Uttar Pradesh: SIT to probe Rs. 3700 crore online scam
Uttar Pradesh, Special Investigation Team- SIT will probe in to the 3700 crore online scam which was busted by STF branch of police last Thursday. Director General of police Javeed Ahmad has set up a team under the supervision of IG crime branch, Bhagwan Swaroop.
A Special Task Force (STF) of UP police on Thursday busted an online trading scam worth over Rs. 3,700 crore in which around 6.5 lakh people were cheated on the pretext of getting money for clicking on web pages. The task force has arrested three persons including the main accused so far and sealed the bank accounts of the company located in Noida.
Uttar Pradesh, election campaign
Congress has released name of eleven candidates for the ensuing assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh. The names were finalized by Central Election Committee of the party. Congress is fighting the elections in alliance with Samajwadi Party in the state. The state will go to polls in seven phases starting from 11th of this month.
Uttar Pradesh, election campaign for the first and second phase is in full swing where election will be held on 11th and 15th of this month. All major political parties have thronged their leaders for canvasing in favour of their candidates. BSP chief Mayawati, SP president and chief minister Akhilesh yadav, BJP national president Amit Shah and Rajnath Singh addressed rallies at various places in state today.
Senior BJP leader Narendra Modi addressed a Vijay Shankhnad Rally at Meerut this afternoon. He said, if BJP is voted to power in the State, the Party will clear all dues of sugarcane farmers within 14 days. AIR correspondent reports, addressing his first rally in the state, Sri Modi accused UP government for backwardness of the state.
He said that central government has sent enough money under various schemes, but it is not utilized for betterment of the people. Counting various points of BJP manifesto, he said that welfare of people lies in changing of UP government. Sri Modi said this election is fight against corruption, bad law and order, poverty and other evils in state.
BJP leader Rajnath Singh today attacked Samajwadi Party and BSP, saying ‘achche din’ will come in Uttar Pradesh only after the two parties are wiped out in the upcoming Assembly elections.
He alleged that there have been wrongdoings in the liquor business at the level of the state government which will soon be exposed.
Mr Rajnath said, UP has been giving direction and creating history. It had created history in 2014 by ensuring full majority non-Congress government at the Centre, he added. He claimed that there had been not a single corruption charge against any BJP leader in almost three years at the Centre.
Voter turnout 83% in Goa, 70% in Punjab
Goa registered a record voter turnout of 83 percent in today’s assembly polls. The state had recorded 81.8 percent polling in last assembly elections. Briefing media in New Delhi this evening, Deputy Election Commissioner Umesh Sinha said, no case of paid news was reported in the state. He said the polling passed off peacefully.
Punjab recorded 70 percent polling till 5 PM. The voter turnout in last assembly polls in 2012 was a little over 78 percent. Deputy Election Commissioner Sandeep Saxena said 59 cases of paid news were reported. Voting in the state was by and large peaceful.
The two states went to polls in a single phase today. The final figures may change as reports are yet to come from some polling booths. There were also some reports of EVMs developing technical snags which were replaced.
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INVITE FOR GLOBAL POWER BRANDS LIFE SUMMIT 2017, LONDON, UK
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Coast Guard continues shoreline oil cleaning
CHENNAI :03 FEB 2017: Coast Guard continues its coordinated and sustained shoreline cleanup operation along with support from various government and non-government organizations continued on the fourth consecutive day on a war footing to restore normalcy along affected beach areas.
Amid ongoing massive shoreline oil cleaning up operations, the Commander, Coast Guard Region (East) Inspector General Rajan Bargotra, TM sailed onboard ICGS Varad along with 70 media personnel for real time assessment of seaward and close coast areas by print and electronic media. The aim of this exposure was to provide ringside view to the media, the actual situation prevailing at sea and nullifying speculations of harm to marine life. During interaction onboard, the Commander clarified that the sea is free and safe from oil spill and fisherman can venture for fishing without any fear except for one localized area onshore near Ram Krishna nagar Kuppam which is affected most due to drifting of oil spill. The same was witnessed by all the media personnel available during this sea sortie. Coast Guard helicopter Chetak also demonstrated TC-III bucket operation to meet oil spill eventualities at sea.
A total of 24 tonnes of oil sludge and 09 tonnes of water sludge was collected on 03 Feb 17.
Does the nation not reflect the sentiments of the Republic?
Sixty seven years ago, “We the People” constituted India into a sovereign democratic republic by adopting the longest written Constitution in the world. The creation of the republic represented our commitment to being governed by our elected representatives according to the rule of law.
The length of the Constitution was a testimony to the drafters’ effort in bridging India’s colonial past with her democratic future; retaining some colonial institutions and laws that would provide stability to the fledgling nation, while creating rights and institutions that would enable us to experience freedoms we had only dreamt of during colonial rule. The bureaucracy, police, and the RBI were colonial retentions; the Parliament and the Supreme Court were constitutional creations.
