‘Modi govt will not tolerate this’: HRD minister to universities against CAA

Jun 3: Emphasising that airlines are clearly the safest mode of transportation, IndiGo CEO Ronojoy Dutta on Tuesday said there is no evidence yet of coronavirus infection getting transmitted among passengers onboard an aeroplane.

His comments against the backdrop of instances of some passengers, who had taken flights after resumption of domestic air services on May 25, testing positive for coronavirus.

"Those people had the virus before they got on to the aeroplane. What is noteworthy is that they have done the tracing after that. There is no evidence of transmission onboard there... that is a very encouraging sign on the safety of airline travel," he said during an earnings call.

According to him, airlines are clearly the safest mode of transportation and there is no evidence yet of contamination on an aircraft.

"You can come in contaminated but so far there is no evidence of passing it on to a fellow passenger," he noted.

Amid concerns over the coronavirus pandemic, aviation regulator DGCA has asked airlines to ensure that to the extent possible, middle seat in flights should be kept empty.

In this regard, Dutta said the airline would keep the middle seat empty wherever it can and "where we have to fill the middle seat, we will have the extra protective gown".

To a query about possible hedging of fuel prices, he said it would be a dumb idea and that airlines adjust to ups and downs in fuel prices.

"I can't overemphasise what a dumb idea it will be for an airline to hedge fuel prices. I looked at it from different angles and it is not a good idea... we looked at hedging and we talked about it at the board level and we said no," he noted.

Jaipur, Jan 27: Senior Congress leader Shashi Tharoor said that if the Citizenship Amendment Act leads to the implementation of the NPR and the NRC, it would be a complete victory for Pakistan's founding father, Muhammad Ali Jinnah.

He said that Jinnah's idea of a country was already winning in India with the contentious Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) coming into effect, but asserted that there was still a choice available.

"I would not say Jinnah has completely won, but I would say Jinnah is winning. There is still a choice available to the nation between Jinnah's idea of a country and Gandhiji's idea of a country," he said on the sidelines of the Jaipur Literature Festival on Sunday.

The CAA came into force in India in December amid protests across the country and around the world.

The MP from Thiruvananthapuram said that the amended Citizenship Act took Jinnah's logic by declaring that religion shall be the basis of nationhood, reaffirming that Gandhi's idea is that all religions are equal .

"The CAA is, if you are talking Tennis, you would say one set up or big first set lead for Jinnah. But the next step would be if the CAA would lead to the National Population Register (NPR) and the National Register of Citizens (NRC). If that happens, then you would consider that Jinnah's victory is complete," he said.

The CAA seeks to grant citizenship to migrants belonging to Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Christian, Jain and Parsi communities who came to India from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan on or before December 31, 2014.

On the BJP's defence that the NPR was carried out during the UPA regime, Tharoor said that the Congress government had utilised a decision of the NDA government led by former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee.

"It never asked where were your parents born. It never authorised the enumerators to note on the margin 'dubious citizenship', a term used in the NPR rules crafted by this government. That is purely BJP's invention," he said.

If we go around this country authorising people to interview all the citizens, or identify some who have 'dubious citizenship', you can be pretty sure which Indians are going to be found on the 'dubious citizenship', he said.

"That will principally be one community that is not mentioned in the CAA. And if that happens, then it is indeed Jinnah's victory.

"From wherever he is, he can point to this place and say, 'see I was right in the 1940. We are separate nations and Muslims deserved their own country because Hindus cannot be just'," Tharoor said.

Speaking about the Delhi election, the three-time MP said that the maximum development in the national capital happened under the Congress government.

"What Sheila Dikshit did in her 15 years as Chief Minister of Delhi, no other leader could do it before or after her," he said.

Mar 5: The Kerala government has given its nod to a proposal aimed at encouraging students aged between 18 and 25 years to take up part-time jobs while pursuing education so as to help them gain work experience and hone their skills.

The government has decided to accept the proposal as a policy decision at the Cabinet meeting held on Wednesday, an official press release said.

The aim is to ensure that in a fiscal, 90 days of work is assured for students in government departments, local body organisations, PSUs and private companies.

This will help in developing a work culture among students.

Honorariums will be given to students by the organisations employing them part-time, the release said.

Students aged between 18 and 25 years will be permitted to become part of the scheme which will help them to gain work experience and hone their skills, the release added.

In another decision, the government decided to release Rs 26 crore from the Chief Minister's disaster relief fund for providing compensation to farmers who suffered crop loss during the 2018 floods.