Rahul targets Modi, Sena over price rise,‘bullying’

AMETHI, July 26: Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi on Friday targeted Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his government on the rising prices of vegetables, saying ‘tall promises’ had been made to people but there was a huge difference between one’s words and the deeds performed.

“The universal complaint now is that vegetable prices are rising very fast. This was the main issue (in the 2014 polls) along with corruption, but no solid action has been taken yet,” said Rahul, while addressing media persons here.

Without directly naming the PM, he said inaction on part of the government had hurt people.

“This has hurt the people and caused pain to them...it is their job to control the prices...there is a lot of difference between the words and the deeds,” said Rahul.

He also spoke about the incident where a Shiv Sena MP was seen force feeding a Muslim employee who was observing his fast.

“Such parties pursue the politics of bullying people,” he said.

This is Rahul’s second visit after the 2014 Lok Sabha polls.

When the villagers asked him what the government could do about the acute electricity crisis in Amethi, he said his party was not in power. However, villagers pointed that he was still part of the government.

22-yr-old gang-raped in moving car in Ghaziabad

GHAZIABAND, July 8: A 22-year-old woman was allegedly kidnapped and raped by four men in a moving car in Ghaziabad on Monday night. She was dumped near Fortis hospital in Noida around midnight with her hands and legs tied and a bottle shoved inside her.

The main accused, who is known to the victim, has been detained by Ghaziabad police. An FIR has been registered and her statement recorded. However, the FIR doesn’t mention the assault with the bottle — the brutality of which brings back memories of the December 16, 2012 gang-rape of a woman on a moving bus in Delhi.

The gang-rape happened despite the victim having approached the Meerut zone IG last week seeking protection. “She feared an attack from the accused, so she went to meet a senior officer. The IG asked her to meet the Ghaziabad SSP for protection. She was supposed to meet the SSP on Tuesday but was attacked on Monday night,” her friend said.

The 22-year-old told the police she was shopping in the Vasundhara area when the men pulled her inside a Maruti van, beat her, tied her up and raped her, even assaulting her with an alcohol bottle. They made an MMS before dumping her.

The victim was rescued by Satish Bhati, a passerby. “I was walking home when I heard a cry. I saw her bleeding and tied up. She was crying loudly, complaining of a pain in her stomach. This is when I noticed a bottle had been inserted in her private parts. I immediately pulled it out and dialed 100. The police came but instead of taking her to the hospital, they took her to the police post,” said Bhati.

After taking down her complaint and statement, then police took the victim to the district hospital, where a medical exam was conducted. Doctors confirmed rape with severe injuries.

According to the victim’s friend, the accused had been blackmailing and abusing her for a while now. “They were earlier friends but he made an obscene MMS of her and started blackmailing, abusing and torturing her. He burnt her legs with cigarettes. He also forced her to give false statements in two cases. In the first, he forced her to file a rape complaint against a man so he could extort money from him. In the other, the victim was made to give a false statement against a minor girl, who has registered a case of rape against the accused. On both occasions, the victim later confessed in court that she had lied. Since then, the accused has wanted revenge,” the friend said.

“We are investigating the case. In previous instances, the victim has changed her statement in court, so we are investigating the veracity of her statement this time round. If this case is found to be fake, she will be booked,” said Ghaziabad SSP Dharmendra Singh.

Rahul has all qualities of a leader: Congress

NEW DELHI, June 30: Two days after Digvijaya Singh's remark that Rahul Gandhi lacks the "temperament to rule", Congress on Monday said the party vice-president has "all the attributes" of a genuine leader.

"Singh has clarified his remarks. All he meant was that Rahul Gandhi was not hankering after power. We do not think it is a disqualification. In fact, we respect those who make sacrifices," according to Congress spokesperson Shakeel Ahmad.

Mr Ahmad said "Rahul has all the attributes of a genuine leader. He is our second biggest leader." Congress also clarified on another senior leader AK Antony's acknowledgement that the party was perceived to be biased towards minorities.

The party said the statement was made in the context of Kerala where he was speaking and had no national dimension. "Kerala unit of the party has already clarified that Antony's statement was Kerala-specific," said Ahmad.

Latching on to Antony's remarks, BJP patriarch LK Advani had on Sunday said that the saffron party stood vindicated regarding its position on the issue of secularism in the context of Antony's statement.

AK Antony's remark had created ripples within Congress. Congress leader Anil Shastri also rejected the contention that the party was appeasing minority communities.

"In 2009, 12 out of 28 Muslims got elected from Congress but only one found place in the UPA-II ministry and that too as MoS. Is this appeasement?" Shastri asked.

In another tweet he said, "All 4 Muslim CMs i.e. Antulay , Barkatullah, Gaffoor & Taimur (Assam) were appointed by Indiraji. After that it's been a full stop for 30 yrs."

Hooda urges NDA Govt to rescue Indians in Iraq

By Deepak Arora

NEW DELHI, June 21: The Haryana Chief Minister, Mr Bhupinder Singh Hooda, has urged the Union External Affairs Minister, Mrs Sushma Swaraj, to take urgent steps to rescue the Indians, including Haryanavis, who have been either stranded or kidnapped in the strife-torn Iraq, and offered all kinds of assistance required in getting them evacuated.

In a letter written to the Union External Affairs Minister on Saturday, Mr Hooda said, “The situation that has emerged in Iraq over the last few days has been very disturbing for the whole country as several of our countrymen have either been kidnapped or have got stranded there. Unfortunately a large number of people hailing from Haryana have also suffered a similar fate.”

