How India is isolating Pakistan within Saarc

How India is isolating Pakistan within Saarc

The terrorist attack at an army administrative base in Uri in Jammu and Kashmir on Sunday, which killed 17 soldiers, has reduced the political space for Prime Minister Narendra Modi to travel to Islamabad in November to attend the Saarc Summit. But, in recent months, New Delhi has shown uncharacteristic efficiency to reach out to Saarc members, other than Pakistan.

As part of the Modi government’s “neighbourhood first” policy, India has hosted or will be hosting the heads of states or governments of the six South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (Saarc) members.

Alongside its Saarc outreach, the PM has raised the issue of terror havens in Pakistan and its export of terror at international platforms, most recently at the G20 Summit in China and the East Asia Summit in Laos. The Indian side, led by Vice-President M Hamid Ansari, raised Pakistan’s complicity in protecting outfits at the ongoing Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) Summit in Venezuela.

While the PM will skip this year’s United Nations General Assembly, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj is set to raise the involvement of terror outfits based in Pakistan in carrying out attacks on Indian soil — Pathankot last year and Uri now. She is also likely to tell the world how Pakistani government bombs its own people in Balochistan.(more)

Also Read: 17 soldiers killed, 23 injured in cross-LoC strike on Uri camp.

PM to lay foundation stone in October for Mumbai’s two elevated railway corridors costing Rs 34,000 cr

PM to lay foundation stone in October for Mumbai’s two elevated railway corridors costing Rs 34,000 cr

The foundation stone of two new commuter rail corridors, Churchgate to Virar and CST to Panvel, will be unveiled next month by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The former is a Rs 23,000-crore project. The latter is a Rs 11,000-crore one.

These two projects are part of the state government’s ambitious plan of a little over Rs 1 lakh crore to strengthen Mumbai’s transportation infrastructure.

Union railways minister Suresh Prabhu last week reviewed the status of the pre-project development exercise. He and state chief minister Devendra Fadnavis had recently said investors from abroad have evinced interest in providing long-term low interest loans for these two corridors.

The 48.3-km one between CST and Panvel, along the existing central line, will be elevated for 31.6 km and run parallel to the existing lines for 12.4 km on the surface. Churchgate-Virar entails 63.3 km along the existing western line, approximately 42 km of elevated stretch, eight km underground and 12 km on grade.

A state government official confirmed that efforts are on to kickstart the project development by laying foundation stone in October. Both projects are expected to be completed in five years and will be implemented by a joint venture of the railways and the state government, through a Special Purpose Vehicle.(more)

Donald Trump’s paid maternity leave plan gets Hillary Clinton rejoinder

Donald Trump’s paid maternity leave plan gets Hillary Clinton rejoinder

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has introduced an unorthodox childcare plan, becoming a rare Republican calling for paid maternity leave.

Introduced on Tuesday by his daughter Ivanka, who asserted that childcare issues were at the “root of wage inequality by disproportionately affecting women”, Trump tried to soften his image at an event held in Pennsylvania, a former stronghold for moderate Republicans that has trended Democratic in recent years, the Guardianreported.

Trump also asserted that “my opponent has no childcare plan”. Clinton has in fact made a number of detailed proposals on childcare.

Clinton in June last year first outlined a programme for universal pre-kindergarten and in May this year proposed to cap childcare costs at ten per cent of household income and to introduce 12 weeks of paid family leave.

Maya Harris, a senior policy adviser to Clinton, described Trump’s plan as “half-baked and completely out of touch”.

Trump’s proposal came as he faces a major deficit among college-educated white women in polls.

According to a recent Washington Post/ABC News poll, Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton has a 50-40 lead over her Republican rival in a demographic that Mitt Romney won by six points in 2012 despite his decisive loss that year.

