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BJP defends Gadkari, rebuts Kejriwal’s charges

[email protected] (DHNS)
October 18, 2012
BJP_Gadkeri

New Delhi, October 18: The BJP stoutly defended party president Nitin Gadkari, facing charges of acquiring farmers’ land in Vidarbha, and turned the tables on Team Kejriwal saying, “hitmen have secured a self goal and damaged the credibility of civil society”.

India Against Corruption led by Kejriwal, on Wednesday, held a press conference to charge that Nitin Gadkari acquired farmers land in his native Vidarbha owing to his cosy relationship with former Maharashtra minister Ajit Pawar, the nephew of NCP chief Sharad Pawar and an important ally in the UPA government.

Immediately after, senior party leaders huddled at Gadkari’s residence to fine tune their strategy to counter Kejriwal’s expose, which did not rattle them as they had feared.

After the meeting, Gadkari dismissed the charges as "baseless, wrong and unfortunate".

Launching a counter offensive, he said Kejriwal, who has jumped into the political fray, was attempting to occupy opposition space with a tacit understanding with corruption-tainted Congress. "I am ready for any kind of probe," he said. According to him, the land (about 100 acres) was a wasteland valued at only Rs 20 lakh.

Though the allegations related to Gadkari’s business interests, BJP?party brass Sushma Swaraj and Arjun Jaitley were fielded by the party to defend the president. “Today’s press conference is a failed attempt to bring a moral equivalence between Congress and the BJP. A mountain of what was not even a molehill was desperately made out by the IAC,” Jaitley hit back at Kejriwal.

He also added that the “IAC has damaged the credibility of civil society” as he had to bend backwards to find out what the corruption was in acquiring waste land lying idle for 22 years.

But, the party failed to give a direct reply to why the Congress-NCP government in Maharashtra gave immediate consent to hand over 100 acres of land to Gadkari’s organisation and not to local farmers who had offered in writing to the district administration to buy back their land or to give it to them on lease.


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News Network
February 18,2020

New Delhi, Feb 18: India emerged as the world's fifth-largest economy by overtaking the UK and France in 2019, says a report.

A US-based think tank World Population Review in its report said that India is developing into an open-market economy from its previous autarkic policies.

"India's economy is the fifth-largest in the world with a GDP of $2.94 trillion, overtaking the UK and France in 2019 to take the fifth spot," it said.

The size of the UK economy is $2.83 trillion and that of France is $2.71 trillion.

The report further said that in purchasing power parity (PPP) terms, India's GDP (PPP) is $10.51 trillion, exceeding that of Japan and Germany. Due to India's high population, India's GDP per capita is $2,170 (for comparison, the US is $62,794).

India's real GDP growth, however, it said is expected to weaken for the third straight year from 7.5 per cent to 5 per cent.

The report observed that India's economic liberalisation began in the early 1990s and included industrial deregulation, reduced control on foreign trade and investment, and privatisation of state-owned enterprises.

"These measures have helped India accelerate economic growth," it said.

India's service sector is the fast-growing sector in the world accounting for 60 per cent of the economy and 28 per of employment, the report said, adding that manufacturing and agriculture are two other significant sectors of the economy.

The US-based World Population Review is an independent organisation without any political affiliations.

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Agencies
May 10,2020

New Delhi, May 10: Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Saturday demanded that Prime Minister Narendra Modi ensured audit of donations made to the PM-CARES Fund, and to share the details and the money spent with the people.

"The PM-CARES Fund has received huge contributions from PSUs and major public utilities like the Railways. It's important that the Prime Minister ensure the fund is audited and that the record of money received and spent is available to the public," he tweeted.

The #PmCares fund has received huge contributions from PSUs & major public utilities like the Railways.

It’s important that PM ensures the fund is audited & that the record of money received and spent is available to the public.

— Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) May 9, 2020
His remarks came amid reports that the central government is accumulating a huge sum of money in the Prime Minister's Citizen Assistance and Relief in Emergency Situations Fund set up as a corpus to fight novel coronavirus and that the amount spent will not be audited by the Comptroller and Auditor General.

The CAG office had clarified that since the fund is based on donations, it has no right to audit a charitable organisation.

On Friday, Rahul Gandhi told the media that the PM-CARES Fund should be audited and people of the country should know about the donors and the donations made.

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Agencies
July 30,2020

Kochi, Jul 30: The Kerala High Court on Thursday refused to grant the extension for the stay of a 74-year-old US citizen, Johnny Paul Pierce, who had earlier said that he felt safer to remain in India than in the United States amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

The single-judge bench of Justice CS Dias, which considered the writ petition, observed that the grant or extension of visa to foreign nationals fall exclusively within the domain of the Government of India (GoI) and that judicial review in such matters is minimal.

The power of the GoI to expel foreigners is absolute and unlimited, the bench said.

"In view of the categoric declaration of law by the Supreme Court, the plea of the petitioner to permit him to stay back in India cannot be accepted, as it falls within the purview of the guidelines and the discretion of the Government of India," the order said.

"The petitioner cannot be heard that the guidelines/policies/regulations formulated by the Government of India, that an American national though has been granted a visa having validity of five years has to leave India within 180 days, is irrational or unreasonable," it added.

The High Court, which was hearing a plea to permit the US citizen to stay in India for a further period of six months, said that the petitioner does not have a case that there is an infraction of Article 21 of the Constitution of India.

"The petitioner was well aware of the visa conditions when he arrived in India, and it is too late in the day for him to raise a grievance on the visa conditions," the bench said noting that the petitioner's love for India was heartening.

The High Court also directed the Foreigners Registration Officer to consider the petitioner's representation within a period of two weeks in accordance with the applicable guidelines and policies.

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