It's going to be a star-studded Parliament

May 16, 2014

Parish_ravalNew Delhi, May 16: Innocent and Paresh Rawal, who are now new MPs, may be from opposite sides of the ideological spectrum, but the two actors have a common thread. Rawal, a BJP parliamentarian from the Ahmedabad East seat in Gujarat, enacted a number of roles in Hindi films that were first immortalised in Malayalam films by Innocent, a Left-backed MP from Chalakuddy in Kerala.

Rawal, a favourite of Malayalam director Priyadarshan, had given life to at least five characters Innocent portrayed in blockbuster films, when they were remade in Hindi in the 2000s. Innocent's role in 1993’s “Manichitrathazhu”, which won actor Sobhana a national award, was enacted by Rawal in the Hindi remake “Bhool Bhulaiya” to peels of laughter in movie theatres. Rawal also essayed Innocent's roles in “Hera Pheri”, “Mera Baap, Pehle Aap”, “Bhagam Bhaag”, “Chupke Chupke” and “Hulchul”.

The Malayalam actor, who recently fought a tough battle against cancer, defeated senior Congress MP P C Chacko by over 14,000 votes; while Rawal, a candidate hand-picked by Narendra Modi himself, won by a margin of over 2.5 lakh.Innocent and Rawal are not the only ones artiste-turned-MPs. West Bengal, too, is sending a number of actors and singers to Parliament this time.

Tollywood superstar Deepak Adhikari aka Dev, Moon Moon Sen, Shatabdi Roy, Sandhya Roy and Tapash Paul – all Trinamool Congress candidates – and singer Babul Supriyo of the BJP, found places in the Parliament from West Bengal.

TMC candidate in South Delhi Biswajeet Chatterjee, however, lost miserably managing to garner only 846 votes.

BJP’s Shatrughan Sinha was another prominent actor to win from Bihar’s Patna Saheb constituency, while director Prakash Jha of the JD-U lost from Paschim Champaran.

In Uttar Pradesh’s Mathura constituency, renowned dancer Hema Malini of the BJP trounced sitting MP Jayant Choudhary, son of RLD chief Ajit Singh. In Chandigarh, BJP’s Kirron Kher overcame the challenge of AAP’s Gul Panag in Chandigarh.

Yesteryear’s heart-throb Vinod Khanna also won the BJP a seat from Gurdaspur in Punjab, while Manoj Tewari brought the party victory from the North-East Delhi seat.

Besides Gul Panag, the stars who found themselves on the losing end were Congress’ Ramya from Mandya in Karnataka and RLD’s Jayaprada from Bijnore in Rajasthan.

AAP’s Javed Jafferi from Lucknow, Congress’ Vijayshanti from Medak and Nagma from Meerut also failed to sway voters and get seats.

Among sports persons, Olympian-shooter Rajyavardhan Rathore trounced Congress’ C P Joshi by a margin of around 3.20 lakh votes in Jaipur Rural, while others were not as lucky. Footballer Baichung Bhutia of the TMC lost by a margin of around 1.75 lakh to BJP’s S S Alhuwaliah in Darjeeling.

Cricketer Mohammed Kaif, the Congress candidate from Phulpur, a seat represented by India’s first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru, managed to get only around 32,000 votes. BJP candidate K P Maurya, who won the seat, polled ten times more votes than Kaif.

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News Network
March 20,2020

New Delhi, Mar 20: The government on Thursday said one Indian who tested positive for coronavirus has died in Iran while the other citizens infected with the disease are being provided treatment and taken care of by the Iranian government.

Noting that the virus tends to be more fatal for those whose immunity levels are low, a senior MEA official said the deceased, an elderly person, belonged to the vulnerable age group and had health-related complications.

The death was not because of lack of medical attention or care, he said.

"We have evacuated 590 people from Iran where the situation is very severe. The Indians infected with coronavirus in Iran have been segregated and taken care of very well by the government there. We believe they will recover and we will bring them back," the MEA official said, adding that 201 Indians were evacuated from Iran on Wednesday.

The official said closely knit families required some persuasion and counselling during the process of segregation to prevent the spread of the contagion.

The Indian ambassador and other officials explained the consequences of infected people not being separated from their families and were successful to a large extent in segregating the positive cases from the negative ones, he said.

"Some pilgrims and students are still there and our embassy and mission are in control (of the situation)," the official said.

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News Network
March 2,2020

Feb 2: The Supreme court on Monday decided to hear on March 4 a plea seeking registration of FIRs against politicians for hate speeches which allegedly led to violence in the national capital.

A bench headed by Chief Justice S A Bobde agreed to hear the plea filed by riots victims.

The petition was mentioned for urgent listing by senior advocate Colin Gonsalves, appearing for the riots victims.

Gonsalves said that the Delhi High Court has deferred for four weeks the matters related to riots in the national capital despite the fact that people are still dying due to the recent violence.

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Agencies
January 21,2020

New Delhi, Jan 21: With the IMF lowering India's economic growth estimate for the current fiscal to 4.8 per cent, senior Congress leader P Chidambaram on Tuesday claimed an attack on the world body and its chief economist Gita Gopinath by government ministers was imminent.

He also alleged that the growth figure of 4.8 per cent given by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) is after some "window dressing" and he won't be surprised if it goes even lower.

"Reality check from IMF. Growth in 2019-20 will be BELOW 5 per cent at 4.8 per cent," Chidambaram said in a series of tweets.

"Even the 4.8 per cent is after some window dressing. I will not be surprised if it goes even lower," the former finance minister said.

IMF Chief Economist Gopinath was one of the first to denounce demonetisation, he noted.

"I suppose we must prepare ourselves for an attack by government ministers on the IMF and Dr Gita Gopinath," Chidambaram said.

The IMF lowered India's economic growth estimate for the current fiscal to 4.8 per cent and listed the country's much lower-than-expected GDP numbers as the single biggest drag on its global growth forecast for two years.

In October, the IMF had pegged India economic growth at 6.1 per cent for 2019.

Listing decline in rural demand growth and an overall credit sluggishness for lowering of India forecasts, Gopinath, however, had said the growth momentum should improve next year due to factors like positive impact of corporate tax rate reduction.

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