Appreciating the efforts put in by the Ministry of External Affairs to
reach out to the stranded Indians in Iraq, Mr Hooda stated, “The Government of Haryana has also set up a round-the-clock control room to gather information about the stranded Haryanvis in Iraq. So far, we have received information about 114 persons from Haryana who are facing the trauma of being stranded in a foreign land.”

Mr Hooda assured the Union Minister that the “Government of Haryana is committed to lending a helping hand to the Government of India in facilitating a safe and early evacuation of the stranded Indians from Iraq. We are willing to take all necessary steps and provide financial and manpower resources for carrying out the evacuation of people belonging to Haryana from Iraq,” Mr Hooda added. “I wish for an early resolution of the crisis in Iraq and hope that our efforts to bring our people back home will bear fruit”, he concluded.

12 hurt as Sikh groups clash at Golden Temple

AMRITSAR, June 6: Two groups of Sikhs clashed with swords and sticks inside the Golden Temple on Friday, turning the faith’s holiest shrine into a virtual battlefield during a ceremony to mark 30 years of a controversial army operation on the premises that killed hundreds of people.

The clash, which occurred early in the morning while prayers were being offered to those killed in Operation Blue Star, underlined lingering tensions among various Sikh groups that remain divided over a decades-old demand for a separate homeland for followers of the faith called Khalistan.

Golden Temple officials said at least 12 people sustained injuries in the violence. Jatinder Singh Aulakh, police commissioner of Amritsar, where the Golden Temple is located, said 19 people had been detained.

The violence broke out after Golden Temple officials stopped Simranjit Singh Mann, the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD-Amritsar) president and former MP, from making a speech on the occasion. Mann’s supporters then raised pro-Khalistan slogans and went on the rampage with swords and sticks, injuring revered temple official, Bhai Satnam Singh.

Soon, guards of Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhik Committee (SGPC), the body that manages the Golden Temple, retaliated, forcing Mann’s supporters to flee. The clashes lasted about half an hour.

Later, police said peace had since been restored.

The SAD (Amritsar) is a splinter group of the ruling Shiromani Akali Dal. It is led by Mann and advocates the formation of Khalistan, an independent state for the Sikhs through democratic process.

“The violent clashes will be investigated and action will be taken against those who are accused,” said Giani Gurbachan Singh, the leader of SGPC.

Police and temple authorities were studying CCTV footages to identify those involved in starting the clash.

Condemning the clash, Punjab chief minister Parkash Singh Badal said nobody would be allowed to disturb the atmosphere of peace in the state and those found guilty would be dealt with firmly. His party, the Shiromani Akali Dal, dismissed Mann and his supporters as “fanatic fringe elements”.

Former chief minister and Amritsar MP Captain Amarinder Singh also condemned the violence. In a statement, Amarinder said: “I fail to understand why they clashed with each other when everybody’s purpose there was the same, to commemorate the tragic events of 1984.”

He also demanded that the culprits must be brought to book.

In 1984, following order by then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, the Indian army raided the Golden Temple to flush out Sikh separatist militants holed up in the premises for months. The army botched an attempt to clear them from the holy site, badly underestimating the resistance at first before being drawn into a three-day assault that left some 400 people dead.

The military operation outraged Sikhs and in a revenge attack a few months later Gandhi was assassinated by her Sikh body guards. Almost immediately, retaliatory attacks against Sikhs killed some 3,000 of them. Sikh separatism was stamped out in the late 1980s.

Implement UPA promises to residual AP: Sonia to Modi

NEW DELHI, June 4: With the birth of India’s 29th state, Telangana, at midnight on Sunday; the request to give special status to residual Andhra Pradesh allowing tax exemptions and more Central funds, has gained momentum.

Congress president, Sonia Gandhi asked Prime Minister Narendra Modi to fulfil the UPA government’s promise of granting them special status. But the Planning Commission ruled that the status can be granted only by the National Development Council (NDC) — a body headed by the PM, with all chief ministers and union ministers as members.

Gandhi wrote to Modi on Monday promising full cooperation to the NDA government in implementing the commitments to residual Andhra Pradesh made in the Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act, 2014.

“The groundwork for most commitments, like area of water resources, grant of special category status and facilitating the Polavaram project, had already been laid by the erstwhile UPA government,” she said, adding, “I do hope that your administration will build on what we had accomplished and take them forward.”

She has also attached a note giving details of the commitments made by then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and then home minister Sushil Kumar Shinde on the floor of the Rajya Sabha.

Meanwhile, Telugu Desam Party (TDP) head and chief minister designate of residual Andhra Pradesh Chandrababu Naidu had met PM Modi last week and demanded granting of special category status to the new state.

“Residual Andhra Pradesh should be given industrial incentives like what was offered in Uttrakhand and Himachal Pradesh,” said Naidu after his meeting with the PM.

It would not be easy for the Modi government to grant the status as newly carved Andhra Pradesh does not fulfil the criteria. Only states having hilly terrain, low population density or high tribal population, strategic location along borders and non-viable nature of state finances have been granted the status in the past.

Special category status started in 1969 on the recommendation of the fifth Finance Commission. A special category state gets 90 percent grant as compared to 30% for others and also exempted from Central taxes as incentive for industrialisation.

“Only the NDC can change the criteria and there is no proposal to call an NDC meeting in near future,” a senior government official said.

It was also a reason for the NDA government to not mention special category status for residual AP in the Re-organisation Ordinance passed at the first cabinet meeting of the Modi government.