Today’s Big Stories
After "complete unanimity" on alliance, Congress-NCP will meet Shiv Sena today to finalise pact
Maharashtra on Thursday appeared to head for a non-BJP dispensation with Congress leader Prithviraj Chavan asserting his party and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) have "complete unanimity" on all issues concerning government formation and will hold talks with the Shiv Sena on Friday to "finalise the architecture of the alliance". The Congress and the NCP will hold talks with the Sena in Mumbai on Friday as well as their other pre-poll allies – the Peasants Workers Party, Samajwadi Party, Swabhimani Paksh and CPI(M). Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray and his MLA-son Aaditya met Sharad Pawar in Mumbai late on Thursday night after the NCP chief returned from Delhi. Sources said the three parties are likely to make a formal announcement about their decision to join hands and take a shot at power in the state.
Electoral bonds a money-laundering scam, RTI shows govt overruled RBI, says Congress; BJP defends
The opposition Congress on Thursday protested in the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha, demanding that the government disclose all details about electoral bonds. The outcry came after a series of reports in HuffPost revealed that the PM Narendra Modi-led government had in 2017 overruled warnings from the Reserve Bank of India and Election Commission while trying to push through the Electoral Bonds scheme.
Taking potshots at the Congress, the BJP said "the alliance of the defeated and the dejected corrupt politicians" do not want clean, tax-paid transparent money to fund elections. "Electoral bonds brought in honest money in electoral politics. People who are revolting against electoral bonds have grown used to black money and believe in its usage during elections," senior BJP leader and Union Minister Piyush Goyal said.
In Other Stories
Formally charged: Israel's attorney general indicted Benjamin Netanyahu on a range of corruption charges on Thursday, the justice ministry announced, potentially spelling an end to the prime minister's decades-long political career. Netanyahu, who strongly denies all the charges, becomes the first Israeli prime minister to be indicted while in office.
Out of question: Stating that the economy is in a bad shape, former Reserve Bank of India (RBI) governor C Rangarajan on Thursday said reaching the $5-trillion Gross Domestic Product (GDP) target by 2025 is "simply out of question" at the current growth rate.
Pink test: The Virat Kohli-led Indian cricket team will take on Bangladesh in their maiden Day-Night Test beginning in Kolkata on Friday (November 22). Amid all the hype of the historic first-ever pink ball Test for either side, there’s also the sub-plot of India bracing for a 12th successive home series victory.
Last-minute withdrawal: On the last date for the withdrawal of nominations to contest the upcoming by-elections in Karnataka, two Janata Dal (Secular) (JDS) candidates from Athani and Hirekerur Assembly constituencies, Guru Dashayal and Shivalinga Shivacharya Swami, withdrew their nominations on Thursday after BJP leaders convinced them to do so.
Banned: The Kerala government on Thursday announced it will ban the production, sale and use of single-use plastic products from January 2020. The decision, in light of the environmental and health hazards caused by discarding plastic after a single usage, was taken at a Cabinet meeting.
On Our Specials
'Can't they hear us?': Amid slogans of liberty, freedom and rights, Rakesh Narsing Dawar of Siwal decided to narrate the story of his only travel outside the home. “It was a difficult and tiring journey," he said about the last two days as he traveled 1,038km from his village in central India to reach the national capital. The farmer from Madhya Pradesh had embarked on a long and dusty trip out of his hamlet and changed three trains to reach Delhi. From Nepanagar to Khandwa to Etarsi and onwards. However, his arrival in the national capital, unlike the thousands who visit the city every day, was not welcomed. For, Dawar was here to protest. Aditya Sharma explains why thousands of Tribals are staging a protest in Delhi.
JNU row: With Delhi Police registering FIRs against the agitating students of Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) and the JNU administration moving the High Court for a contempt of court case against the students and the cops, it’s difficult to comprehend if its beginning of the end of the crisis, or the end of the beginning which was made a day earlier with the government constituting a three-member committee to look into the matter. Sidharth Mishra writes how in dealing with JNU politics, the government may have failed scholarship that gave India top bureaucrats and netas.
On Reel
BJP MP Pragya Singh Thakur, an accused in the Malegaon blast case, has been nominated to the Parliamentary Consultative Committee of the Ministry of Defence headed by Union Defence Minister Rajnath Singh. Watch to know more.
Curated and compiled by Karan Anand
Comments
0 comment