Will oppose Land Acquisition Bill at any cost, says Shiv Sena

London, Jul 10: India's Reliance will load its first cargo of Venezuelan crude in three months this week in exchange for diesel under a swap deal the parties say is permitted under the US sanctions regime on the Latin American country, according to a Reliance source and a shipping document from state oil firm PDVSA.

Washington has exempted some Venezuelan oil trade from sanctions when transactions are in exchange for fuel and food or to repay debts rather than for cash. But that trade slowed as the US tightened restrictions and refiners, shippers and insurers have been steering clear of Venezuela to avoid any risk they may fall foul of sanctions.

Washington aims to deprive Venezuelan socialist President Nicolas Maduro of his main source of revenue with the sanctions, which have driven Venezuelan oil exports to their lowest level since the 1940s.

Reliance gave the US State Department and the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) notice of the diesel swap and received word back that the policies that allowed the transaction were still in place, the Reliance source told Reuters.

Reliance has previously said that its supplies of fuel to PDVSA in exchange for crude were permitted under sanctions.

An oil tanker named Commodore would load the cargo of crude in Venezuela and ship it to India, the tanker's manager NGM Energy said.

"All details of the transaction and transportation were shared with US authorities, who confirmed that the U.S. policy authorizing such transactions remained in place," NGM Energy said in a statement to Reuters.

"The shipment is made in connection with the humanitarian exchange of oil for diesel fuel."

The Commodore is loading a 1.9-million barrel cargo of crude for Reliance at Venezuela's main oil port of Jose, according to an internal PDVSA cargo schedule seen by Reuters.

The Liberian-flagged Commodore was at the Jose Terminal on Thursday, ship tracking data on Refinitiv Eikon showed.

The US State Department, Treasury's enforcement arm OFAC, and PDVSA did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Reliance has a swap deal to provide diesel to Venezuela in exchange for fuel but has not received a cargo of crude since April. Sources at Indian refiners told Reuters earlier this year they planned to wind down their purchases of Venezuelan oil to avoid any problems with supply due to sanctions.

Other long-time customers of PDVSA, including Italy's Eni and Spain's Repsol, have continued taking cargoes of Venezuelan crude this year under permission granted by the US Treasury Department to exchange the oil for diesel supply as part of debt repayment deals, according to sources from the companies.

NGM Energy also manages the Voyager I tanker, which the United States removed from its list of sanctioned vessels last week after NGM and the ship's owner Sanibel Shiptrade said they would increase measures to ensure vessels complied with international sanctions.

"Last month, NGM Energy SA adopted a firm policy of not allowing vessels under its commercial management to trade to Venezuela, or to carry Venezuelan petroleum cargoes, absent US government authorization," NGM said.

"NGM continues to stand by that pledge."

Patna, Jan 12: Prashant Kishor, national vice-president of the Janata Dal (United), a key ally of the BJP-led NDA, has thanked Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi and former AICC chief Rahul Gandhi for their support in opposing CAA (Citizenship Amendment Act) and NRC (National Register of Citizens).

Perceived as one of the closest associates of Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, who is also the party’s national president, PK (as Prashant is fondly called) also assured the two top Congress leaders that the contentious legislation would not be implemented in Bihar where JD (U) is ruling the State with the support of the BJP.

“I join my voice with all to thank #Congress leadership for their formal and unequivocal rejection of #CAA_NRC. Both @rahulgandhi and @priyankagandhi deserve special thanks for their efforts on this count….also would like to reassure to all – CAA/NRC won’t be implemented in Bihar,” tweeted PK on Sunday.

The development assumes significance as a day back, the Congress Working Committee (CWC) meeting, chaired by Sonia Gandhi, had strongly opposed CAA/NRC/NPR as it was aimed at “sinister design of the present regime to divide Indian people into religious lines.”

The latest tweet by PK is also being seen as a rebuff to the BJP, which again recently reiterated that “the BJP should project its own chief ministerial candidate during the 2020 Bihar Assembly elections.”

The JD (U) had taken umbrage over such provocative statements by BJP leaders and asked the saffron camp to rein in its ‘loudmouths’ as BJP chief Amit Shah had already made it clear that the next Assembly polls in Bihar would be fought under the leadership of Nitish.

Of late, PK has been quite vocal about his opposition to the Centre’s policies, particularly the contentious issues of NRC and CAA. Besides, he even dubbed senior BJP leader Sushil Modi as the man who became Bihar’s Deputy Chief Minister due to ‘circumstances’ as the BJP was decisively decimated during the 2015 Assembly elections.

