Modi invokes Ambekdar's legacy, says no scrapping of quotas

October 11, 2015

Mumbai, Oct 11: Invoking the legacy of B R Ambedkar on the eve of the first phase of Bihar polls, Prime Minister Narendra Modi today categorically ruled out scrapping the reservation system and assailed "a group of liars" for the false propaganda that it is under threat.

modi"Every time when a BJP government is in power, a group of liars spreads the malicious propaganda that we are out to scrap reservations...It happened during the Atal Bihari Vajapayee government's time as well," Modi said addressing at a well-attended public meeting here.

"Falsehood must stop. Terrorising society must end. This is not politics," Modi said.

The Prime Minister's assertion came a day ahead of the first phase of Bihar polls where reservation is a hotly-debated topic following following RSS chief's Mohan Bhagwat's call for a reivew.

Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and RJD chief Lalu Prasad have been quick to latch on to Bhagwat's remark to claim there was a sinister attempt to scrap reservations for the backward classes and weaker sections.

In his 45-minute speech at the MMRDA grounds, Modi said, "This rumour-mongering starts every time when elections are round the corner."

"Whenever polls approach, opposition begins a debate on reservation," Modi said, ruling out a rethink on the reservation policy.

"This is something which Babasaheb Ambedkar has given us and no power can take it away," he said.

"I have seen poverty. I have lived with it and there is a lot to be done for the uplift of the downtrodden of the society to whose betterment Babasheb was committed," he said.

Modi, who earlier laid the foundation for Ambedkar Memorial in the heart of the city, said his government has embarked on a project to develop five landmarks associated with the life of the architect of the Indian Constitution as "Panch teerths"-- five holy places for millions to come and pay homage.

Apart from the Indu Mill, other places to be developed as part of the project are Ambdekar's birth place Mau in Madhya Pradesh, Alipur Road residence in Delhi, his parents' village in coastal Maharashtra and the house where he lived in London.

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News Network
January 27,2020

New Delhi, Jan 27: Remember the story of two friends coming face-to-face with a bear in a forest? One of the two friends climbs the tree to save his life and the other, not knowing how to, lays on the ground, breathless, pretending to be dead.

Well, that lesson turned out to be useful for this man who pretended to be dead when a tiger had both his paws on the man's chest.

Yes, that is right. IFS officer Parveen Kaswan recently shared a video of a man lying under a tiger, with their faces extremely close to each other with the caption, "You want to see how does a narrow escape looks like in case of an encounter with a #tiger. #Tiger was cornered by the crowd. But fortunately, the end was fine for both man and tiger. Sent by a senior."

Another Twitter user shared the full 30-second video in the comments. He also said that the incident occured in Tumsar in Bhandara district, Maharashtra. The spine-chilling clip shows a tiger running freely in the fields trying to avoid people who have surrounded him and are trying to shoo him away.

In his quest to run away, the scared tiger grabs a human. When he sees that people are still approaching him and trying to scare him away, he gets up and runs away for his life. All this while, the man who was captured by the animal lays still on the ground and does not make an attempt to get free.

This is what stuck with Twitter and they are praising the man for his presence of mind.

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Agencies
February 29,2020

New Delhi, Feb 29: Former RBI governor Raghuram Rajan has said slowdown in growth is due to the current government focussing more on meeting its political and social agenda rather than paying attention to the economy.

India can still reverse its slowing economic growth by paying attention to key issues, he said. "It's a sad story, I think most recently, it is politics," Rajan said in response to a question on what was stopping India's growth which remains below potential.

In an interview to Bloomberg TV, Rajan said unfortunately the current government after a massive election win has "focussed more on fulfilling its political and social agenda rather than paying attention to the economic growth".

"Unfortunately, this drift has continued a pace of slowing growth, which was precipitated initially by some actions the government took such as the demonetisation and a poorly rolled out Goods and Services Tax (GST) reform," Rajan said.

India's GDP growth hit nearly 7-year low of 4.7 per cent in the December quarter, as per official data released on Friday.

The GDP growth for the quarter is the lowest since January-March of 2012-13.

In the interview, which was telecast before the official numbers were released, Rajan said India has not paid sufficient attention to cleaning up the financial sector and unfortunately, that is leading to the slowing growth.

"These are things that they can change if attention is paid to them and appropriate actions are taken," Rajan, Professor of Finance at University of Chicago Booth School of Business, said.

On being asked about the spread of the coronavirus globally and its impact, he said there will certainly be some legacy issues in terms of business rethinking in the global supply chain.

"If it is disrupted anywhere, the entire supply chain is held ransom and companies are going to start rethinking that should we actually have these really spread out global supply chain or to bring them back closer home and how much diversification should we have. Should we have multiple production sites across the world rather than have it focussed primarily in Asia," he said.

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News Network
May 30,2020

New Delhi, May 30: India witnessed the highest ever spike of 7,964 coronavirus positive cases in the last 24 hours, taking the total number of COVID-19 cases in the country to 1,73,763, according to the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.

With as many as 265 deaths reported in the last 24 hours, the death toll due to the virus now stands at 4,971.

Out of the total number of coronavirus cases, 86,422 are active and 82,370 have been cured/discharged/migrated.

Among the states, Maharashtra remains the worst-affected with 62,228 COVID-19 cases, followed by Tamil Nadu (20,246), Delhi (17,386) and Gujarat (15,934).

The fourth phase of the nationwide lockdown imposed as a precautionary measure to contain the spread of COVID-19 is slated to end on Sunday.

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