BJP alleged Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal is the “kingpin” of the excise policy “scam” and said handcuffs are getting close to him as nodes of corruption are being unravelled.

Addressing a press conference here, BJP national spokesperson Gaurav Bhatia alleged Kejriwal was busy indulging in corruption when Covid-affected people needed his help.

Delhi BJP president Adesh Gupta, who also addressed the press conference, said, “Delhi’s excise policy has proved to be a corrupt one. Arvind Kejriwal is the kingpin of this entire scam.”

Bhatia said when it was time to help Covid-affected people, Kejriwal was busy indulging in corruption by signing the excise policy.

“Roots of the excise policy ‘scam’ lead to the doorstep of corrupt Kejriwal. No one is above law and no corrupt person will be spared,” he said.

On the AAP’s claim that the 2024 Lok Sabha elections will be a direct fight between Kejriwal and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the BJP spokesperson said everyone knows what happened in Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Goa polls.

The public will give the AAP a reply, he said. The Central Bureau of Investigation on Friday raided 31 locations, including Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia’s residence, in connection with the irregularities in the Delhi government’s Excise Policy 2021-22.

The police today raided multiple locations across the Poonch district in Jammu and Kashmir in connection with a hawala racket.

The raids followed the arrest of two people who were allegedly routing money to terror outfits Lashkar-e-Taiba and Al Badr, officials said.

They have been identified as Abdul Hamid Mir, a resident of Poonch, and Mohammad Yaseen,  Delhi-based garment trader. The two  were arrested from Jammu bus stand and the national capital on August 17 and 18 respectively and Hawala money worth ₹24 lakh was recovered from them.

Yaseen, a resident of Delhi’s Turkman Gate, revealed that the hawala money was being routed to India through South Africa and collected in Surat and Mumbai, police said.

Yaseen ran a garments business at Meena Bazaar and was the Delhi link to send this money to Jammu and Kashmir through couriers.

One person was killed and 13 others were feared dead in a landslide and a flash flood triggered by heavy rains in Himachal Pradesh’s Mandi district, officials said on Saturday.
Three people were also killed after their house collapsed following a landslide triggered by rains in the state’s Chamba district on Saturday morning, officials said.

In Mandi, the body of a girl was recovered about half a km away from her house in Baghi Nullah on Mandi-Katola-Prashar road on Friday night, while five members of her family were washed away, state disaster management department officials said.

Several families left their houses located between Baghi to Old Katola areas after cloud burst and took shelter at safe places, the department added.

Besides, eight members of another family are also feared buried under the debris of their house following a landslide at Kashan village in Gohar development block, the department added.

However, the bodies have not been retrieved yet, it said.

Several roads in Mandi district have also been blocked after flash floods and multiple landslides.

Several vehicles were damaged and a number of villagers were stuck in their houses as water entered their houses and shops at Balh, Sadar, Thunag, Mandi and Lamathach after a flash flood.

Delhi Congress leaders and workers staged a protest outside the Aam Admi Party office here on Saturday demanding the resignation of Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia in connection with the alleged corruption in the implementation of the Delhi Excise Policy.

The protesters marched from the Delhi Congress office at DDU Marg towards AAP headquarters raising slogans against Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and Sisodia.

Delhi Congress demanded that Kejriwal should remove Sisodia from his Cabinet as he is named in an FIR registered by the CBI in the excise policy “scam”, said Delhi Congress media department vice chairman Parvez Alam.

Sisodia’s residence was searched by the CBI for several hours by the CBI in connection with the alleged irregularities in execution of Excise Policy 2021-22 on Friday. He has been named among 15 persons in an FIR registered by the probe agency.

Bharti Airtel received spectrum allocation letter within few hours of making upfront payment to the Department of Telecom, Bharti Enterprises founder and chairman Sunil Bharti Mittal said on Thursday.

This is the first time ever that the Department of Telecom (DoT) has handed out a spectrum allocation letter on the day of making upfront payment.

“Airtel paid Rs 8,312.4 crore towards spectrum dues and was provided the allocation letter for the designated frequency bands within hours. E band allocation was given along with spectrum as promised. No Fuss, No Follow Up, No running around the corridors and No tall claims. This is ease of doing business at work in its full glory,” Mittal said in a statement.

The Department of Telecom has received payment of around Rs 17,876 crore from service providers — Bharti Airtel, Reliance Jio, Adani Data Networks and Vodafone Idea for spectrum they won in a recent auction.

While all telecom operators have opted to make payments in 20 annual installments, Bharti Airtel paid Rs 8,312.4 crore equivalent to four annual installments.

