I am confident that BJP will win: Shivraj Singh Chouhan

New Delhi, Feb 12: The Centre on Wednesday said the NRC data in Assam is safe even though some technical issues were visible and that will be resolved soon.

The Union Home Ministry clarification came in view of reports that data of the final list of the National Register of Citizens has been made offline from its official website.

"The NRC data is safe. Some technical issues are in visibility on cloud. These are being resolved soon," a home ministry spokesperson said.

The data was not available for a couple of days and it created panic in the public, mostly among the people excluded from the list as the rejection certificates were yet to be issued.

NRC State Coordinator Hitesh Dev Sarma accepted that the data has been made offline, but refuted the allegation of any "malafide" intent in it.

The cloud service for the huge set of data was provided by IT firm Wipro and their contract was till October 19 last year. However, this was not renewed by the previous coordinator.

So, the data got offline from December 15 after it was suspended by Wipro, Sarma said.

He said the state coordination committee had decided to do necessary formalities in its meeting on January 30 and wrote to the Wipro during the first week of February.

"Once Wipro makes the data live, it will be available for public. We hope people will be able to access it in the next 2-3 days," Sarma said.

The complete detail of exclusion and inclusion of bonafide Indian citizens in the NRC was uploaded on its official website http://www.nrcassam.nic.in after the final list was published on August 31, 2019.

The final NRC was published by excluding 19,06,657 persons. A total of 3,11,21,004 names were included out of 3,30,27,661 applicants.

After the earlier NRC State Coordinator Prateek Hajela relinquished the charge on November 11 following his transfer to home state Madhya Pradesh on a direction from the Supreme Court, Sarma was appointed in his place on November 9.

New Delhi, Jan 21: With the IMF lowering India's economic growth estimate for the current fiscal to 4.8 per cent, senior Congress leader P Chidambaram on Tuesday claimed an attack on the world body and its chief economist Gita Gopinath by government ministers was imminent.

He also alleged that the growth figure of 4.8 per cent given by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) is after some "window dressing" and he won't be surprised if it goes even lower.

"Reality check from IMF. Growth in 2019-20 will be BELOW 5 per cent at 4.8 per cent," Chidambaram said in a series of tweets.

"Even the 4.8 per cent is after some window dressing. I will not be surprised if it goes even lower," the former finance minister said.

IMF Chief Economist Gopinath was one of the first to denounce demonetisation, he noted.

"I suppose we must prepare ourselves for an attack by government ministers on the IMF and Dr Gita Gopinath," Chidambaram said.

The IMF lowered India's economic growth estimate for the current fiscal to 4.8 per cent and listed the country's much lower-than-expected GDP numbers as the single biggest drag on its global growth forecast for two years.

In October, the IMF had pegged India economic growth at 6.1 per cent for 2019.

Listing decline in rural demand growth and an overall credit sluggishness for lowering of India forecasts, Gopinath, however, had said the growth momentum should improve next year due to factors like positive impact of corporate tax rate reduction.

Jaipur, July 13: Amid deepening political crisis in Rajasthan, a crucial meeting of the Congress Legislature Party (CLP) will be held at the chief minister's residence here on Monday.  

The Congress has issued a whip to all party legislators mandating their presence during the meeting which will be convened at 10.30 am by Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot.

Deputy Chief Minister Sachin Pilot has made it clear that he is not going to attend the meeting.

In a statement issued on Sunday night, Pilot had claimed that the Ashok Gehlot government was in minority and more than 30 Congress and some independent legislators have pledged support to him.  

By doing so, he has openly displayed rebellion against the leadership of Gehlot.

However, All India Congress Committee (AICC) general secretary Avinash Pande has said that 109 MLAs have expressed confidence in the Ashok Gehlot-led Congress government in the state and have signed a letter in support.

Pande said a whip had been issued asking all the MLAs to attend the CLP meeting and that action will be taken against those who skip it.

In the 200-member Rajasthan Assembly, the Congress has 107 MLAs and the BJP 72.

The Congress has the support of 10 out of 13 independents, and other party MLAs like Rashtriya Lok Dal (1), which is its ally. The Congress also considers Bhartiya Tribal Party (2) and CPI(M) (2) MLAs as their supporters.

BJP ally Rashtriya Loktantrik Party (RLP) has three MLAs in the assembly.