10:51 India, Pak should engage in ‘meaningful dialogue’: UN chief:
United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres on Friday hoped that India and Pakistan will engage in a ‘meaningful dialogue’ to resolve their issues.
The UN chief, speaking to reporters at the UN headquarters in New York, also said he has been offering his ‘good offices in relation to the dialogue between the two countries that, until now, had no conditions of success’.
India has made it clear to Pakistan that cross-border terrorism and talks cannot go hand-in-hand.
“I hope that the importance of both India and Pakistan is such in international affairs, I hope that the two countries will be able to engage in a meaningful dialogue,” he said, responding to a question on the dialogue between the two countries.
“In relation to the human rights situation, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights has produced recently a very detailed report. So, the UN has clearly done its job in that regard,” Guterres said to a question by a Pakistan journalist on the situation in Kashmir.
The Indo-Pak ties strained after the terror attacks by Pakistan-based terrorists in 2016 and India’s surgical strikes inside Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.
The ties further nose-dived in 2017 with no bilateral talks talking place between them. — PTI
10:26 Mamata meets opposition leaders ahead of mega meet:
Key opposition leaders including Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav, Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam president M K Stalin, former prime minister H D Deve Gowda, and Telugu Desam Party chief Chandrababu Naidu met West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee ahead of the Trinamool Congress-led mega rally on Saturday.
Taking to Twitter, the TMC Chief welcomed the leaders’ participation in the ‘United India Rally’.
‘Only few hours to go for the historic ‘United India Rally’ at Brigade Parade Grounds. I welcome all national leaders, supporters and lakhs of people to participate in today’s rally to pledge to build a stronger, progressive and united India (sic).” she tweeted.
Among those who are expected to be a part of the rally include National Conference supremo Farooq Abdullah and his son Omar Abdullah, Rashtriya Janata Dal leader Tejaswi Yadav, Bahujan Samaj Party leader Satish Misra, Rashtriya Lok Dal chief Ajit Singh and leader Jayant Chaudhary, former Union ministers Yashwant Sinha and Arun Shourie, Patidar quota agitation leader Hardik Patel, Opposition leader in Mizoram Lalduwahawma, former Arunachal Pradesh chief minister Gegong Apang, former Jharkhand chief minister Hemant Soren, and Gujarat independent MLA and Dalit leader Jignesh Mevani.
Though Congress president Rahul Gandhi and his mother Sonia Gandhi will be skipping the rally, the party would be represented by senior Congress leaders like Mallikarjun Kharge and Abhishek Manu Singhvi.
On Friday, Rahul wrote to the TMC chief extending support to the mega rally.
‘We commend the great people of Bengal who have historically been at the forefront of defending our ideals. I extend my support to Mamata Di on this show of unity and hope that we send a powerful message of a united India together,’ the letter read.
Anticipating heavy rush of commuters in the wake of the TMC-led rally at the Brigade Parade Ground, the Kolkata Metro, which operates under the Ministry of Railways, has beefed up its security arrangements by deploying additional forces apart from the regular contingent.
Additional RPF Personnel including officers and staff have been roped in for strategic deployment at all stations to tackle any untoward incident.
Commandos will be deployed at Dum Dum, Esplanade and Maidan Stations
Women RPF personnel will also be deployed in adequate numbers at various stations.
Mamata has been touring the country since the last one year in an effort to shore up a strong and united opposition front to fight the Lok Sabha elections against the BJP. — ANI
09:37 Trump to make ‘major’ announcement on shutdown today:
United States President Donald Trump has said he will make a ‘major’ announcement on Saturday on the ongoing federal government shutdown and the humanitarian crisis on the country’s southern border.
No further detail about the announcement was immediately available from the White House.
The shutdown, the longest-ever in US history, is a result of the bitter political divide over border security issue between the Trump-led Republican party and the opposition Democratic party led by the House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
The Democrats, who now enjoy majority in the House, have refused to approve a legislation approving $5.7 billion in federal funding to construct a wall across the US-Mexico border, a poll promise by the Republican president.
‘I will be making a major announcement concerning the Humanitarian Crisis on our Southern Border, and the Shutdown, tomorrow afternoon at 3 P.M. (1:30 am Sunday IST), live from the @WhiteHouse,’ President Trump tweeted on Friday.
Functioning of several key wings of the US government, including Security and State departments, has been paralysed for nearly four weeks now because of the ongoing partial government shutdown.
