Chhattisgarh polls: 15 per cent voter turnout in initial hours

November 19, 2013

Chhattisgarh_polls_copyRaipur, Nov 19: About 15 per cent of the electorate cast their votes in the first hours of polling for the second and final phase of Chhattisgarh Assembly elections in 72 constituencies spread across 19 districts of the state today.

No untoward incident has been reported so far from any part of the state.

"The polling in 72 constituencies of 19 districts began from 8 AM and so far 15 per cent turnout has been recorded," an official at the Chief Electoral Office said.

Meanwhile, EVMs were changed at around 10 polling stations due to some technical problems, he said.

State Governor Shekhar Dutt exercised his franchise in Raipur city north seat where BJP’s Srichand Sundarani and Congress's sitting MLA Kuldeep Singh Juneja are locked in a close contest.

A total of 843 candidates are contesting in the last of the two-phase polls to the 90-member Assembly in the state, where BJP government led by Chief Minister Raman Singh is eyeing for a hat-trick against the Congress.

Over one lakh security force personnel have been deployed across the state to ensure peaceful polling, the official said.

Polling is underway in central and north Chhattisgarh, where 72 each from the BJP and Congress, are contesting

The fate of state Assembly speaker Dharamlal Kaushik (Bilha) and nine ministers -- Home Minister Nanki Ram Kanwar (Rampur); School Education Minister Brijmohan Agrawal (Raipur city south); Housing and Environment Minister Rajesh Munat (Raipur city west); Health Minister Amar Agrawal (Bilaspur); Water Resources Minister Ramvichar Netam (Ramanujganj); Panchayat and Rural Development Minister Hemchand Yadav (Durg city); Agriculture Minister Chandrashekhar Sahu (Abhanpur); Punnulal Mohile (Mungeli) and Revenue and Rehabilitation minister Dayaldas Baghel (Nawagarh)--will be sealed today.

Also, President of BJP Ramsewak Paikra (Pratappur) besides the Leader of Opposition Ravindra Choubey (Saja), wife of the former chief minister Ajit Jogi, Renu Jogi (Kota), son of late PCC chief Nandkumar Patel, Umesh Patel (Kharsiya) and Ajit Jogi’s son Amit (Marwahi) are in the fray in the second phase.

Security forces have been directed to stay alert in some districts of Sarguja and Raipur division located on inter-state border, where frequent movement of Naxals had been witnessed.

According to police, Naxals may create trouble in Mahasamund, Gariyaband and Dhamtari of Raipur division bordering Odisha and Jashpur, Raigarh and Ambikapur in north Chhattisgarh during the polling process.

In 11 constituencies- Kota, Lormi, Takhatpur, Beltara, Chandrapur, Kasdol, Raipur city south, Durg city, Bhilai Nagar, Vaishali Nagar, Bemetara more than one ballot unit will be used. Three ballot units will be placed only in Raipur city south.

Around 80,000 officials have been involved for conducting the poll today.

A record 75.53 per cent voting was registered in the first phase of polling held on Nov 11 for 18 constituencies of Naxal affected Bastar division and Rajnandgaon district.

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Agencies
March 8,2020

Mumbai, Mar 8: A day after the Enforcement Directorate registered a money laundering case against Yes Bank founder Rana Kapoor and raided his premises, he was taken to the agency's office in Mumbai on Saturday for further questioning.

Kapoor, who was grilled by central agency's officials on Friday night at his Samudra Mahal residence in Mumbai, was shifted to the ED office in the metropolis around 12.30 pm.

ED officials said Kapoor was questioned throughout the night, with some rest time.

A senior ED official connected with the probe told IANS: "Kapoor will be questioned about Yes Bank loans to Dewan Housing Finance Limited (DHFL)."

The official said that during searches a lot of incriminating documents were found and the agency wanted to grill him on his links with DHFL promoters and other companies.

Kapoor's alleged role in the disbursal of loan to a corporate entity and kickbacks reportedly received in his wife's bank account are also under probe.

The ED had filed the money laundering case against Kapoor and raided his residence, apart from issuing a look-out circular so that he does not flee the country.

