New Delhi, Apr 25,2016: In a boost to Rio-bound athletes, the Sports Ministry has decided to provide Rs one lakh per month as Out of Pocket allowance to the sportspersons under the TOP scheme in their preparation for the Olympics and Paralympics Games at Rio de Janeiro.
“Out of Pocket allowance of one lakh rupees per month to be given to TOP athletes for Rio Olympics/Paralympics,” the Youth Affairs and Sports Ministry wrote in its official twitter account.
Till date, 77 Indian athletes in eight disciplines have qualified for the Olympics and many more are likely to qualify in the next two months.
Target Olympic Podium (TOP) scheme is a sports ministry initiative under which Olympic medal prospects are funded by the government for top class training as part of their preparations for the Games.
@ Agency report.
Nainital: The nine dissident Congress MLAs told the Uttarakhand High Court that they had not left the party but only wanted removal of the Chief Minister and his government so that a “better” regime can be formed under another leader.
They told Justice U C Dhyani that they were not against the Congress and only wanted to “clean it” up as they felt that the regime under former Chief Minister Harish Rawat “did not show the party in a good light”.
The MLAs, who have challenged their disqualification by Speaker Govind Singh Kunjwal, denied in the court that they had joined the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) and added that they had “differentiated themselves” from the BJP when they signed the memo sent to the Governor seeking division of votes.
Appearing for the MLAs, senior advocate C A Sundaram argued that dissenting against the government by a member of the ruling party was part of a “healthy democracy” and would not amount to leaving the party or defection.
He said the CM and the Speaker “are assuming that the government and party are the same” and if this view was accepted then “it would be a death knell for democracy”.
“Then no member of ruling party would be able to criticise the government,” he said.
“Deserting a government or a leader/ Chief Minister (by a member of a ruling party) does not amount to leaving the party or defection. Even under the 10th schedule of defection means deserting the party and not dissent,” he argued.
“I am dissenting against choice of CM. This is an essential part of intra-party democracy. You cannot disqualify someone for speaking against the CM,” he contended and added that the “only overt act” they committed was to ask the Governor “to dismiss the government and CM” which “would not amount to giving up membership of the party”.
“As Congressmen we continue to say that this government under this CM (Rawat) must be changed. We are saying change the CM from within the party. They (Congress) will not lose the right to form another government under another CM,” he said and questioned whether it means that “we have left the party”.
Sundaram said they had “only objected to the Speaker not following the procedure that the majority (26 BJP and nine Congress MLAs) wanted” and that cannot be said to mean that the nine gave up party membership.
He alleged that the Speaker was biased towards the Rawat government as he showed “undue haste” in disqualifying the nine MLAs before the floor test scheduled for March 28 and was also defending the government and the CM in court.
@ Agency report.
A fresh forecast by a team of scientists has warned that Facebook, Google and Cisco may face the prospect of their Silicon Valley headquarters becoming swamped by water as rising sea levels threaten to submerge much of the property in San Francisco Bay Area, The Guardian reported.
Even under optimistic scenarios where rapid cuts in greenhouse gas emissions avoid the most severe increases, the companies may face cut-off from others around the world, the team noted.
“Without significant adaptation, social media giant Facebook’s new campus appears most at risk,” the report added. Facebook’s campus at the San Francisco Bay shoreline is a 430,000 square feet complex — with a nine-acre garden rooftop — and is an extension of its Menlo Park base.
“Facebook is very vulnerable. They built on a very low site. I do not know why they chose to build there. Facebook thinks they can pay enough to protect themselves,” Lindy Lowe, a senior planner at California’s Bay Conservation and Development Commission, was quoted as saying.
The elevation that Facebook gave to its premises will not be sufficient from saving it from a 1.6-feet rise in sea levels by the end of the century. The search engine giant Google located in Mountain View and technology company Cisco headquartered in San Jose may get some respite. But should the Antarctic ice sheet disintegrate, the sea water will be pushed up beyond six-feet and swamp both.
“Even with a small increase, the sea comes into the 101 highway by the Googleplex and the whole areas could be screwed up,” Kristina Hill, an environmental planning and urban design expert at the University of California-Berkeley, was quoted as saying.