President Trump insists that building a wall is the only solution to protect the nation from a large flow of illegal immigrants and drug smuggling.
The Democrats are opposed to any such funding. After Trump walked out of a meeting at the White House last week, Democrats have refused to come to the negotiation table. — PTI
09:07 Woman among 3 arrested for abetting Bhaiyyu Maharaj’s suicide:
A woman and two aides of self- styled godman Bhaiyyu Maharaj were arrested on Friday for allegedly abetting his suicide last year, police said.
Palak, 25, Vinayak and Sharad Deshmukh were arrested and charged with abetment of suicide, Deputy Inspector General of Police H C Mishra said.
Palak was allegedly blackmailing the 50-year-old spiritual guru and putting pressure on him to marry her, he said.
Vinayak and Deshmukh, aides of Bhaiyyu Maharaj, had helped the woman in her acts, the police officer added.
Mishra said Bhaiyyu Maharaj’s wife Ayushi and relatives had recently recorded statements with the police against the accused.
The model-turned-godman had shot himself dead on June 12 at his residence in Indore. — PTI
09:04 India does not belong to any particular religion, caste or language: Gadkari:
Union minister Nitin Gadkari on Friday said this country does not belong to any particular religion, caste, or language.
Addressing a gathering during the distribution of ownership pattas to slum dwellers he said the party had never done politics based on caste or religion and theirs was a politics of service and development.
He said India was of every person who loved it, be it a Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist, Jain, Christians or others.
“We have never done politics based on caste or religion… We never did politics on caste, religion and language. But, we did politics of service and development of poor,” he said.
“Because a poor man is poor, be it a Muslim, Jain, Buddhist, Hindu, Christian, Dalit or a tribal,” he said.
He further said that there cannot be partiality in the work of development.
“We know that those who cannot compete with us on the development front, try to scare people with poison of casteism and communalism,” he said.
He said it was said that if Gadkari gets elected then ‘you will be sent to Pakistan’ and questioned, “What did I do, whom did I scare and whom was I unjust to?”
He said the party will work for people whether or not they vote for it.
“This country does not belong to any particular religion, caste, or language. This country is of every person who loves it, be it a Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist, Jain, Christian and others,” said Gadkari. — PTI
08:14 Yeddyurappa calls back all party MLAs staying in Gurugram:
Bharatiya Janata Party Karnataka president B S Yeddyurappa has called back all party MLAs who were staying in Gurugram allegedly to avoid ‘poaching’ attempts by the ruling Congress-Janata Dal (Secular) alliance.
The development comes as the Congress shifted all but four of its MLAs to a resort near Bengaluru after four MLAs gave the party’s CLP meet a skip on Friday.
A state senior Congress leader said since it was suspected that eight party MLAs had ‘committed’ to the BJP and might jump ship, the legislators were being shifted to a resort.
“Let them indulge in squabbles….we have nothing to do with it.”
He said the ruling coalition was claiming the support of some BJP MLAs and it was because of this that the party had decided they should stay together in a hotel in Gurugram. — ANI, PTI
00:25 Meghalaya mine tragedy: Body yet to be identified:
Family members of at least five of the 15 people trapped inside a coal mine in Meghalaya failed to identify the decomposed body of a victim on Friday from the videos recorded underwater, officials said.
Navy divers detected the body using an unmanned remotely-operated vehicle (ROV) at a depth of around 160 feet inside the main shaft on Wednesday.
Though the ROV had pulled the body to half way, doctors at the site advised not to pull it further fearing disintegration of the body parts before it could be identified, they said.
Operation spokesperson R Susngi told PTI that the family members of five of those trapped could not identify the victim.
They were shown videos captured by the ROV inside the man-sized horizontal holes — often referred to as rat-holes — used by the miners to take out coal from inside the mine.
Of the five families, three were from the Lumthari village near the mine in East Jaintia Hills district, while the two others are from Assam’s Chirang district.
The family members of other trapped miners hailing from West Garo Hills district are yet to arrive at the site and the district authorities are waiting for them in case they could identify the body, he said.
Pumping from the nearby abandoned mines continued on Friday as the operation to rescue the trapped miners entered the 37th day.
The multi-agency operations, which include dewatering of the main shaft where the miners are trapped and in the nearby mines, have failed to yield any result so far, as the water level did not reduce even after pumping out over 3 crore litres of water, Susngi said.
On December 13, water from nearby Lytein river flooded a network of tunnels in the mine, trapping the 15 men. — PTI
Source: Rediff