It will be ‘Dharam Yudh’ in LS polls: Jaitley

July 22, 2013

JaitleyChandigarh, Jul 22: Senior BJP leader Arun Jaitley on Sunday said with slew of graft cases surfacing during the UPA government, corruption has taken the shape of a “small scale industry”, and the upcoming Lok Sabha polls will be a fight between morality and immorality.

“Upcoming Lok Sabha election will not just be a political fight but a ‘Dharam Yudh’ (fight for justice) between morality and immorality,” said the Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha.

Mr. Jaitley was addressing party workers in Chandigarh on Sunday.

Speaking on the graft cases, he said, “With 2G, coal scam, Bofors scam running into several lakhs of crores, corruption during the UPA government has taken a form of small scale industry.”

Mr. Jaitley also attacked the Centre over CBI, alleging that Congress has been “misusing” the agency to not only save its ministers and other Congressmen but also to keep itself in power.

“Every time Congress government needed numbers for survival, the CBI suddenly went soft on the SP and BSP leaders who are facing probe for disproportionate assets.

“They have even attacked IB for vote bank politics, however Congress should remember CBI does not gets votes it is the people who vote and the mood of the people is clearly with BJP,” he said.

The BJP leader said that Congress was indulging in “crony Capitalism” and Congressmen have become “name lenders” as in the Coal scam, where the blocks were allotted “with name chits being passed on to the screening committee”.

“So large has been the degradation that even the status report to the Supreme Court was fudged to save those from the PMO and the Coal Ministry,” he claimed.

He also attacked former Railway Minister Pawan Kumar Bansal. “It seems the whole Bansal family is running an industry of postings and promotions,” he said.

“The government may have manipulated the CBI, but there is a clear overlap in the Railgate phone conversations and the file movements,” he said.

“Under these circumstances of failure on all the fronts there is no leadership in Congress to inspire or infuse confidence, and it seems to be ducking a political fight by going without a head,” he said.

On the other hand, Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi has been leading not only in all the opinion polls but also in the psyche of the country, Mr. Jaitley said.

On the economic front, Mr. Jaitley said that today even Indian businessmen are not willing to invest in the country.

In such circumstances, irrespective of the policy changes being made, FDI is not going to come, he claimed, adding that “the current account deficit is becoming unmanageable, but instead of working to improve the economy, the Congress government wants to open the coffers to buy votes.”

“Our borders have become porous and our relations with neighbours have touched a nadir. Pakistan has beheaded our jawan and is spreading terrorism in our country, still the Prime Minister is extending the hand of friendship,” he said.

He claimed that when Atal Bihari Vajpayee had initiated peace talks with Pakistan they were on the pre-condition that there would be no terrorism against India emanating from the Pakistan soil which was accepted by Pakistan.

Taking about Chandigarh, he said, “It is unfortunate that an important and respected city like Chandigarh was on the country’s centre stage recently due to the corruption of its elected Member of Parliament Pawan Kumar Bansal.”

Chandigarh Parliamentary Constituency is an indicator of the national mood, and this time the whole country will be looking towards Chandigarh to see if the city voters will take a moral high ground and root out the corrupt.

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News Network
January 31,2020

New Delhi, Jan 31: Substantial competition and low tariff rates by telecom operators since 2016 have led to a financial stress in the sector, the Economic Survey said on Friday.

The data price in the country came down by over 99 per cent during 2016-2019, making it among the lowest tariff in the world, according to the survey.

"Since 2016, the sector has witnessed substantial competition and price cutting by the telecom service providers (TSPs), creating financial stress in the sector. As a result, the sector is experiencing consolidation. While some operators have filed for bankruptcy, others have merged, in their quest to improve viability," the survey report said.

In April-June 2019, the price of data was Rs 7.7 per gigabyte (GB) as compared to Rs 200 per GB in June 2016, it added.

"The Average Revenue Per User (ARPU) for GSM based mobile services has also gone down substantially from Rs 126 in June 2016 to Rs 74.30 in June 2019," the survey said.

The tariff war started in the market with entry of new telecom operator Reliance Jio in September 2016.

"BSNL and MTNL are also affected by the tariff war that has impacted their cash flow resulting in mounting losses," the survey said.

