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Union Minister 'delays' Air India flight, 3 'offloaded' to accommodate him, PA

July 2, 2015

New Delhi, Jul 2: Union Minister Kiren Rijiju was at the centre of a controversy for delaying an Air India flight from Leh to Delhi for about an hour and for the offloading of three of its passengers, including a child, allegedly to accommodate him and his aide.

kiren-rijijuAccording to sources, the aircraft doors were shut for takeoff on June 24 but the flight did not depart at its scheduled time as Rijuju, along ith his PA, had to be onboard. When he arrived, three passengers were allegedly deboarded to accommodate the minister and his PA, sources said.

While an Air India spokesman said it has sought more details on the incident, Rijuju claimed it was not a "delay" as the departure of the flight was "preponed" due to technical reasons.

"The departure was at 1140 hrs...I don't know...somehow there was a rescheduling issue...It was not a delay..it was a communication gap," Rijiju said.

Rijiju told PTI from Darjeeling that he was returning to Delhi after taking part the "Sindhu Darshan" festival on June 24 along with Jammu and Kashmir Deputy Chief Minister Nirmal Singh in an Air India flight which was "suddenly rescheduled."

"I was supposed to return from Leh in a helicopter. But due to bad weather, the helicopter could not come from Srinagar to take me from Leh. Then the Jammu and Kashmir Deputy Chief Minister asked me to accompany him in the Air India flight which was supposed to depart at 11.40 AM.

"But to our utter surprise, when we reached the Leh airport at 10.20, we found that the door of the aircraft was closed and it was about to take off. Then the Deputy Chief Minister lodged a strong protest with the Civil Aviation Minister for the unannounced rescheduling of the aircraft," Rijiju said.

He said that after sometime, he and Singh were allowed to board the plane "and we could fly."

Asked whether three passengers were made to deboard the flight to accommodate him, Rijiju said he was not aware of any such thing. "I am totally unaware whether anyone was asked to deboard. If it was done, it is completely wrong and unacceptable," he said.

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News Network
March 4,2020

New Delhi, Mar 4: A court in Delhi on Wednesday convicted expelled BJP MLA Kuldeep Singh Sengar of culpable homicide not amounting to murder in the death of the Unnao rape victim's father.

District judge Dharmesh Sharma said Sengar had no intention of killing the victim's father. “He was beaten in a brutal manner that led to his death,” the judge said.

The court had sent Sengar to jail on December 20 for the “remainder of his natural biological life” for raping the woman in 2017, when she was a minor.

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) had examined 55 witnesses in support of the case and the defence examined nine witnesses.

The court had recorded the statements of the rape survivor's uncle, mother, sister and one of her father's colleague who claimed to be an eyewitness to the incident.

Charges were framed against Sengar, his brother Atul, Bhadauria, sub-inspector Kamta Prasad, constable Amir Khan and six others in the case.

The case was transferred to Delhi from a trial court in Uttar Pradesh on the directions of the Supreme Court on August 1 last year.

In July, 2019 a truck rammed into the car the rape victim was travelling in with some family members and her lawyer.

Two of her aunts died in the incident. She was airlifted from a hospital in Lucknow and to AIIMS in Delhi.

The victim has been provided accommodation in Delhi and is under CRPF protection.

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Agencies
July 29,2020

New Delhi, Jul 29: The new National Education Policy (NEP) approved by the Union Cabinet on Wednesday is set to usher in a slew of changes with the vision of creating an education system that contributes directly to transforming the country, providing high-quality education to all, and making India a global knowledge superpower.

The draft of the NEP by a panel headed by former Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) chief Kasturirangan and submitted to the Union Human Resource Development Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal when he took charge last year. The new NEP replaces the one formulated in 1986.

Some of the key highlights of the New Education Policy are:-

The policy aims to enable an individual to study one or more specialized areas of interest at a deep level, and also develop character, scientific temper, creativity, spirit of service, and 21st century capabilities across a range of disciplines including sciences, social sciences, arts, humanities, among others.

It identified the major problems facing the higher education system in the country and suggested changes such as moving towards multidisciplinary universities and colleges, with more institutions across India that offer medium of instruction in local/Indian languages, a more multidisciplinary undergraduate education, among others. 

The governance of such institutions by independent boards having academic and administrative autonomy has also been suggested.

Under the suggestions for institutional restructuring and consolidation, it has suggested that by 2040, all higher education institutions (HEIs) shall aim to become multidisciplinary institutions, each of which will aim to have 3,000 or more students, and by 2030 each or near every district in the country there will be at least one HEI.

The aim will be to increase the Gross Enrolment Ratio in HEIs including vocational education from 26.3 per cent (2018) to 50 per cent by 2035.

Single-stream HEIs will be phased out over time, and all will move towards becoming vibrant multidisciplinary institutions or parts of vibrant multidisciplinary HEI clusters.

It also pushes for more holistic and multidisciplinary education to be provided to the students.

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News Network
May 21,2020

New Delhi, May 21: As many as 5,609 new COVID-19 cases were reported in India in the last 24 hours, taking the total number of cases in the country to 1,12,359 according to the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.

Out of the total cases, 63,624 are active cases, 45,300 patients have been cured/discharged or have migrated and 3,435 deaths have been reported.

With 39,297 cases in total, Maharashtra remains the worst affected state in the country, followed by Tamil Nadu (13,191 cases), Gujarat (12,537 cases), and Delhi (11,088 cases).

The nationwide lockdown imposed as a precautionary measure to contain the spread of coronavirus has been extended till May 31.

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