Trump called for making a childcare tax deductible, up to the average cost in a given family’s state, until the age of 13, as well as an expanded rebate of up to $1,200 for those families that do not pay income tax and receive earned income tax credit (EITC).Read more

Be it Narendra Modi or journalists, why Arvind Kejriwal is always angry

Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal took to twitter to hit out at veteran journalist Shekhar Gupta over the latter’s tweet about the resurgence of Malaria and Chikungunya caused deaths in the capital.

Gupta had tweeted that Delhi was facing Malaria and Chikungunya caused deaths for the first time after five years, while the government in Delhi was more busy “conquering” Punjab, Goa and Gujarat — where Assembly polls are due.

Taking exception to Gupta’s tweet, Kejriwal asked him to step out in the open if he wanted to indulge in politics. Further, Kejriwal alleged that Gupta had worked for the Congress before and now he was trying to promote the Modi government’s interests.

Not stopping there, Kejriwal alleged that people like Gupta had brought a bad name to journalism. The Delhi chief minister ended his response by asking Gupta to focus on Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who he said was out to “conquer” the world.

See Screenshot of the exchange between Kejriwal and Gupta

Comedian Kapil Sharma questions PM Modi’s ‘acche din’, alleges he had to pay bribe

Comedian Kapil Sharma questions PM Modi’s ‘acche din’, alleges he had to pay bribe

Comedian and actor Kapil Sharma on Friday morning hit out at Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ‘acche din’ slogan, after he alleged that he had to pay a bribe to a Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) official.

Sharma, of ‘Comedy Nights With Kapil’ fame, took to twitter to vent his ire. Shooting off two tweets, the comedian alleged that despite paying Rs 15 crore in income tax for the last five years, he had to pay Rs 5 lakh as a bribe to a BMC official to set up his office.

• KAPIL @KapilSharmaK9

I am paying 15 cr income tax from last 5 year n still i have to pay 5 lacs bribe to BMC office for making my office@narendramodi

5:53 AM – 9 Sep 2016

• 5,2605,260 Retweets

• 7,0737,073 likes

• KAPIL @KapilSharmaK9

Yeh hain aapke achhe din ? @narendramodi

6:14 AM – 9 Sep 2016

• 2,6732,673 Retweets

• 3,7313,731 likes

Business Standard could not independently verify whether or not Sharma actually did pay the bribe.

Sharma did not name the BMC official either.

However, the extent of Sharma’s frustration was clear as he tagged the prime minister in both his tweets.

His second tweet asked the prime minister whether this was what he had meant when he had promised the people ‘acche din’ (good days) — which was the 2014 General Elections slogan of the Bharatiya Janata Party. (more)

Gujarat HC issues notices to developers of ‘Pokemon Go’

Gujarat HC issues notices to developers of ‘Pokemon Go’

The Gujarat High Court on Wednesday issued a notice to the developers of location based-augmented reality game Pokémon GO, following a public interest litigation (PIL) seeking a ban on the game in India, alleging it not only hurts religious sentiments but is also a threat to national security.

The court issued notices to San Francisco-based developer of the game, Niantic Inc, the Centre and the Gujarat government.

According to the PIL by one Alay Dave, the image of eggs in the augmented reality game appear in places of worship of various religious groups. The petitioner has said eggs are considered non-vegetarian food, and it is blasphemous to carry non-vegetarian food inside a place of worship of Hindus and Jains. “People playing the game get their points in the form of virtual eggs which generally appear in the places of worship of different religious groups. To find eggs in temples of Hindus and Jains is blasphemous, and my client has sought a ban on the game from the country,” the petitioner’s lawyer Nachiket Dave said. Read more

Barack Obama cancels Rodrigo Duterte talks after insult

Barack Obama cancels meeting with new Philippine President Duterte

US President Barack Obama has cancelled what would have been his first meeting with Rodrigo Duterte, according to a White House spokesman, hours after the Philippine leader described his American counterpart in vulgar terms.

Duterte called Obama a “son of a whore”, saying that he would not be lectured by the US leader on human rights, according to AFP news agency.