“Google and Facebook will have to redo their campuses. I do not think there has been much success in getting Google to support adaption, it is not really on their radar,” Hill added. Nearly $100 billion worth of commercial and residential properties around the Bay Area are at risk from sea level rise and severe storms.
@ Agency report.
Washington, Apr 24 ,2016: Indian workers are the “worst” and “hardest” to understand, Republican governor of US state of Maine Paul LePage said, stirring another controversy by his party members in this election cycle.
In his address to the Maine Republican convention, wherein the party selected its delegates for the July national convention, Page alleged that foreign workers are being used in local restaurants.
LePage said workers from India are “hardest” and “the worst ones” to understand and one has to get an interpreter to talk to an Indian. However, he then quickly described Indians as “lovely” people.
LaPage’s remarks came a day after Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump mocked Indian call centres but described India as a “great place”.
However, both LePage and Trump suffered a setback at the Maine Convention, which elected 19 of the 23 delegates who are Cruz supporters.
Maine is a small northeastern state in the US.
@ Agency report.
New Delhi, Apr 24 ,2016: Chit fund companies have duped thousands of gullible depositors of at least Rs 80,000 crore, according to estimates of CBI which is probing such cases across the country.
Agency sources said the amount is likely to be higher than the initial estimate as the probe is still on. These companies with operations across the country lured people by offering attractive interest rates and, in the case of Pearls Group, land.
Over Rs 30,000 crore has allegedly been collected from small investors by the chit fund companies operating in four eastern and northeastern states — West Bengal, Assam, Odisha and Tripura, while Pearls Group which operates in Punjab and other north Indian states duped investors to the tune of Rs 51,000 crore, they said.
The deposits mobilised by the companies was allegedly used to purchase land, open media outlets, hotels and other businesses, denying depositors their dues.
The sources said the figure of Rs 80,000 crore is an estimate based on investigation so far and quantification of deposits collected from investors is still going on.
CBI has so far registered 76 cases, based on over 253 FIRs in these four states with 31 charge-sheets being filed by the agency in connection with the scam.
The agency has filed three cases against Rose Valley Group and seven against Saradha Group in connection with the fraud, called Saradha scam.
The sources said over six crore people have been duped by the companies across the country with majority of them allegedly being trapped by Pearls Group which has been operating for last 20 years before being busted by the agency.
The sheer sweep of the scam makes it one of the most difficult cases to be investigated by the agency in which several big operators including a former Union Minister, a state minister, an MP, a former journalist and politicians are being probed by it, they said.
@ Agency report.
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Nainital, Apr 23,2016: The Uttarakhand Assembly Speaker today sought dismissal in the High Court of the petition of the nine Congress MLAs against their disqualification saying they violated the law against defection and deserved to be punished for it.
Appearing for Speaker Govind Singh Kunjwal, counsel Kapil Sibal said the question to be put to the nine dissident MLAs is “how they went to BJP” and whether “they (nine) have violated the 10th schedule of the Constitution”.
“If they have violated the 10th schedule, how can they seek stay of disqualification,” the senior counsel asked.
“How can they seek stay of disqualification when according to the division bench (of Uttarakhand High Court) they have committed the Constitutional sin of defection?” he said.
“When they joined the BJP and signed the memorandum (for division of votes), they knew it was unethical and unconstitutional,” Sibal argued before Justice U C Dhyani the Speaker’s case during hearing on the petition filed by the nine MLAs against their disqualification.
He contended that by joining the BJP, the nine MLAs have “voluntarily given up their party membership” as they voted against the party’s policy (on the Appropriation Bill) and also voted for the fall of the government.
Sibal sought the dismissal their plea on the ground that they stated “falsehoods” before the court by contending that they were not given the documents relied upon by the Speaker.
The dismissal was also pleaded on the grounds that the petitioners did not disclose crucial material, which was in their possession, before the court and that they “jumped the hierarchy of courts”.
He said that on these three grounds the High Court need not entertain the petitions filed under Article 226 challenging their disqualification.
“On these three grounds the petitions should be dismissed at the threshold without going into the merits,” he said adding that the “political motivation” of the nine for moving the high court was to get a stay on disqualification “so that they can vote on floor test of March 28”.
@ Agency report.