I skipped rally because I was misled: Anna Hazare

March 14, 2014

Anna_HazareNew Delhi, Mar 14: Controversial leader Anna Hazare, who left Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee red-faced two days back, today said he had skipped the poorly-attended rally because he was misled.

He maintained that he does not support any of the political parties but endorses Banerjee individually as she is the best of all the Chief Ministers of the country.

Breaking his silence on his absence at the much-hyped 'joint' rally with Banerjee at Ramlila ground on Wednesday, Hazare told reporters here that he had skipped as he had been misled.

He said he had been told that he had to attend rally organised by Banerjee while the Trinamool chief had been told it was Anna Hazare's rally.

"When I came to Delhi, by 12 noon I found out there were only 2000 or 2,500 people in the rally. I thought that something is amiss as the Ramlila ground had not even 4000 people even though it was teeming with people when he had staged protests there. This was the mistake, this was the dhokhadhadi (deceit)," he said, while naming one of the organisers for it.

Earlier, his aides had claimed that he could not attend the rally because he was "unwell".

His absence at the rally had left Banerjee embarrassed as the event to mark her arrival on the national scene had turned out to be a damp squib.

On whom he would endorse, the anti-graft crusader said he would not support any party because the country had not become a real democracy because of the party system.

At the same time, he endorsed Banerjee individually because he wanted a stable government to be formed in the country.

"I have respect for Mamata. Of all the Chief Ministers in the country, she is the best. Her sacrifice, her character, her ideology. I supported her and not the party," Hazare told reporters here.

Hazare said he did not approve of any of those currently in race for the Prime Ministership.

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Agencies
May 27,2020

New Delhi, May 27: The government has further extended the deadline for bidding to buy its entire 52.98 per cent stake in the country's second-biggest oil refiner, Bharat Petroleum Corp Ltd (BPCL), by over one-and-a-half months to July 31.

This is the second extension for submission of expression of interest (EoI) for BPCL stake by interested bidders. The government had first invited bids showing interest in buying its stake, by May 2. It was then extended till June 13.

This has now been extended to 5 p.m. on July 31 in "view of further requests received from the interested bidders and the prevailing situation arising out of COVID-19", an official notice put up by disinvestment department DIPAM late on Tuesday said.

Accordingly, the last date for submission of written queries or preliminary information memorandum has been pushed back to June 23 from the earlier deadline of May 16.

The disinvestment in BPCL involves the government selling its entire 52.98 per cent stake in the company to a strategic investor with transfer of management control. The government has barred PSUs from bidding for BPCL and expects private sector Indian players and global MNCs to bid for its stake. The government's stake in BPCL is worth around Rs 50,000 crore.

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News Network
June 10,2020

Bengaluru, Jun 10: Congress' Rajya Sabha candidate from Karnataka and senior leader Mallikarjun Kharge and his son received threat calls on Sunday, with the latter filing a complaint with the state police chief. Kharge, a former Union Minister, received the call in the wee hours of Sunday on his landline while his son Priyank later got a call from a private number on his mobile phone.

Priyank lodged a complaint with the Director-General of Police Praveen Sood and former MLC Ramesh Babu shared the copy of the complaint on Twitter on Tuesday. In his complaint, Priyank Kharge stated that at about 1.30 am on Sunday, his father received a call on the landline where the caller spoke in Hindi and English and used invective against the Congress veteran.

The caller, according to the complaint, spoke about the Rajya Sabha election and threatened Kharge. Police are looking into the matter. Kharge is the Congress' pick for the June 19 Rajya Sabha election from Karnataka. JD(S) supremo and former Prime Minister Deve Gowda and two BJP candidates have also filed nominations for the election to the upper House.

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News Network
April 30,2020

Bengaluru, Apr 30: Shares of Glenmark Pharmaceuticals Ltd rose almost 9% on Thursday after the Indian drugmaker got an approval to conduct clinical trials with antiviral drug favipiravir, seen as a potential treatment for COVID-19.

Favipiravir, manufactured under the brand name Avigan by a unit of Japan's Fujifilm Holdings Corp and approved for use as an anti-flu drug in the Asian island country in 2014, has been effective, with no obvious side-effects, in helping coronavirus patients recover, a Chinese official told reporters at a news conference last month.

"After having successfully developed the API and the formulations ... Glenmark is all geared to immediately begin clinical trials on favipiravir on COVID-19 patients in India," Sushrut Kulkarni, executive vice-president for Global R&D, Glenmark Pharmaceuticals, said in a statement. 

The Drug Controller General of India, the country's drug regulator, did not immediately respond to Reuters request for comment.

On Wednesday, another Indian pharmaceutical company, Strides Pharma Science Ltd, said it had developed and commercialized favipiravir antiviral tablets, and had applied to Indian drug authorities to start trials.

Shares of Mumbai-based Glenmark Pharmaceuticals, which rose as much as 8.9% to 359 rupees ($4.78), was trading up 5.9%, as of 0407 GMT.

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