New Delhi, Feb 1: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday greeted the Indian Coast Guard on its raising day, appreciating its efforts to keep the country's coasts safe.
The Coast Guard came into being in 1977.
"Greetings to the Indian Coast Guard on their foundation day. Our Coast Guard has made a mark due to their remarkable efforts to keep our coasts safe," Modi tweeted.
The prime minister said the force's "concern towards the marine ecosystem is also noteworthy".
Prime Minister Narendra Modi is in Ayodhya to lay the foundation of the Ram temple. He participated in the bhoomi poojan rituals at the temple site and offered prayers. He will shortly lay the foundation of the temple with a sliver brick.
From Varanasi to Tamil Nadu, many devotees have sent gifts for the ceremony, like silver bricks and coins.
Special prayers were started on Monday and will culminate with the PM laying the foundation stone for the temple. The city has been decorated with paintings depicting scenes from the Ramayana. The Uttar Pradesh government has also made elaborate security arrangement for the event.
Apart from the state police, the NSG commandos have also been kept on stand-by. The invitations for the ceremony have been kept limited due to the coronavirus pandemic. Veteran BJP leaders LK Advani and Murli Manohar Joshi will witness the event from New Delhi via video-conferencing.
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.
Panaji, Jan 28: Bureaucrat-turned-activist Kannan Gopinathan on Tuesday said even some "RSS people" are convinced the Citizenship Amendment Act is a bad law but are keeping quiet as the NDA government at the Centre is their own baby.
Speaking in Panaji, he further said the Narendra Modi government was behaving like a "drunken teenager" which needs to be questioned or else it will end up destroying homes.
"I was detained twice in UP, kept the whole day, because they (government) do not want the questioning (of CAA). I have met so many RSS people, they also understand this...if you have this conversation, they also understand the government has done something (wrong) and they have been asked to support it," he claimed.
He said the line of thought among these RSS people (he met) was "just support it (CAA)" as they don't want an altercation because the "government is their baby".
"He (government) is not a normal baby, he is a drunken teenager. He should be asked questions because when he starts destroying, he does not destroy somebody else's home but your own home," Gopinathan said.
He also hit out at those who have been claiming that the people protesting against the CAA are unaware about the law and have not even read it.
Gopinathan claimed if one had asked supportive MPs about the CAA on the day it was passed in Parliament, several of them would not have been able to speak on it as "they would not have known what was passed, because they were not given time (to go through the bill)".
He said, earlier, such legislation was passed after several rounds of consultation but "now, by night, it becomes an Act", adding (now) "everything is a surgical strike".
Gopinathan, in a possible reference to the National Register of Citizens exercise carried out in Assam, also claimed "thousands of people are in detention centres".
"It is your fundamental right to peacefully assemble without arms, Article 19 (1) (D) (of the Constitution)," he said at a function organised by a group opposed to CAA.
Gopinathan said people "always felt they were in a democracy" because they never tried to fly, when in reality "you are in a cage".
"The moment you want to fly you realise you are in a cage," he said, adding that "we have to question, we have to ask ourselves where are we going".
"When you don't allow a person to speak against an incorrect legislation, then what is democracy? What is freedom of expression?" Gopinathan questioned.
Gopinathan, a 2012 batch AGMUT cadre Indian Administrative Service officer, was the secretary, Power Department of the Union Territories of Daman and Diu, and Dadra and Nagar Haveli when he resigned on August 21 last year.
At the time, he had claimed the people of Jammu and Kashmir were being denied freedom of expression following abrogation of Article 370 by the Centre.
Comments
Add new comment