The ED registered a money laundering case against Kapoor as a continuation of its probe against the DHFL wherein it was allegedly found that Rs 12,500 crore was diverted to 80 shell companies using one lakh fake borrowers. The transactions with these shell companies date back to 2015.

An ED official in New Delhi told IANS that the DHFL probe revealed that funds diverted by the DHFL originated from Yes Bank.

He said that the searches at Kapoor's residence on Friday night were meant to find out any irregularity in grant of loans to the DHFL by the Yes Bank.

The ED has accused Kapil and Dheeraj Wadhawan of DHFL of purchasing shares in five firms -- Faith Realtors, Marvel Township, Abe Realty, Poseidon Realty, and Random Realtors -- after which they were amalgamated with Sunblink.

The outstanding loans of these five firms, totalling around Rs 2,186 crore till July 2019, were allegedly appropriated onto the books of Sunblink to cover up the diversion of loans acquired from DHFL.

The ED's action comes after the RBI superseded Yes Bank Board for 30 days and appointed an administrator, putting a cap of Rs 50,000 on withdrawals by account holders for a month.

The RBI said that the bank's board was superseded "owing to serious deterioration in the financial position of the bank".

Former SBI CFO Prashant Kumar was appointed as administrator of Yes Bank, which has over 1,000 branches and 1,800-plus ATMs across the country.

On Thursday, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said that the bank was on watch since 2017 and developments relating to it were monitored on a day-to-day basis.

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News Network
April 12,2020

New Delhi, Apr 12: With 34 deaths and 909 new positive COVID-19 cases in the last 24 hours, the total number of coronavirus cases in India on Sunday climbed to 8356, including 716 cured and discharged and 273 deaths, said the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.

At present, there are 7367 active COVID-19 cases in the country.

"A total number of COVID-19 positive cases rises to 8356 in India, including 716 cured/discharged, 273 deaths and 1 migrated," said the Health Department.

The highest number of positive cases of coronavirus was reported from Maharashtra at 1761, including 127 deaths, followed by Delhi (1069 and 19 deaths), Tamil Nadu (969 and 10 deaths) and Rajasthan (700 and 3 deaths).

There are 452 coronavirus positive cases in Uttar Pradesh, including 45 cured and discharged and 5 deaths.

The states which have crossed 200-mark for COVID-19 positive cases also include Madhya Pradesh (532), Telangana (504), Gujarat (432), Andhra Pradesh (381) and Kerala (364).

While 19 people were detected positive for coronavirus in Chandigarh, 207 cases were confirmed from Jammu and Kashmir and 15 from Ladakh.

In North-East, Assam has confirmed the highest number of corona positive cases at 29, followed by Manipur and Tripur at two each and Mizoram, Arunachal Pradesh at one each.

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Agencies
April 24,2020

New Delhi, Apr 24: The Central government said on Wednesday that the number of COVID-19 cases in the country is now doubling in every 10 days, adding that had the lockdown not been imposed on time, the number of cases would have sky-rocketed to over one lakh by now.

"Had we not taken the decision to impose nationwide lockdown, we would have had around one lakh COVID-19 cases by now. This is a reasonable estimate," said Niti Aayog member V.K. Paul.

Paul, who is also the Chairman of the government's Empowered Committee- 1, said the "cases are now doubling in every 10 days."

"As on March 21, our doubling time of cases was three days. Results started showing on March 23, due to travel restrictions imposed earlier. On April 6, further slowing of doubling rate became visible, thanks to the nationwide lockdown," he added.

He further added that the decision to impose the lockdown was timely and asserted that the curve has begun to flatten.

"Nationwide lockdown helped take us away from the exponential growth curve and thereby contain the growth of COVID-19 cases," he said.

Paul further added that surveillance has been a great strength in containing the spread of the virus.

"Besides containing the spread, augmenting testing and improving preparedness, the nation has brought about a massive behavioural change through a ‘Jan Andolan' (mass movement)," he said.

Meanwhile, the number of confirmed cases in the country has crossed the 23,000-mark, with 718 deaths. Globally, the number of cases has crossed 2.7 million while the death toll has mounted to 1.9 lakh.

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