Kingfisher is closed chapter

February 26, 2013

New Delhi, Feb 26: In a big setback to the ailing Kingfisher Airlines, which may end its revival plans, the government on Monday withdrew all its domestic and international traffic rights. These slots will be given to other airlines.

According to an official release, Minister of Civil Aviation Ajit Singh has decided to withdraw all international bilateral traffic rights allocated to Kingfisher Airlines with immediate effect.kf

Flying or airport slots are rights allocated to a scheduled airline by an airport operator or government agency, granting the slot owner the right to schedule a landing or departure during a specific time period. There was no immediate reaction from the airlines.

Under these rights, the Vijay Mallya-led carrier was allowed to fly to eight  countries making up 25,000 seats per week. Kingfisher was operating to Bangladesh (14 services per week), Hong Kong (14), Nepal (seven), Singapore (seven), Sri Lanka (14 services per week and 21 services per week from unlimited 18 destinations), Thailand (21), Dubai (21) and the UK (7 services per week each from Mumbai, Delhi and Bangalore). These traffic rights were allocated to Kingfisher Airlines between the year 2008 and 2011.

These international traffic rights have been withdrawn from the carrier on account of non-utilisation of slots. “The minister has decided to make these international traffic rights available to other carriers for use. This would give additional availability of about 25,000 seats per week for use by other Indian carriers to these eight countries, some of which are much in demand from these carriers,” the release added.

“Similarly it has also been decided to withdraw the domestic slots which were allocated to Kingfisher at different airports for domestic flights. Airports Authority of India has been directed to make these slots available to other domestic carriers as per their demand,” the release said.

In October last year, the Directorate-General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) had temporarily suspended the Scheduled Operator Permit (SOP) or flying permit of the carrier following a strike by its pilots and engineers over non-payment of salaries for several months that completely grounded its fleet.

The SOP then expired on December 31. A week before this, the beleaguered airline submitted an interim revival plan to the aviation regulator to resume limited operations.

But the DGCA was not happy with the plan. It sought more information on the funding and payment of dues and decided not to allow the airlines to take to air till it met a series of conditions, including payment of dues to its employees and various service providers like airport operators.

Failing to provide any credible input, Kingfisher's lenders—a consortium of banks—also decided earlier this month to start the process of recovering Rs 7,500 crore outstanding loans from the grounded airline.

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News Network
January 17,2020

New Delhi, Jan 17: A Delhi court Friday issued fresh death warrants for February 1, 6 am against the four convicts in the Nirbhaya gang rape and murder case.

Additional Sessions Judge Satish Kumar Arora was hearing a plea by one of the four death row convicts in the case, Mukesh Kumar Singh, seeking postponement of the date of his execution scheduled for January 22.

Earlier in the day, the Tihar jail authorities sought issuance of fresh death warrants against the four convicts.

Public Prosecutor Irfan Ahmed told the court that Mukesh's mercy plea was rejected by President Ram Nath Kovind on Friday.

The 23-year-old paramedic student, referred to as Nirbhaya, was gang-raped and brutally assaulted on the intervening night of December 16-17, 2012 inside a moving bus in south Delhi by six persons before being thrown out on the road.

She died on December 29, 2012, at Mount Elizabeth Hospital in Singapore.

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Agencies
June 27,2020

Mumbai, Jun 27: The Shiv Sena on Saturday hit out at the BJP over its charge that the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation (RGF) had accepted donations from the Chinese embassy, and asked it whether the issue had any connection with intrusion by the neighbouring country in Ladakh and the martyrdom of 20 Indian soldiers.

The Sena also alleged that those raising questions against the government over the standoff with China were being labelled as Chinese agents by the BJP.

BJP chief J P Nadda had on Thursday targeted the Congress and the Gandhi family saying that the RGF had allegedly accepted donations from the Chinese embassy. Hitting back, the Congress had said that the RGF issue raised by the BJP government was a "manufactured charge" and "diversionary tactic" to deflect attention from the LAC crisis.

"What do you mean by Congress gets money from China? Instead of responding to the issues raised by Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi over the Chinese incursions, the BJP leaders accused the Congress of receiving funds from China," the Sena said in an editorial in party mouthpiece 'Saamana'.

"Will BJP's revelations about the donations stop the Chinese activities along the border? The BJP should tell what connection does these donations have with the Chinese incursion and the martyrdom of 20 soldiers," it added.

"In our country, many political leaders and parties, and not just the Congress, are beneficiaries of foreign countries. The BJP speaking about this is like throwing stones in the mud," it said.

The Uddhav Thackeray-led party said that Chinese President Xi Jinping visited India twice in the last six years.

"He was hosted in Gujarat. But it is a fact that China has betrayed. Holding talks on the one hand and continuing with the offensive along the border on the other hand is China's old policy," it said.

In the present scenario, the entire country stands firmly with PM Modi. This crisis is not for the BJP or the Congress, but for the entire country, whose prestige is at stake, it said.

"The BJP can fight with the Congress any time later.

But now is the time to fight against China. It should speak on that," the Sena said.

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Agencies
July 23,2020

Jaipur, Jul 23: Four days after the Special Operation Group (SOG) sent a notice to Union minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat in connection with the purported audio clips indicating his alleged involvement in horse trading of MLAs in Rajasthan, a city court has directed the Rajasthan police to probe a complaint alleging Shekhawat's role in a credit society scam worth Rs 840 crore.

The additional district judge Pawan Kumar, on Tuesday, directed the additional chief judicial magistrate's court to send the complaint against Shekhawat to the SOG.

Shekhawat, his wife and other partners have been named in the complaint in the Sanjivani Credit Cooperative Society scam in which around 50,000 investors allegedly lost about Rs 840 crore.

The Jaipur unit of the SOG has been probing the scam since last year after an FIR was registered on August 23, 2019.

Now, Jaipur ADJ Court-8 ordered a fresh inquiry in the case against Gajendra Singh accepting the revised application filed by Lagu Singh and Guman Singh and said that "this is a serious matter and hence SOG should investigate this".

Both the applicants had invested a huge amount in Sanjivani credit cooperative society.

It is alleged in the complaint that a multi-storey building has been built with the money instead of a theatre which was proposed earlier and many properties were also bought in Ethiopia with the money.

An SOG investigation also reveals that a large amount of money has been deposited into accounts of Shekhawat and his wife at different time spans, said sources.

Earlier, Shekhawat was not mentioned in the chargesheet filed by the SOG in connection with the case. Later, a magistrate's court also rejected the application to include him in the chargesheet. The applicants then approached the additional district judge's court with a revised application.

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