Crunch fortnight awaits Sonia Gandhi, Congress

May 30, 2012

Sonia

New Delhi, May 30: Congress chief Sonia Gandhi will be back in the capital from a brief summer break this week and will get down to taking decisions which will be crucial for the party and the UPA government in the interregnum before Lok Sabha polls. It is being seen as a crunch fortnight for the party.

Soon after her return from the cool climes of Kausani, Sonia has to consult UPA supporters, call a meeting of the Congress Working Committee and hold endless rounds of confabulations. At stake is who should be Congress's nominee for president: a pivotal call on which a number of crucial issues may hinge.

The CWC meeting, scheduled tentatively for June 4, is likely to focus on the economic crisis in the light of declining value of rupee, rising prices and the growing perception of the economy going downhill. The outcome, especially the stand on petrol price hike, will determine whether the party has the stomach for reforms before the realists within step up pressure for populism in view of coming elections.

But the organizational interest may be focused more on presidential elections: an issue which has to be settled outside the party talk shop.

The issue of who gets the nod will have a fallout for some nettlesome decisions to be taken later: reshuffle in organization and government, an imperative to tone up the two wings in the lead-up to the 2014 contest.

Congress's victory in the top contest is almost a certainty. The trouble is that because of lack of numbers, it is not a free agent in deciding its nominee. Its calculations went awry when Trinamool boss Mamata Banerjee vetoed Vice-President Hamid Ansari because of his perceived proximity to the Left. Then, Mulayam Singh Yadav, whose UP numbers make him one of the deciding factors, struck another blow to the vice-president's prospects by saying that he would not accept a former government servant as the president.

Thanks to the double whammy for Ansari, the candidature of Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar has been revived. Though she was on Congress's list, the Speaker had lagged way behind Ansari and Pranab Mukherjee. Thanks to the quirk, she is back in the reckoning and, according to some estimates, ahead of Ansari in current seedings.

That should have, ordinarily speaking, left Mukherjee as the sole contender for Sonia's coveted endorsement but for the continuing reluctance of a section of Congress to relieve the so-called Mr Dependable of the government. Unfortunately for them, Mukherjee is not too enamoured of the citation and is eager to eject from North Block to Rashtrapati Bhavan. Ignoring him even on the ground of competence carries a strong risk of rendering him aloof and indifferent.

Mukherjee's movement from the government will present Congress with the tricky issue of finding his successor in the finance ministry as well as a leader of Lok Sabha, the latter being a bigger challenge considering the stature expected of the office.

The government also has to choose a successor to Ansari, perhaps even if he does not get elevated. No vice-president has got a second term after S Radhakrishnan. Congress may not like to make an exception; especially if the post becomes part of a package deal with Samajwadi Party: something which continues to be speculated about despite denials.

Whether the deal with Mulayam is eventually signed and what is going to be the state of ties with Mamata, perhaps even with Bihar CM Nitish Kumar, may all turn on the choice that Congress make in the next fortnight.

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News Network
April 20,2020

Thiruvananthapuram, Apr 20: The Kerala health department has declared 88 local bodies including the corporation, municipality and panchayats, spread over 14 districts in the state as COVID-19 hotspots.

"The lockdown restrictions in these areas will be continued in the hotspots announced by the state health department," said state DGP Lokanath Behera in a statement.

"Hot spots are being announced based on COVID-19 positive cases, primary contacts and secondary contacts. As the outbreak of the disease increases, hot spots will be revised daily," said State Health Minister KK Shailaja.

However, the Minister said that a particular region will be excluded from the hot spot after a weekly data analysis.

District wise hot spots in the state - Thiruvananthapuram (3) including Thiruvananthapuram Corporation, Kollam (5), Alappuzha (3), Pathanamthitta (7), Kottayam District (1), Idukki (6), Ernakulam (2), Thrissur (3), Palakkad (4), Malappuram (13), Kozhikode (6), Wayanad (2), Kannur (19) and Kasaragod (14).

In Kerala, 400 people have detected positive for coronavirus, including 3 deaths, as per the Union Health Minister.

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News Network
February 18,2020

New Delhi, Feb 18: Delhi Transport Minister Kailash Gahlot is the richest minister in the AAP government, according to a report released by the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) on Monday.

In a statement, the NGO said, Delhi Election Watch and ADR have analysed the self-sworn affidavits of all the seven-party leaders including Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal.

According to the statement, the minister with the lowest declared total assets is Gopal Rai with assets worth Rs 90.01 lakh.

"The minister with the highest declared total assets is Kailash Gahlot from Najafgarh constituency with assets worth Rs 46.07 crore," it stated.

The report by ADR comes on the day Kejriwal and his six ministers took charge after the formation of the new AAP government.

Chief Minister Kejriwal and his cabinet colleagues took charge of their respective offices on Monday and asserted that they would work to fulfil the promises made in the "guarantee card", released during the poll campaign, including reduction in pollution and expansion of metro network.

Members of his Cabinet are -- Manish Sisodia, Satyendar Jain, Rajendra Pal Gautam, Imran Hussain, Gopal Rai and Kailash Gahlot.

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Agencies
July 7,2020

India's COVID-19 tally raced past the seven lakh-mark with 22,252 fresh infections on Tuesday, five days after crossing the six lakh post, while the death toll climbed to 20,160 as 467 more people succumbed to the disease, according to the Union health ministry.

With this, the country has recorded over 20,000 cases of the infection for the fifth consecutive day.

India's coronavirus infection caseload stands at 7,19,665, the ministry's data updated at 8 am showed.

With a steady rise, the number of recoveries stands at 4,39,947, while there are 2,59,557 active cases of coronavirus infection in the country.

"Thus, around 61.13 % of patients have recovered so far," an official said.

The total number of confirmed cases also includes foreigners.

Of the 467 deaths reported in the last 24 hours, 204 are from Maharashtra, 61 from Tamil Nadu, 48 from Delhi, 29 from Karnataka, 24 from Uttar Pradesh, 22 from West Bengal, 17 from Gujarat.

Telangana and Haryana reported 11 deaths each; Madhya Pradesh nine; Andhra Pradesh seven; Jammu and Kashmir six; Rajasthan and Punjab five each; Bihar, Kerala and Odisha two each; and Arunachal Pradesh and Jharkhand one each.

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