign funds.

"Home Minister Amit Shah has called 20 protesters to meet him, but I want to tell him that we are one lakh and I want him to mention the place where he wants us to go for the meeting," she said.

Tushar Gandhi said, "People should stay united and not give in to any provocation," he said.

Gandhi said that the people of West Bengal are lucky to have Mamata Banerjee as their chief minister.

"They will try to break her also and it is necessary that you continue to give her support," he said.

Gandhi claimed that no one can harm a country where its mothers and sisters come out to save it.

He claimed that the CAA is not about Hindus or Muslims, but will really affect the poor people, who will be made to run around to get their papers instead of earning for their basic and daily needs.

"It's a dichotomous government that we have at the Centre. On the one hand, they want us to provide documents to prove our citizenship, while on the other they refuse to accept the papers that one produces before it for the purpose," he said.

He claimed that the government is forcing its people to resort to lies and declare that they are political refugees from countries like Bangladesh and Pakistan.

Gandhi claimed that time and again documents with the government like electoral rolls and land documents have been used to identify people of certain communities during riots.

"So it is dangerous to give too much information to the government," he said.

He called on the people to have faith in non-violence and asked them to maintain peace and harmony.

B R Ambedkar's great-grandson Rajratna Ambedkar claimed that it is the Adivasis who will also be affected by the CAA.

"I want to tell Modi and Shah that the country runs on the Constitution by Ambedkar and not M S Golwalkar (of RSS)," he said, adding that because of the rights conferred on people by the Constitution, those backward people who did not have the right to sit on a bullock cart are now flying jet planes.

He said that Modi and Shah committed an error by enacting the CAA as it has turned the people of the country into Indians only, instead of Hindus, Muslims, Christians or Sikhs.

"Every machinery of the country has been taken control of by the RSS. If one Modi or one Shah goes, they will bring in several more Modi or Shah," he said.