Sharad Yadav all set to be JD(U) chief for a third time

New Delhi, Apr 21: Tablighi Jamaat leader Maulana Saad Kandhalvi, who has been booked by the Delhi Police for holding a religious congregation here during the lockdown, on Monday urged the followers of the organisation to pray at home in the month of Ramzan.

"I request all, both in India and abroad, to strictly follow the guidelines and instructions of the local or national governments and till the time restrictions are in place and please observe prayers at home. And even in this, we should not invite people from outside," he said in a statement.

Ramzan begins later this week.

While addressing an online briefing on Sunday, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal cited the Tablighi Jamaat congregation last month, a major hotspot, and the large inflow of travellers from other countries to Delhi as the reasons for the spread of the virus, and said the city was "fighting a difficult battle".

The Delhi Police crime branch, had on March 31, lodged an FIR against seven people, including the cleric, on a complaint by the Station House Officer of Nizamuddin police station for holding the congregation in alleged violation of the orders against large gatherings to contain the spread of coronavirus.

Later, the Indian Penal Code Section 304 (culpable homicide not amounting to murder) was added to the FIR.

The cleric is wanted by the Delhi Police and he responded twice to them. He is currently under home quarantine.

In an audio message released earlier this month, Kandhalvi had said he was exercising self-quarantine after several hundreds who visited the congregation at Nizamudddin Markaz tested positive for coronavirus.

Singapore, Jun 2: Moody's Investors Service on Tuesday downgraded 11 Indian banks along with as many non-financial companies and infrastructure majors besides four government-related issuers following a downgrade of the Indian government's issuer rating to Baa3 from Baa2 with a negative outlook.

The rapid and widening spread of the coronavirus outbreak, deteriorating global economic outlook, volatile oil prices and asset price declines are creating a severe and extensive credit shock across many sectors, regions and markets, said Moody's.

The Indian banking sector has been affected given the disruptions to India's economic activity from the coronavirus outbreak, which is weakening borrowers' credit profiles, it added.

The 11 lenders include Bank of Baroda, Bank of India, Canara Bank, Central Bank of India, Export-Import Bank of India, HDFC Bank, Indian Overseas Bank, IndusInd Bank, Punjab National Bank, State Bank of India and Union Bank of India.

The 11 non-finance companies are Oil and Natural Gas Corporation, Hindustan Petroleum Corporation, Oil India, Indian Oil Corporation, Bharat Petroleum Corporation, Petronet LNG, Tata Consultancy Services, Infosys, Reliance Industries, UPL Corporation and Genpact.

The 11 infrastructure companies are NTPC, NHPC, National Highways Authority of India, Power Grid Corporation, Gail India, Adani Green Energy Restricted Group (RG-2), Adani Transmission Restricted Group, Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone, Adani Transmission, Adani Electricity Mumbai and Azure Power Solar Energy.

The four Indian government-related issuers are Indian Railway Finance Corporation, Housing and Urban Development Corporation, Power Finance Corporation and REC Ltd.

"Government-related issuers in India have been affected because of disruptions to India's economy which will weaken borrowers' credit profiles," said Moody's.

Lucknow, Jan 12: The controversy over renowned Pakistani poet Faiz Ahmad Faiz's iconic poem 'Hum dekhenge' may have caused an upheaval in the literary world but it has also helped in resurrecting the famous poet for the young generations.

Students and young professionals are making a beeline for books on Faiz, his biography and his poems and book sellers are ordering supplies of Faiz books.

"Earlier, we sold hardly one book in a month or on Faiz but after the controversy, people are curious to know more about the poet and his poems. We have placed orders for the entire literary range on Faiz Ahmad Faiz," said a leading book seller in Hazratganj in Lucknow.

The bookseller said that the highest demand was for books written in Devnagri script.

"Not many in the young generation can read or write Urdu so they prefer Devnagri," the book seller said.

In Kanpur, most of the leading bookshops have already run out of stocks and book stalls in the ongoing Handloom Expo are drawing huge crowds for Faiz books.

Suchita Srivastava, B.Ed student in Kanpur said, "I have never been fond of Urdu poetry because I do not understand much of the language but after the controversy, I want to read poems of Faiz to understand what he wanted to say. I am taking help of Google to understand difficult words in Urdu."

Krishna Rao, another student at the Chandra Shekhar Azad University of Agriculture and Technology, said that since books on Faiz had been sold out, he had ordered a Kindle edition and was reading them.

"Reading his poems actually widens one's perspective of things and becomes even more precious if you take into account the time and context in which they were written," he said.