The executive composed of the President and the Governors, the Prime Minister and his cabinet were constitutional creations with colonial features. But the most significant constitutional creation was the chapter on “Fundamental rights”.
The length of the Constitution was a testimony to the drafters’ effort in bridging India’s colonial past with her democratic future; retaining some colonial institutions and laws that would provide stability to the fledgling nation, while creating rights and institutions that would enable us to experience freedoms we had only dreamt of during colonial rule. The bureaucracy, police, and the RBI were colonial retentions; the Parliament and the Supreme Court were constitutional creations.
The executive composed of the President and the Governors, the Prime Minister and his cabinet were constitutional creations with colonial features. But the most significant constitutional creation was the chapter on “Fundamental rights”.
Part III of the Constitution guarantees to all nationals, and in certain cases only to citizens, rights to life, liberty, equality and property. The Constitution imposed a duty on Parliament, executive and the SC to ensure respect for our fundamental rights. But since its adoption, the constitutional commitments of Parliament, executive and the judiciary have been severely tested. Never more so than during the emergency, when Parliament was suspended, the Indira Gandhi-led Congress government violated our fundamental rights with impunity and in the infamous ADM Jabalpur case, the SC failed to protect them.
In 2015, on the 40th anniversary of the emergency, the NDA government commemorated the Jana Sangh and Janata Party’s resistance to the emergency and articulated its commitment to our fundamental rights. However, today, we find the NDA government too subverting the rule of law and infringing our fundamental rights, and both Parliament and the SC inconsistent, and therefore ineffective, in holding the government accountable for violating our rights.
Constitutional Subversion
The first instance of constitutional subversion is misusing the government’s ordinance power, which is a legislative power, to be exceptionally exercised by the President as the executive head, only in situations of “immediate necessity”.
The first instance of constitutional subversion is misusing the government’s ordinance power, which is a legislative power, to be exceptionally exercised by the President as the executive head, only in situations of “immediate necessity”.
In 2015, through the thrice promulgated Land Acquisition Ordinance, 2014, the central government sought to eviscerate protections with respect to consent and social impact assessment enshrined in the democratically negotiated and legislated Land Acquisition Act, 2013.
This was in clear opposition to parliamentary will as Parliament had refused to pass the ordinance into law in two successive sessions, which had necessitated the repromulgation. Eventually, the NDA government abandoned its attempt to pass the ordinance into law. Only this month, a seven judge bench of the SC has reaffirmed that repromulgation of an ordinance is a “fraud on the Constitution” and subversion of the democratic legislative process.
The second instance is pursuit of executive actions without any legislative backing in violation of the Constitution. The NDA government has continued the UPA government’s Aadhaar project, the world’s largest national identification project, which was started in 2009 without any legislative backing in subversion of the rule of law. This project involves the collection of our biometric and demographic data in prima facie violation of our fundamental right to privacy as articulated by the SC.
In 2011, the Parliamentary Standing Committee rejected the Aadhaar bill, and in 2013, the SC ordered that the government could not make Aadhaar mandatory for availing any government service, whilst referring the constitutional validity question to a constitution bench. Nevertheless, in February 2016, the NDA government, in a tortuous twist to the meaning of a “money” bill, gave legislative sanction to the Aadhaar project, bypassing the Rajya Sabha where it did not have a majority.
Subsequently, in May 2016, the SC referred petitions challenging the constitutional validity of the Aadhaar law to a constitution bench but has not pronounced a verdict in that case. Meantime, a few central and state government institutions continue to implement Aadhaar in contempt of the Court’s orders. The SC has admitted the contempt petitions but has again failed to pronounce a verdict or stay the implementation of Aadhaar encouraging the culture of government impunity.
The third instance of subversion of the Constitution is through a combination of the first two, that is, misuse of the ordinance power, and pursuing through executive action what can only be done by the legislature. The NDA government has pursued this double subversion in the demonetisation exercise.
Demonetisation, involving three actions, namely the declaration of 500 and 1,000 rupee notes as illegal tender, the extinguishment of the RBI’s liability on the notes, and restrictions on people’s ability to access their money as part of its conception and implementation, required legislative backing. Knowing they did not have this backing, the government divorced these three actions, introducing the first and third through executive notifications followed by innumerable RBI circulars while Parl ..
As I have written previously in this column, the demonetisation exercise involves a prima facie violation of the fundamental rights to liberty and equality and the constitutional right to property.
Yet the parliamentary debate on demonetisation was more disruptive than dialogic, and focused primarily on the economic blunders of the exercise rather than the deliberate debilitation of our fundamental rights.
The SC also refused to stay the demonetisation exercise, again referring the matter to a constitution bench which despite the urgency of the issues before it has not even been constituted.
As we celebrate our republic, we must remember that the Constitution is only as good as the paper on which it is written, unless “we the people” are committed to it in letter and spirit. When subversion becomes the norm, rights become meaningless, and so does the republic.
-BY NAMITA WAHI The author is Fellow at Centre for Policy Research, Delhi.