The financial health of the public sector telecom firms plummeted to a level where they have been finding hard to pay employees salaries in time.

The government has drawn up a plan to revive these PSUs which is still in works.

The revival plan consists of several measures, including reduction of staff cost through voluntary retirement scheme, allotment of spectrum for 4G services, monetisation of land and building, tower and fibre assets of BSNL and MTNL, debt restructuring through sovereign guarantee bonds and ''in-principle'' approval for merger of BSNL and MTNL.

The survey said that the wireless telephony now constitutes 98.27 per cent of all subscriptions whereas share of landline telephones now stands at only 1.73 per cent where market share is dominated by private sector players.

"The overall tele-density in India stands at 90.45 per cent, the rural tele-density being 57.35 per cent and urban teledensity being 160.71 per cent at the end of September 2019. The private sector dominates with a share of 88.81 per cent (106.06 crore connections) at the end of September, 2019 while the share of public sector was 11.19 per cent (13.36 crore connections)," the survey said.

The lower price of data has also lead in surge of broadband connections and average consumption of the internet.

Total broadband connections increased by about ten times, from 6.1 crore in 2014 to 59.46 crore in June 2019, the survey said.

The number of internet subscribers (both broadband and narrowband put together) stood at 66.53 crore at the end of June 2019 as compared to 25.16 crore in 2014.

The number of mobile internet subscribers was 64.36 lakh at the end of June 2019 while the number of wireline internet subscribers was 2.17 crore.

"India is now the global leader in monthly data consumption, with average consumption per subscriber per month increasing 157 times from 62 MB in 2014 to 9.8 GB in June 2019. The cost of data has also reduced substantially, enabling affordable internet access for millions of citizens," the survey said.

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News Network
January 1,2020

New Delhi, Jan 1: Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) court in Mumbai has allowed banks that lent money to embattled liquor tycoon Vijay Mallya to utilize seized assets, news agency reported today quoting sources from the Enforcement Directorate (ED). The court also said all parties affected by the order can appeal at the Bombay High Court till January 18.

Last month, a consortium of Indian banks petitioned a London court for ex-billionaire Vijay Mallya to be declared bankrupt over ₹9,000 crore in unpaid debts. It comes as Mallya, who founded the now defunct Kingfisher Airlines Ltd, faces extradition to his home country of India.

Mallya had fled India in March 2016 and has been living in the United Kingdom since then. The 64-year-old former Kingfisher Airlines is fighting extradition to India in relation of fraud and money laundering allegations arising out of the debt acquired from the banks.

Mallya remains on bail pending the UK High Court appeal hearing in the extradition proceedings brought by India in relation to fraud and money laundering charges amounting to ₹9,000 crores. He had been arrested on an extradition warrant back in April 2017 and has been fighting his extradition in the UK courts since then.

He was granted permission to appeal against his extradition order, which is scheduled in the Royal Courts of Justice in London for February.

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News Network
April 24,2020

Kochi, Apr 24: The central government on Thursday submitted a statement in the Kerala High Court on the three petitions challenging the contract between Kerala government and US-based data analytics company Sprinklr.

Assistant Solicitor General P Vijayakumar filed the statement on behalf of the central government, which is the second respondent in the case.

The statement said that the contract between the Kerala government and Sprinklr dilutes the rights of the people. It stated the contract does not specify the amount of compensation that individuals should receive in case of breach of privacy or misuse of information.

It also said that it was not clear whether the information was collected and handed over to the data analytics firm with full consent of the patients (suspected and otherwise).

''It is always preferable to utilise the services available in the government sector for sharing sensitive data required for analytical purposes.

The Government of India has introduced the 'Aarogya Setu' application for collection of health data and about seven crore Indian citizens have already downloaded the same. All the state governments are advised to promote the said application for fighting the pandemic," the statement said.

It was further submitted that the "Government of India with the support of NIC is capable of providing all the requirements relating to data storage, processing and application which are being offered the third respondent, if a request to that effect comes from the state government."

Kerala Congress leader Ramesh Chennithala and BJP state president K Surendran had earlier approached the Kerala High Court seeking cancellation of the state government's agreement with Sprinklr for processing of data related to COVID-19 patients.

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