Nitish never reprimanded PK for his jibe against Modi, thereby giving rise to speculations whether Bihar was again heading for a political churning ahead of Assembly polls slated for October this year.

May 29: A total of 367 domestic flights, carrying 30,136 passengers, operated throughout the country till 5 pm on Thursday, Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri said.

Airports in West Bengal also started operations on Thursday, three days after domestic air travel resumed in India after a gap of two months.

All scheduled domestic passenger services were suspended in India from March 25 to May 24 due to restrictions in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.

Earlier in the day, Puri had said that 460 domestic flights carrying 34,336 passengers were operated on Wednesday.

In the case of West Bengal, the minister on Sunday had said that the state will handle domestic flights from Thursday.

"Figures for domestic flights for 28th May 2020 are in. Departures 367, 30,136 passengers handled. Arrivals 310, 25,530 passengers handled. Total movements 677 with 55,666 passenger footfalls at airports.

 “Total number of flyers 30,136. These are numbers till 1700 hrs for Day 4," Puri said in a tweet.

A total of 428 domestic flights carrying 30,550 passengers and 445 domestic services carrying 62,641 flyers were operated in the country on Monday and Tuesday, respectively.

In February this year, when the lockdown was not imposed, around 4.12 lakh passengers travelled daily through domestic flights in India, according to Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) data.

During the pre-lockdown period, Indian airports handled around 3,000 daily domestic flights, aviation industry sources said. A total of 16 asymptomatic passengers on seven different flights including 13 of them who travelled by IndiGo have tested positive for COVID-19 since the resumption of domestic air services on Monday, according to airlines data.

Two of the three asymptomatic passengers who tested positive for the infection had travelled by Spicejet while one took a flight of Air India subsidiary Alliance Air.

The Karnataka government, meanwhile, said on Thursday it has requested the civil aviation ministry to reduce the number of flights originating from five states--Maharashtra, Gujarat, Tamil Nadu, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan--in the light of the high number of COVID-19 cases there, hours after a minister said it has "suspended" air travel from these states.

Seeking to clarify his statement, Law and Parliamentary Affairs Minister J C Madhuswamy maintained that Karnataka has not sought imposing a ban on flights from the five states as reported in some sections of the media. "India is flying high. Domestic operation figures for May 27, 2020 (till 23.59 hrs): Departures 460 with 34,336 passengers handled. Arrivals 464 with 33,525 passengers handled," Puri had said earlier in the day on Twitter.

If a flight takes off before midnight and lands in another airport after midnight, its departure and arrival are counted on different days, leading to a seeming mismatch in the figures of a particular day.

The Delhi airport, India's busiest airport, is scheduled to handle 147 departures and 145 arrivals on Thursday, said senior government officials. The Mumbai airport's operator MIAL said it handled a total of 50 domestic flights on Thursday. International passenger flights continue to remain suspended in the country.

Airports in West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Telangana and Tamil Nadu have been allowed to handle a restricted number of daily flights as these states do not want a huge influx of flyers amid the rising number of COVID-19 cases.

While domestic services resumed in Andhra Pradesh on Tuesday, they restarted in West Bengal on Thursday.

Though domestic flight operations across the country began on May 25, they could not be restarted in Kolkata and Bagdogra as the state's machinery was involved in relief and restoration work after cyclone Amphan's devastation.

"Welcome Back, Passengers! Kolkata Airport saw the arrival of 122 passengers from @DelhiAirport after two long months and 40 passengers departed to Guwahati. Proper checks were followed, and regular sanitization was carried out in the terminal which was abuzz with passengers," the Kolkata airport tweeted.

On Thursday, eleven flights took off from Kolkata and an equal number arrived in the city, sources at the Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose International Airport said.

"A total of 1,745 passengers arrived and 1,214 passengers flew out of the city today (Thursday)," airport sources said.

The airports in Kolkata and Bagdogra are permitted to handle 20 daily flights each from Thursday onwards.

While it is not clear how many flights were handled by the Bagdogra airport on Thursday, the officials said 899 passengers arrived while 484 passengers departed from the airport during the day.

The West Bengal government recently came up with a set of guidelines for people arriving in the state on domestic flights.

According to it, those entering the state from Thursday must submit a self-declaration form, stating that they have not tested positive for COVID-19 in the past two months.

The passengers will also need to undergo health screening after they arrive at the airport, the state's guidelines said.