“In my over 30 years of first-hand experience with DoT, this is a first ! Business as it should be. Leadership at work-Right at the top and at the helm of telecom. What a Change ! Change that can transform this nation power its dreams to be a developed nation,” Mittal said.

Airtel acquired 19,867.8 MHz spectrum by securing a pan-India footprint of 3.5 GHz and 26 GHz bands and select purchase of radio waves in low and mid-band spectrum.

The country’s biggest ever auction of telecom spectrum received a record Rs 1.5 lakh crore worth of bids, with Mukesh Ambani’s Jio cornering nearly half of all the airwaves sold with a Rs 87,946.93 crore bid.

Reliance Jio has made payments of Rs 7,864.78 crore, Vodafone Idea Rs 1,679.98 crore and Adani Data Networks Rs 18.94 crore.

Richest Indian Gautam Adani’s group has placed bids worth Rs 211.86 crore for 400 MHz in a band that is not used for offering public telephony services.

Telecom tycoon Sunil Bharti Mittal’s Bharti Airtel made a successful bid of Rs 43,039.63 crore, while Vodafone Idea Ltd bought spectrum for Rs 18,786.25 crore.

The Supreme Court  of India on Wednesday sought responses from the Centre and the Election Commission on a PIL seeking voting rights for non-resident Indians (NRIs) in polls here.

A bench comprising Chief Justice N V Ramana and Justices J K Maheshwari and Hima Kohli took note of the PIL filed by the Kerala Pravasi Association that the NRIs be given the voting rights.

The top court issued notices and ordered the tagging of the PIL with pending ones on the issue.

The Ministry of Information & Broadcasting, utilizing the emergency powers under the IT Rules, 2021, has issued orders on 16.08.2022 for blocking of eight (8) YouTube based news channels, one (1) Facebook account, and two Facebook posts. The blocked YouTube channels had a cumulative viewership of over 114 crore, were subscribed by over 85 lakh users.

The purpose of the content published by some of these YouTube channels was to spread hatred among religious communities in India. False claims were made in various videos of the blocked YouTube channels. Examples include fake news such as the Government of India to have ordered demolition of religious structures; Government of India to have banned celebration of religious festivals, declaration of religious war in India, etc. Such content was found to have the potential to create communal disharmony and disturb public order in the country.

The YouTube channels were also used to post fake news on various subjects such as the Indian Armed Forces, Jammu and Kashmir, etc. The content was observed to be completely false and sensitive from the perspective of national security and India’s friendly relations with foreign States.

The content blocked by the Ministry was found to be detrimental to sovereignty and integrity of India, security of the State, India’s friendly relations with foreign States, and public order in the country. Accordingly, the content was covered within the ambit of section 69A of the Information Technology Act, 2000.

The blocked Indian YouTube channels were observed to be using fake and sensational thumbnails, images of news anchors and logos of certain TV news channels to mislead the viewers to believe that the news was authentic.

All the YouTube channels blocked by the Ministry were displaying advertisements on their videos having false content detrimental to communal harmony, public order and India’s foreign relations.

With this action, since December 2021, the Ministry has issued directions for blocking of 102 YouTube based news channels and several other social media accounts. The Government of India remains committed towards ensuring an authentic, trustworthy, and safe online news media environment, and thwart any attempts at undermining India’s sovereignty and integrity, national security, foreign relations, and public order.

Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis has been appointed the Leader of the House in the state Legislative Council, Chief Minister Eknath Shinde announced on Wednesday.

Shinde made the announcement as he introduced newly-inducted members of his Cabinet to the Upper House on the first day of the monsoon session of the state legislature.

Later, Fadnavis, a senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader, introduced the newly-elected members of the Legislative Council. Fadnavis is a member of the Legislative Assembly from Nagpur.

Usually, the Chief Minister is the Leader of the House in the Assembly, while the deputy CM holds the equivalent post in the Council.

The Upper House also passed a resolution congratulating Droupadi Murmu and Jagdeep Dhankhar on their election as President and Vice-President, respectively.

Farmers from Punjab on Wednesday left for Uttar Pradesh’s Lakhimpur Kheri to participate in a 72-hour-long protest against the Centre on the call of the Samyukt Kisan Morcha.

The Samyukt Kisan Morcha (SKM) had decided to hold a protest from August 18 to 20 to seek “justice” in the Lakhimpur Kheri violence case.

Farmers are also demanding the withdrawal of cases registered against them during the stir against the Centre’s now-withdrawn farm laws, compensation to families of farmers who died during the course of the yearlong protest and legal guarantee for the minimum support price of crops.

