Krishna Kohli becomes first Dalit woman to enter Pak upper house

Agencies
March 4, 2018

Karachi, Mar 4: Krishna Lal Kohli, aka Krishna Kumari Kohli, aka Kishoo Bai has become the first-ever Dalit woman to be elected to the upper house of Pakistan’s parliament.

The election that took place Saturday saw the victory of 39-year-old activist who was nominated for a minority Senate seat from the Sindh Assembly by the Bilawal Bhutto Zardari-led Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) last month.

Kohli, who comes from Nagarparkar village in Thar of the Sindh province, was born to a poor peasant family in 1979. She and her family were held captive as bonded labourers for at least three years in a jail run by a landlord when Kohli was a child.

Married at the age of 16, Kumari pursued her education after her marriage, earning a postgraduate degree in sociology.

Krishna Kohli had joined the PPP as a social activist and actively worked for the rights of the marginalised communities of Thar.

Her brother Veerji Kohli, a noted human rights activist, especially of the marginalized communities in Sindh, a PPP leader and the elected Chairman of a Union Council from Nangarparker, was only released yesterday after 11 months from Hyderabad prison on court orders.

The PPP in 2009 had elected the first non-Muslim Dalit Senator on a general seat. With Kohli becoming a Senator, the number of non-Muslims elected by the opposition party is now six, the highest minority representation in the upper house in the history of the Pakistan.

Kolhi’s forefathers were valiant fighters of the freedom struggle who waged a war against invading British forces in 1857. She is also a human rights activist whose specialties involve women’s rights, bonded labour, and sexual harrassment at the workplace.

Kumari is the second Hindu woman to be nominated as a Senator in Pakistan. She has been nominated for the post by the Pakistan People’s Party. Before her, the Pakistan Senate has had only one female Hindu member, Ratna Bhagwandas Chawla from the PPP, until now. Chawla represented the province of Sindh from 2006 to 2012.

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News Network
July 27,2020

Chengdu, China, Jul 27: The American flag was lowered at the United States consulate in Chengdu on Monday, days after Beijing ordered it to close in retaliation for the shuttering of the Chinese consulate in Houston.

Footage on state broadcaster CCTV from outside the consulate showed the flag being slowly lowered early Monday morning, after diplomatic tensions soared between the two powers with both alleging the other had endangered national security.

Relations deteriorated in recent weeks in a Cold War-style standoff, with the Chengdu mission Friday ordered to shut in retaliation for the forced closure of Beijing's consulate in Houston, Texas.

The deadline for the Americans to exit Chengdu has been unclear, but the Chinese consulate in Houston was given 72 hours to close after the original order was made.

On Saturday news agency reporters saw workers removing the US insignia from the front of the consulate.

Over the weekend, removals trucks entered the US consulate and cleaners were seen carting large black rubbish bags from the building.

Beijing says closing the Chengdu consulate was a "legitimate and necessary response to the unreasonable measures by the United States", and has alleged that staff at the diplomatic mission endangered China's security and interests.

Washington officials, meanwhile, said there had been unacceptable efforts by the Chinese consulate in Houston to steal US corporate secrets.

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Agencies
January 15,2020

Mumbai, Jan 15: Michael Debabrata Patra took over as Deputy Governor of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Wednesday.

He was an Executive Director of India's central bank before being elevated to the post of Deputy Governor.

An RBI release said that as Deputy Governor, Patra will look after Monetary Policy Department including Forecasting and Modelling Unit (MPD/MU), Financial Markets Operations Department (FMOD), Financial Markets Regulation Department.

He will also look after Market Intelligence (FMRD/MI), International Department (Intl. D), Department of Economic and Policy Research (DEPR), Department of Statistics and Information Management (including Data and Information Management Unit) (DSIM/DIMU), Corporate Strategy and Budget Department (CSBD) and Financial Stability Unit.

Patra, a career central banker since 1985, has worked in various positions in the Reserve Bank of India.

As Executive Director, he was a member of the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) of RBI, which is invested with the responsibility of monetary policy decision making in India. He will continue to be an ex-officio member of the MPC as Deputy Governor.

Prior to this, he was Principal Adviser of the Monetary Policy Department, Reserve Bank of India between July 2012 and October 2014.

He has worked in the International Monetary Fund (IMF) as Senior Adviser to Executive Director (India) during December 2008 to June 2012, when he actively engaged in the work of the IMF's Executive Board through the period of the global financial crisis and the ongoing Euro area sovereign debt crisis.

The release said that his book "The Global Economic Crisis through an Indian Looking Glass" vividly captures this experience.

He has also published papers in the areas of inflation, monetary policy, international trade and finance, including exchange rates and the balance of payments.

A fellow of the Harvard University where he undertook post-doctoral research in the area of financial stability, he has a PhD in Economics from the Indian Institute of Technology, Mumbai.

He will hold the post for three years or until further orders. The post fell vacant after Viral Acharya resigned on July 23 last year.

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Agencies
January 9,2020

Noida, Jan 6: A fire broke out at the ESIC Hospital in Noida on Thursday morning and firefighting was underway, officials said.

The blaze broke out in the basement of the seven-storey hospital building located in Sector 24, a police official said.

Fire tenders were rushed to the spot after the Fire Department was alerted about it around 8 am, the official said.

After that, a search was done to see if anyone was trapped in the building, he said.

The cooling process is now underway.

He said the fire had engulfed the ground, first and second floors of the building, except the basement.

Police said they received information about fire at Kaveri printing press at 2:45 am, when the manager Yogesh called them. The press owners have been identified as Atul and Anuj Goyal, residents of Sukhdev Vihar, they said.

The man who died in the fire has been identified as Phool Dev, from Bihar, who used to work as a help there. Dev went inside the building in the night to sleep before the fire started and died due to suffocation, the fire department official said.

The body has been kept at Lal Bahadur Shastri Hospital and the post-mortem will be done once the family reaches here, police said.

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