Moily Metro ride irks commuters

October 10, 2013

Moily_MetroNew Delhi, Oct 10: Petroleum Minister Veerappa Moily has kept his word to take public transport to work. He claimed that around 600 litres of fuel could be saved daily if others in the ministry followed his self-imposed austerity.

“My journey was pleasant. Hope it will start a movement,” he told a TV channel, little aware that several people were inconvenienced by his gesture. Commuters faced needless delays on their way to work. A 15-minute trip from the Race Course metro station to Central Secretariat took an hour.

Mediapersons made a beeline for Moily’s house for his comments. A five-minute walk to the Race Course station took half an hour as Moily explained how his action would spur fuel conservation at a time when the country was projected to import nearly 94 per cent of its crude in 2030.

The minister had said last month that as part of a fuel conservation drive to save $5 billion in oil import bill, he and Oil Ministry officials would take the public transport to work every Wednesday.

The first stumbling block to Moily’s initiative was the Finance Ministry, which called “ambitious” his claim to reduce the oil import bill by 3 per cent through such measures.

“While it is recognised that a conservation campaign might result in some reduction in petro product consumption, the estimates of savings projected at 3 per cent, over and above the proposed crude imports cut, appear to be ambitious,” the Finance Ministry had said. Joint secretaries Neeraj Mittal and Aramane Giridhar cycled 8 km to office. The 200-odd ministry staff also availed the public transport while most PSU staffers either took car pools or travelled by the metro or buses.

The Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) congratulated the minister on taking a step in the right direction. “Moily, make public transport a serious business for all—the rich and the poor—to save fuel, pollution and human lives. This is a good gesture, but the intent of it must not get reduced to a gimmick. It should catalyse significant change in commuting practices in the city,” CSE 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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News Network
June 10,2020

Chennai, Jun 10: DMK MLA J Anbazhagan who had tested positive for coronavirus and was on ventilator support from June 3 passed away at a hospital in Chennai on Wednesday.

Coincidently, today is the 62nd birthday of the MLA.

"Anbazhagan J, who has been fighting for his life with severe COVID 19 pneumonia rapidly deteriorated early this morning. In spite of full medical support including mechanical ventilation at our COVID facility, he succumbed to his illness. He was declared dead at 08:05 hours on the 10th of June 2020," the hospital said in a statement.

In 2001, Anbazhagan was elected from T Nagar Assembly constituency. He served for five years.

Later in 2011, he was elected to Tamil Nadu Assembly from Chepauk-Thiruvallikeni seat. The DMK leader was re-elected from the same constituency in 2016.

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News Network
January 2,2020

Perambalur, Jan 2: Veteran Tamil writer Nellai Kannan was arrested in Perambalur for criticizing Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah during a protest against Citizenship (Amendment) Act.

The Tirunelveli Police had registered the FIR against the writer for the speech delivered at a meeting, which was called by the Social Democratic Party of India on December 29 last year.

The police have booked him on the basis of multiple complaints filed by BJP leaders.

Kannan has been booked under Sections 504, 505(1) and 505(2) of the Indian Penal Code.

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