They also demanded the sacking of Union Minister of State for Home Ajay Mishra, whose son Ashish was arrested in connection with the Lakhimpur Kheri violence case.

Eight people, including four farmers, were killed in Lakhimpur Kheri during the violence that erupted when farmers were protesting against Uttar Pradesh Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Prasad Maurya’s visit to the area on October 3 last year.

Bharti Kisan Union (Ekta-Ugrahan) president Joginder Singh Ugrahan on Wednesday said they are going to Lakhimpur Kheri on the call of the SKM. “We will participate in the 72-hour long ‘dharna’ there,” he said.

BKU (Ekta-Ugrahan) general secretary Sukhdev Singh Kokrikalan said around 2,000 farmers, including women, left for Uttar Pradesh to participate in the protest.

BKU (Doaba) president Manjit Singh Rai said 10,000 farmers from Punjab will participate in the protest. “Some are going on trains and some on their own vehicles,” said Rai.

In a major shake-up, the BJP on Wednesday dropped Union Minister Nitin Gadkari and Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan from its parliamentary board, its apex organisational body, and brought in six new members, including Karnataka leader B S Yediyurappa and Iqbal Singh Lalpura, first Sikh representative.

The party also rejigged its Central Election Committee (CEC) and named Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis and Union minister Bhupender Yadav among its new members. Gadkari and Chouhan ceased to be CEC members after their ouster from the board.

All parliamentary board members, which include Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union ministers Amit Shah and Rajnath Singh and BJP president J P Nadda, automatically become part of the CEC, which has some additional members as well.

The other new board members are K Laxman, Sudha Yadav and Satyanarayan Jatiya, three old party faithfuls but considered political lightweights.

The omission of former BJP president Gadkari (65), considered close to the RSS, and Chouhan (63) marks their diminishing stock within the party which has tried to make its key organisational bodies more socially and regionally representative by inducting members of different communities, including former cop and Punjab leader Lalpura, currently the chairman of the National Commission for Minorities.

Former Union ministers Jual Oram and Shahnawaz Hussain have been dropped from the CEC. After these changes, the board now has the full strength of 11 members while the CEC has 15 leaders.

The new entrants to the CEC are Rajasthan leader Om Mathur and BJP women wing chief Vanathi Srinivasan besides Fadnavis and Bhupender Yadav. Srinivasan replaces her predecessor Vijaya Rahatkar as the party’s ‘Mahila Morcha’ chief as its an ex-officio member. With Chouhan gone, there will be no chief minister on the board.

There was speculation that Uttar Pradesh CM Yogi Adityanath may make an entry. Union minister Piyush Goyal, who is also the Leader of the House in Rajya Sabha, Dharmendra Pradhan and Bhupender Yadav were also seen as contenders. Yadav, though, is in the CEC now.

Both Yediyurappa and Jatiya are over 75 years of age, an informal age bar within the party for holding important posts as it has gone all out to reduce the average age of its organisational leaders.

Yediyurappa’s inclusion highlights the party’s efforts to reward the Lingayat leader whose community is critical to its poll prospects in the Karnataka assembly election slated for the next year. He was replaced by Basavaraj Bommai as chief minister in 2021. Bommai met to congratulate him after the announcement.

Fadnavis’ induction into the CEC is seen as a nod to his importance after the former Maharashtra CM was asked by the party to become the deputy chief minister in the Eknath Shinde-led government, a position for which he was initially reluctant.

This is the first time the board has been rejigged under Nadda, who took over as the party president in 2020. The board had several vacancies caused by the death of Arun Jaitley and Sushma Swaraj while Venkaiah Naidu and Thaawarchand Gehlot had to leave it after becoming Vice President and state governor respectively.

When Shah was the party president, veteran leaders L K Advani and Murli Manohar Joshi were eased out of the crucial party body in 2014 and made members of ‘Margdarshak Mandal’, as the party on Modi’s watch worked to make the organisation and government more youthful.

Among the new board members, Sudha Yadav and Laxman are from the Other Backward Classes while former Union minister Jatia is from the Scheduled Castes. Sonowal is tribal.

Party sources said the exercise shows how the party “rewards” old workers and values their experience.

Yediyurappa, Jatia and Laxman have given their lives to the party, building it brick by brick from the start, they said.

“There is also an emphasis on diversity. Sonowal is from the Northeast, Laxman and Yediyurappa hail from the South. In Lalpura, there is a Sikh representing minorities,” a leader said.

He described Sudha Yadav as a self-made political leader whose husband was martyred in Kargil.