Inside Story – Can Rodrigo Duterte win the war on illegal drugs?

Duterte’s tirade came as he bristled at warnings he would face questioning by the US president at their scheduled meeting over his war against drugs in the Philippines, which has claimed more than 2,400 lives in just over two months.

“You must be respectful. Do not just throw away questions and statements. Son of a whore, I will curse you in that forum,” Duterte told a news conference shortly before flying to Laos to attend a summit on Monday.

“We will be wallowing in the mud like pigs if you do that to me,” he said.

However, a statement released by the Philippine president on Tuesday expressed regret for the tirade against his US counterpart.

“While the immediate cause was my strong comments to certain press questions that elicited concern and distress, we also regret it came across as a personal attack on the US president,” the statement said.

Duterte was due to hold a bilateral meeting with Obama on Tuesday afternoon on the sidelines of a gathering of global leaders hosted by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in Vientiane, the capital of the Laos.

READ MORE: The Philippines, where bodies pile up, but no one talks

PM Modi raises black money, tax evasion at G20

PM Modi raises black money, tax evasion at G20

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday raised the issues of black money and tax evasion at the G20 Summit here, urging member countries to act against financial corruption.

On the second day of the Summit here, Modi said: “Fighting corruption, black money and tax evasion were central to effective financial governance.”

Modi urged the grouping to show full commitment to action against financial corruption and said effective financial governance required action against the corrupt and elimination of safe havens for economic offenders.

“We need to act to eliminate safe havens for economic offenders, track down and unconditionally extradite money launderers and break down the web of complex international regulations and excessive banking secrecy that hide the corrupt and their deeds,” Modi said in his address at the G20.

Representing 85 per cent of the world’s GDP, the G20 is composed of Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Korea, Turkey, the UK, the US and the European Union.

Making his intervention in the discussion on ‘More Effective and Efficient Global Economic and Financial Governance at the G-20 summit’, Modi called for further strengthening the global financial safety net.Read more.

Economic situation in May 2014 was worse than what it seemed: PM Modi

Economic situation in May 2014 was worse than what it seemed: PM Modi

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday said in a TV interview to Network18 that he suffered political damage for his decision to not issue a white paper on the state of the economy when his government took over in May 2014. He said the sluggish private investments was a continuing fallout of the economic conditions that prevailed when he took office two and a half years back but his government has resisted the temptation to take shortcuts, the positive results of which are now evident across several sectors.

In the interview, the PM he spoke on a wide range of issues, from Lutyens’ culture, atrocities against Dalits, the Kashmir situation, and the forthcoming elections in Uttar Pradesh.

Modi said the economic situation in May 2014 was much worse that it seemed on the surface. Modi said he was confronted with a choice of whether to be politically expedient and put the poor state of the economy in the public domain, or keep the interest of the nation uppermost. He said his government had even mulled tabling a white paper on the economic condition in Parliament before the presentation of the first Budget.Read more

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300 RSS workers to resign protesting Subhash Velingkar’s removal

300 RSS workers to resign protesting Subhash Velingkar’s removal

 

Upset with the removal of Subhash Velingkar as Goa RSS chief, over 300 Sangh workers have annouced that they will quit the organisation and vowed to “defeat” BJP in the Assembly polls next year if he is not reinstated.

RSS on Wednesday removed Velingkar who had crossed swords with BJP government over the issue of medium of instruction (MOI) in schools with members of his outfit BBSM even showing black flags to party chief Amit Shahrecently. The Sangh said he was trying to engage into “political activity” which is contrary to its tradition.

“We want that either Velingkar should be reinstated or we (over 300 volunteers) all should be relieved along with him. Since the Sangh has not reinstated him (Velingkar) during the entire day, we have decided to tender resignations,” Sangh member Pravin Nesvankar told reporters late last night here.

A large number of RSS workers from the state last night held an ’emergency’ meeting for over three hours at Bambolim near here in the backdrop of Velingkar’s removal.Read more