Will Hamid Ansari get a second term?

June 23, 2012

Hamid_Answ

New Delhi, June 23: Vice President Hamid Ansari -- who was a strong contender for the UPA’s presidential candidate, as West Bengal chief minister Mamata Bannerjee revealed after she met Congress President Sonia Gandhi – may be offered a second term in his current job. A few days ago, Congress general secretary Digvijaya Singh, responding to a question in a TV interview on the possibility of a second term for Mr Ansari as VP, said, “It’s not a bad idea. Mr Ansari has conducted himself admirably as vice-president.”

Indeed, what Mr Singh said publicly is being said privately in Congress circles: one party source even pointed out that of the last 11 VPs, six became President; of the remaining five, Krishan Kant died in office, BD Jatti and B.S. Shekhawat ended their vice presidential tenures when the party/coalition that had elected them as VPs were no longer in power, while G S Pathak and M Hidayatullah completed their terms when there was no vacancy in Rashtrapati Bhawan as two Presidents, Dr Zakir Hussain and Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed died in office. There is also a historical precedent for a vice president getting a second tenure: S Radhakrishnan was VP for two terms, before he became the country’s second President. It is against this backdrop that Mr Ansari’s supporters in the Congress are making a case for a second tenure as VP for him.

Of course, with Mr Ansari having lost the Presidential nomination, other Muslim names have surfaced for the VP’s job – the Congress’ Mohsina Kidwai and K Rehman Khan and the National Conference’ Saifuddin Soz. Finally, those who feel a counter is needed to former Speaker Purno Sangma emerging as the opposition’s presidential candidate have put forward the name of former Nagaland chief minister SC Jamir.

Early on in the negotiations that preceded the selection of its presidential candidate, when the UPA was still unsure of mustering the numbers for its nominee for Rashtrapati Bhawan, there was talk of the possibility of a quid pro quo with the National Democratic Alliance: in that context, Shiromani Akali Dal supremo P.S. Badal’s name was taken, and the BJP’s Jaswant Singh made a bid for the job.

But with that stage over, the Congress, a senior party functionary said, is determined to keep the VP’s job within the UPA. Those who have signed up to back Mr Pranab Mukherjee for President – the UPA with or without the Trinamool Congress, the Samajwadi Party, the Bahujan Samaj Party, the CPI(M), the Forward Bloc and the Janata Dal- United – will also play a role in who will be the next VP.

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Agencies
March 6,2020

New Delhi, Mar 6: After Yes Bank was placed under moratorium, digital payments were impacted as PhonePe, which depends on the cash-strapped lender for its transactions, could not operate.

It can be noted that the bank's own net banking facilities have not been operational since last evening. Other fintech operators who rely on Yes Bank to settle their transactions are also down.  “We sincerely regret the long outage. Our partner bank (Yes Bank) was placed under moratorium by RBI. Entire team's been working all night to get services back up asap (as soon as possible),” the app's chief executive Sameer Nigam tweeted early in the morning.

PhonePe, one of the country's largest digital payment platforms, is dependent on Yes Bank to process its transactions.

He added that the app hopes to be live in a “few hours”.

Yes Bank placed under a moratorium Thursday evening, with the RBI capping deposit withdrawals at Rs 50,000 per account for a month and superseding its board.

Yes Bank will not be able to grant or renew any loan or advance, make any investment, incur any liability or agree to disburse any payment.

For the next month, Yes Bank will led by the RBI-appointed administrator Prashant Kumar, an ex-chief financial officer of SBI.

He added that the app - one of the most popular interfaces for UPI transactions - hopes to be live in a “few hours”.

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News Network
June 26,2020

New Delhi, Jun 26: With the highest single-day spike of 17,296 COVID-19 cases reported in the last 24 hours, India's COVID-19 count reached 4,90,401 on Friday, said the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW).

The country also saw 407 deaths in the last 24 hours, which pushed the death toll to 15,301.

The total number of cases includes 1,89,463 active cases, 2,85,637cured/discharged/migrated cases, as per the MoHFW.

According to the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), the total number of samples tested up to June 25 is 77,76,228; the number of samples tested on 25 June is 2,15,446.

Maharashtra remains the worst-affected state in the country with 1,47,741 cases. The active cases in the state are 63,357. The number of people cured or discharged stands at 77,453 while the death toll is at 6,931.

Delhi has so far reported 73,780 cases. The active cases in the national capital stood at 26,586. While the cured and discharged numbers stood at 44,765. The death toll in the city is 2,429.

Tamil Nadu has so far reported 70,977. With active cases at 30,067 and the number of cured or discharged at 39,999, while the death toll stood at 911.

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News Network
March 12,2020

New Delhi, Mar 12: The Supreme Court told the Uttar Pradesh government on Thursday that as of now, there was no law that could back their action of putting up roadside posters of those accused of vandalism during anti-CAA protests in Lucknow.

An apex court bench refused to stay the March 9 Allahabad High Court order directing the Yogi Adityanath administration to remove the posters.

The top court, which grilled the Uttar Pradesh government for putting up such posters in public, described the plea as a matter that needed "further elaboration and consideration".

A vacation bench of justices U U Lalit and Aniruddha Bose said a "bench of sufficient strength" would consider next week the Uttar Pradesh government's appeal against the Allahabad High Court order directing the state administration to remove the posters of those accused of vandalism during anti-CAA protests.

It directed the apex court registry to put up the case file before Chief Justice of India (CJI) S A Bobde so that a "bench of sufficient strength can be constituted at the earliest to hear and consider" the case next week.

During the hearing, the bench told Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, appearing for the Uttar Pradesh government, that it was a matter of "great importance".

It asked Mehta whether the state government had the power to put up such posters.

The top court, however, said there was no doubt that action should be taken against rioters and they should be punished.

Mehta told the court that the posters were put up as a "deterrent" and the hoardings only said that these persons were liable to pay for their alleged acts during the violence.

Senior advocate A M Singhvi, appearing for former IPS officer S R Darapuri whose poster has also been affixed in Lucknow, told the bench that the state was duty-bound to show the authority of law backing its action.

He said the action of the Uttar Pradesh government amounted to a "mega blanket" approach of naming and shaming these persons without final adjudication and it was an open invitation to common men to lynch them as the posters also had their addresses and photographs.

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