Azam reacts to Singh’s barb on Prez’s rule in UP
Rampur: SP leader Azam Khan on Thursday asked retired government and army officials owing allegiance to BJP, to refrain from issuing statements which might harm the federal structural of the country. Azam was reacting to a statement from a former bureaucrat on the law and order condition in the state. Against the backdrop of the state grappling with incidents of rape and murder, BJP MP and former Union Home Secretary R K Singh yesterday had said, UP was a fit case for the President’s rule as the state has “completely failed” to control law and order. These retired officers have been busy in implementing “saffron agenda”, he alleged and added, “by doing so they wanted to create a chaotic condition leading to a civil war-like situation”. “Why have these retired officers not considered about the worst situation in various other states like West Bengal and Bihar and concentrated only on UP,” he said. Azam also asked them to practise impartiality in their speech, just as they did while performing their official duties. “You have learnt the lesson of impartiality, so please practise that in post-retirement period too,” he said. (PTI)
Sops for farmers, traders in Maharashtra Budget
Mumbai: With an eye on assembly elections after the drubbing it got in the Lok Sabha polls, the Congress-NCP state government on Thursday presented a Rs 4,103.3 crore deficit Budget for 2014-15 with a slew of sops for farmers, traders and professionals. The Budget presented by Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar, who holds the finance portfolio, in the assembly pegs revenue receipts at Rs 1,80,320.5 crore and expenditure at Rs 1,84,423.28 crore. The Budget has many relief measures for the farming community in the state where many farmers had committed suicide. “We have doubled the minimum assistance given to farmers,” the minister said, on the relief provided by the government to farmers in areas hit by drought, unseasonal rains and hailstorms. The government, he said, would pay electricity bills of the affected farmers for the January-June 2014 period, Pawar said, adding it would also pay the interest on the crop loan taken by the affected farmers, besides extending loan repayment till December 2014. The Deputy CM said no coercive action will be taken to recover the loans till then. To keep the trading community, which has disapproved of the Local Bodies Tax (LBT) introduced last year, the turnover limit for registration under VAT has been doubled from Rs 5 lakh to Rs 10 lakh and that for filing audit report has been increased from Rs 60 lakh to Rs 1 crore. (PTI)
India elected to UNESCO’s Intergovernmental Com on ICH
New Delhi: India has been elected to the UNESCO’s Intergovernmental Committee for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage. India has been elected for the next four years (2014-2018) to the Committee after winning the highest number of votes in the elections held yesterday at UNESCO Headquarters in Paris, an official statement said here today. In the elections to this Committee on June 4 at UNESCO Headquarters, Paris by the General Assembly of the States Parties to the Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage, India won by a resounding 135 votes against a total of 142 votes cast by member states who were present and voted, it said. India recorded the highest number of votes among the ten countries which contested the election and have won, it added. This is the second time that India has been elected to the Intergovernmental Committee for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage after 2006-2010. The Committee has 24 members who are elected for a term of four years. The core functions of the Committee are to safeguard the Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH), ensuring respect for the intangible cultural heritage of nations, groups and individuals, as also to raise awareness at the local, national and international levels of the importance of the Intangible Cultural Heritage, the statement said. (PTI)
101 disabled couples to tie the knot in mass wedding
New Delhi: As many as 101 disabled couples from across the country will take marriage vows in a mass wedding at Ramleela grounds here on June 15. The mass wedding, organised by an Udaipur based not-for profit organisation ‘Narayan Sewa Sansthan’, will witness couples including Hindus, Muslims, Christians and Sikhs participate in the ceremony which is to be held in accordance with their religious rituals. To solemnise the ceremony an Imam and 115 Pandits have been engaged through the day. “By getting them married we are aiding in completing their family set up,” said Narayan Sewa Sansthan president Prashant Aggarwal. (PTI)
