Akhilesh Yadav goes 'soft' on Mayawati's corruption

August 17, 2012
Akhilesh

Lucknow, August 17: The Samajwadi Party (SP) government rode to power earlier this year in March after winning elections on the issue of corruption in previous Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) regime. However, contrary to the repeated assurances that it would weed out corruption and take strict action against the accused, the Akhilesh Yadav-led SP government seems to be protecting those named in various alleged scams which occurred during the Mayawati rule.

Sample this: while Rs 1200 crore sugar mill sale scam has been put in the back burner, the government has not given sanction to the CBI for prosecuting senior officials and doctors named in the Rs-5700 crore National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) scam and a through probe in the Rs 1000-crore Noida farm house land allotment scam is being unnecessarily delayed. Further, the inquires ordered in over a dozen other scams are moving at a snail's pace.

In the Noida farm house land allotment scam, the government has been accused of trying to protect the officials involved in the scam. First preliminary inquiry was delayed and the matter was referred to the Lokayukta only after media highlighted the anomalies. Now, it has come to light that the required procedure was not followed before sending the case to Lokayukta. As a result, the Lokayukta has returned the government's request to probe the scam.

In the NRHM scam, the government is sitting over CBI's request to for sanction of prosecution of prime accused IAS officer Pradeep Shukla and over 20 doctors named in investigations. Further, Shukla, who was arrested by the CBI, was not even put under suspension by the state government for the period he was in the jail for 90 days before getting bail on August 13. Significantly, senior SP minister and chief minister's uncle Shivpal Yadav visited Shukla in jail.

In sugar mill scam, the SP government after coming to power had promised to take action but did nothing. When accused by some opposition parties of going easy on Mayawati, the government constituted a 9-member team headed by chief secretary in June this year to probe the matter again, despite the fact that the Comptroller and Auditor General had already found anomalies worth Rs 1200 crore in sale of 21 government sugar mills during BSP rule.

Though SP leaders continue to blame the corruption in previous BSP regime for the mess in the state, they have done little, barring suspensions of lower rung officials, to send a strong signal that their government is against corruption. Even the decision to refer anomalies in construction of Dalit memorials to the Lokayukta was taken after High Court issued a notice on a public interest litigation (PIL) seeking information about action taken in the scam.

Other alleged scams which are bring probed but at a snail's pace include anomalies in construction of toilets in rural households, arbitrary use of urgency clause for acquiring over 10,000 acre of agriculture land in Noida for housing projects, irregularities in appointment of about 72,000 primary teachers, anomalies in construction of canals and irregularities in allotment of contracts for mining, excise and high security number plates among other cases.


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News Network
January 31,2020

New Delhi, Jan 31: Slamming the BJP over the Jamia firing incident, Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra on Friday said such incidents were possible with the ruling party's leaders inciting people to shoot, and asked Prime minister Narendra Modi to answer whether he stands with violence or non-violence.   

Her attack on the government comes a day after tensions in the Jamia area spiralled on Thursday after a man fired a pistol at a group of anti-CAA protesters, injuring a student, before walking away while waving the firearm above his head and shouting "Yeh lo aazadi" amid heavy police presence in the area.

"When the BJP government ministers and party leaders incite people to shoot, give provocative speeches, then all this becomes possible. The Prime Minister should answer what kind of a Delhi he wants to build?" Priyanka Gandhi said in a tweet in Hindi.

Does the PM stand with violence or non-violence, she asked.

"Does he stand with development or with anarchy?" the Congress general secretary said.

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News Network
February 29,2020

New Delhi, Feb 29: India’s economy expanded at its slowest pace in more than six years in the last three months of 2019, with analysts predicting further deceleration as the global Covid 19 coronavirus outbreak stifles growth in Asia’s third-largest economy.

The gross domestic product (GDP) data released yesterday showed government spending, private investment and exports slowing down, while there is a slight upturn in consumer spending and improvement in rural demand lent support.

The quarterly figure of 4.7% growth matched the consensus in a Reuters poll of analysts but was below a revised - and greatly increased - 5.1% rate for the previous quarter.

The central bank has warned that downside risks to global growth have increased as a result of the coronavirus epidemic, the full effects of which are still unfolding.

Prime minister Narendra Modi’s government has taken several steps to bolster economic growth, including a privatisation push and increased state spending, after cutting corporate tax rates last September.

In its annual budget presented this month, the government estimated that annual economic growth in the financial year to March 31 would be 5%, its lowest for last 11 years.

Modi’s government is targeting a slight recovery in growth to 6% for 2020/21, still far below the level needed to generate jobs for millions of young Indians entering the labour market each month.

The annual GDP figure for the September quarter was ramped up from an earlier estimate of 4.5%, while the April-June reading was similarly lifted to 5.6% from 5%, data released by the Ministry of Statistics showed on Friday.

Capital Investment Drop

In the December quarter, private investment grew 5.9%, up from 5.6% in the previous quarter, while government spending rose by 11.8%, against 13.2% in the previous three months.

However, corporate capital investment contracted by 5.2% after a 4.1% decline in the previous quarter, indicating that interest rate cuts by the central bank have failed to encourage new investment. Manufacturing, meanwhile, contracted by 0.2%.

“It appears growth slowdown is not just cyclical but more entrenched with consumption secularly joining the slowdown bandwagon even as the investment story continues to languish,” said Madhavi Arora of Edelweiss Securities in Mumbai.

Many economists said that the government stimulus could take four to six quarters of time before lifting the economy and the impact of those efforts could be outweighed by the global fallout from the coronavirus epidemic that began in China.

“The coronavirus remains the critical risk as India depends on China for both demand and supply of inputs,” said Abheek Barua, chief economist at HDFC Bank.

Indian shares sank on Friday for a sixth session running, capping their worst week in more than a decade. The NSE Nifty 50 index shed 7.3% over the week, while the Sensex dropped 6.8%, the worst weekly declines since the 2008-09 financial crisis.

Separately, India’s infrastructure output rose 2.2% year on year in January, data showed on Friday.

A spike in inflation to a more than 5-1/2 year high of 7.59% in January is expected to make the RBI hold off from further cuts to interest rates for now, while keeping its monetary stance accommodative.

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Agencies
March 14,2020

New Delhi, Mar 14: A Delhi court on Friday granted bail to three alleged members of the Popular Front of India (PFI) -- Parvez (Delhi President), Iliyas (Delhi Secretary) and Danish -- in connection with the organization's role in the northeast Delhi violence last month.

Metropolitan Magistrate Prabhdeep Kaur granted bail to all three accused on furnishing personal bail bonds of Rs 30,000 each.

The court said that "Investigating Officer (IO) has nowhere mentioned that any of the non-bailable offences has been disclosed or has come out during investigation till now, therefore, accused be enlarged on bail."

According to police, the three men were arrested for allegedly spreading fake propaganda during the anti-CAA protests.

Delhi police, while opposing bail and seeking remand, stated that police custody is required because accused were involved in a conspiracy of communal riots which resulted in the death of 50 innocent people and injuries to approximately 300 persons and huge loss of government and public properties.

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