Narasimha Rao wasn't indifferent to Babri demolition: Naresh Chandra

New Delhi, May 30: An Air India flight from Delhi to Moscow on Saturday had to return midway after the airline's ground team found out that one of the pilots had tested positive for novel coronavirus, officials said.

"When the A320 plane, which did not have any passengers as it was heading to Moscow to bring back stranded Indians under Vande Bharat Mission, had reached Uzbekistan's airspace, our team on ground realised that one of the pilots had tested COVID-positive," senior Air India officials said.

"The flight was immediately asked to return. It came back to Delhi at around 12.30 pm on Saturday," the officials said. The crew has been quarantined. Another plane would be sent to Moscow to bring back the stranded Indians, according to the officials.

Jammu, Jan 6: Union Minister Jitendra Singh on Sunday said India is the only shelter for religiously persecuted Hindus, Sikhs and other minorities who come from Pakistan, Bangladesh or Afghanistan, for the safety of their life and honour.

"India owes responsibility towards the minorities living in these countries which proclaim Islam as their state religion," Singh said here while launching the BJP's countrywide 10-day mass contact drive to spread awareness about the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA).

Accompanied by senior party colleagues, including former deputy chief minister Kavinder Gupta and former minister Sat Sharma, he began by visiting the house of veteran columnist, writer and Padmashri awardee K L Pandita, where he spent time with them discussing the Act.

Later, he visited prominent social activist Amjad Mirza, eminent Sikh religious leader Baba Swaranjit Singh, retired High Court judge Justice G D Sharma, veteran journalist and former bureau head of Hind Samachar group Gopal Sachar, retired principal of Jammu government medical college Subhash Gupta, social activist and president of Peoples' Forum Ramesh Sabharwal, among others.

During his interaction with them, the Minister of State in the Prime Minister's Office claimed that Congress leaders and their allies protesting against the Act are doing so without "conviction".

He opined that if a "survey" was conducted among the family members of these Congress leaders, then, even they would not support their "anti-CAA stand".

"The tragedy of Congress party and contemporary leaders of Congress is that either they do not read their own history or are blissfully ignorant of the statements made by their own party patriarchs and former prime ministers," he said.

The minister recalled that the Nehru-Liaquat Pact of 1950 was inspired by the realisation on the part of the then Congress government headed by prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru that minorities, particularly Hindus, were not getting a fair deal in Pakistan.

"In 1949, Nehru had written a letter expressing concern about people coming in from then East Pakistan, which is now Bangladesh, and while doing so, he had referred to Hindus coming from there as 'refugees' and Muslims arriving here as 'immigrants'," Singh said.

Further, Nehru had stated that India owed a "responsibility" to these refugees, the minister said.

Referring to the opposition of senior Congress leaders Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi to the amended legislation, the minister said someone should show them records of proceedings of the winter session of Parliament in 1950 when their great-grandfather (Nehru) had himself said that they deserved to be given citizenship and if the law was inadequate for it, then, the law should be changed.

"PM Modi should actually be given credit for showing courage and conviction to carry forward the task, which the Congress government lacked, to accomplish this," the minister opined.

Singh reiterated that a false fear psychosis against Muslims is being sought to be manufactured when there is no place as safe and comfortable to live for the community as India.

Turning the tables on the opposition to the National Population Register(NPR) and proposed National Register of Citizens (NRC), Singh pointed out that PM Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah have been stating that the exercise on NRC is yet to begin.

He also said that it was then Union home minister P Chidambaram, who had stated in Parliament in 2010 that NPR could be a basis for NRC.

Jun 13: The Congress on Saturday accused the BJP-led government of burdening the common man with high taxes on petrol and diesel and earning Rs 2.5 lakh crore since March 5.

Congress leader Kapil Sibal said while international crude oil prices have fallen and are at the lowest level in 15 years, yet petrol and diesel prices are skyrocketing and common people continue to suffer under the Modi dispensation.

He said instead of passing the benefit of lower crude prices to consumers, petrol and diesel prices were hiked for the seventh straight day on June 13.

"The government has earned as much as Rs 44,000 crore in the last six days due to hike in petrol, diesel prices. Since March 5, the government has earned as much as Rs 2.5 lakh crore by way of increasing petrol, diesel prices.

"If the government had even the slightest feelings for the common man, instead of benefitting the companies and the government, the prime minister would have helped the common man with reduced fuel prices," Sibal said at an online press conference.

According to a report by Care Ratings, he said the hike effectively meant that the Central government is collecting around 270 per cent taxes on the base price of petrol and 256 per cent in case of diesel.

The former union minister said petrol was selling at Rs 71.41 in Delhi on May 1, 2014, when international crude oil prices were USD 106.85, while on June 12, 2020, the price of petrol was Rs 75.16 when the crude oil was at USD 38.

He said central excise and VAT cumulatively account for 69 per cent of tax on fuel in India which is higher than anywhere else in the world. He said the tax of fuel in the US was 19 per cent, Japan 47 per cent, the UK 62 per cent, France 63 per cent and Germany 65 per cent.