11:54 EC to announce poll dates for 5 states at noon : The Election Commission will shortly announce poll dates for Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Goa, Manipur and Uttarakhand. Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Nasim Zaidi will address the media and will give out complete details for the election process.
On Tuesday, the Election Commission held a meeting with Chief Electoral Officers of the five poll-bound states Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Uttarakhand, Manipur and Goa to fine tune the arrangements.
Details regarding last date of filing nominations, number of phases in which elections will be held, and day of counting is going to be announced today.
It is expected that the UP Assembly elections will happen in seven phases and rest four states will have a single-phased election. The blockade in Manipur may lead to multiple-phased polls in the state because of security issues. Goa has 40 assembly seats, Manipur has 60, Punjab has 117, Uttarakhand has 70 while Uttar Pradesh has 403.
11:46 Neha Dhupia was at the NBA Knicks Game at Madison Square in New York.
11:32 An early Budget is a bad idea, writes Sitaram Yechury: From CPI-M president Sitaram Yechury’s Facebook post:
Advancing the Annual Budget has the following implications immediately apparent:
1. The advance GDP estimates for the ongoing FY were released in February, and meant actual data for three quarters was considered. Now, with the advance estimates being released in January, actual data for only first two quarters (so only till September 2016) will be considered. This is bound to present a wrong and misleading picture of India’s GDP growth rate which is bound to be revised downwards heavily later on. Not only will it hurt the credibility of the govt, and India, consequently, but it will also make the people who are experiencing economic hardships, lose faith in such numbers being shown that appear hyped and evidently rosier than the truth.
2. The Economic Survey presented before the budget was meant to cover the preceding year and form the basis for policy interpretations, decisions and discussions on the budget. Now the Survey will cover only half of the preceding year, while the full year will be covered by the mid-year review in July, well after the budget.
Will there be a mid-course budgetary correction if the July review shows something different?
3. Budget-making is a serious exercise which should be done based on maximum possible available data. This will not be possible by advancing it to January, and is bound to lead to “looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies”.
4. As we see it, this is a short-term political move done with an eye on UP and Punjab elections so that the BJP government can announce enough sops while bypassing the model code of conduct.
We expect the Election Commission and the Hon’ble President to take note and reverse this decision.
11:13 Just in: TMC workers block NH-2 near Asansol in protest against the arrest of TMC MP Sudip Bandyopadhyay; Vehicles stranded.
11:07 Anna Hazare files PIL, alleges Rs 25,000-cr scam, wants Pawars probed: Activist Anna Hazare has moved the Bombay high court seeking a CBI inquiry into what he termed a “Rs 25,000 crore sugar cooperative factories scam”.
Hazare filed two civil PILs and a criminal PIL seeking a CBI probe. The criminal PIL is listed for hearing on January 6 before a bench headed by Justice Abhay Oka.The petitions alleged that fraud had been committed in governance by first burdening sugar cooperative factories with debts and thereafter selling these sick units at a throwaway price, causing loss of Rs 25,000 crore to the government, cooperative sector and members of public.
The petitions also demanded an inquiry by a Special Investigating Team (SIT) into alleged role of “politicians into the sugar cooperative scam, including NCP president and former Union agriculture minister Sharad Pawar and his nephew and former irrigation minister Ajit Pawar”.
The petitions name both members of the Pawar family as respondents.The petitions further demanded an CBI inquiry into the allegations of corruption and misuse of government and cooperative funds involving lease and sale of cooperative sugar factories which caused Rs 25,000 crore loss. The petitioner stated that the statistics mentioned in the petition have been collected through RTI.
10:55 India must limit Chinese imports and bolster manufacturing : Shashi Tharoor’s An Era of Darkness tells you that India was in the forefront of globalization before the British conquered and looted the country. Angus Maddison in his classic, The World Economy, estimated the primary economic parameters of many countries over the millennium.
When the British came, India was one of the two richest countries on almost every parameter. (The other country was China.) A variety of finely woven textiles in many fabrics, metallurgical products, including the finest of swords, and well-designed, sturdy, long-lasting ships were among India’s principal products. Globalization was about genuine competitive advantage in many products and in fair exchange. Read more
10:47 Justice JS Khehar sworn in as new CJI : Justice Jagdish Singh Khehar was sworn in as the 44th Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of India today at Rashtrapati Bhavan. The tenure of Justice TS Thakur ended yesterday.
10:40 Trump doesnt plan to ease off Twitter once he is sworn in as President: Remember how President-elect Donald Trump told 60 Minutes shortly after winning the election that he was planning to be “restrained’ on how he uses Twitter? It seems he is now reconsidering and is “absolutely’ planning to continue to use Twitter as a communication tool and to make major policy announcements, incoming White House press secretary Sean Spicer said on ABC’s This Week. Read more
10:15 RBI governor, ministry officials to brief PAC on note ban impact: Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor Urjit Patel, finance secretary Ashok Lavasa and economic affairs secretary Shaktikanta Das will brief the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of Parliament on January 20 on the impact of demonetisation on Indian economy and the amount of black money unearthed since Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the move on November 8.
“RBI governor and senior finance ministry officials will appear before the committee to brief on demonetisation on January 20,” PAC chairman KV Thomas told Business Standard.
The meeting was earlier slated for first week of January but had to be deferred due to preoccupation of the officials.
According to sources, PAC has sent a detailed questionnaire to these officials based on the issues flagged by the members. While the impact of demonetisation is foremost among the issues raised by the members, the lawmakers also want to know how much black money has been unearthed as a result of the note ban. Other issues include, the currency available with the banks now and what percentage of it is fake.
Amit Agnihotri/Business Standard
Further, the panel members want to know when the supply of new currency notes of Rs 500 and Rs 2000 would become normal given long queues were witnessed outside banks and ATMs since November 8.
10:07 Stalin elected DMK party president : Just in: Stalin elected as DMK working president. The general council of the DMK met on Wednesday to crown party treasurer and heir apparent M K Stalin. The meeting at the party headquarters ‘Anna Arivalayam’, ends the DMK scion’s agonising wait for an elevation. DMK president M Karunanidhi has been unwell and has remained confined to his Gopalapuram residence since October last.
09:35 ‘The Rohingya Alan Kurdi’: Will the world take notice now?:
Face down in the mud, a baby boy lies still after washing up on a river bank.
His name is Mohammed Shohayet, a 16-month-old Rohingya refugee whose family fled their home for Bangladesh to escape the violence in Myanmar’s Rakhine State, only to drown during the journey along with his mother, uncle and three-year-old brother.
The image has parallels with that of the young Syrian refugee Alan Kurdi, who was found dead on a Turkish beach in September 2015, after trying to flee the civil war at home.
The conflicts the two boys left behind are different, but the desperation of their families to escape is all too familiar.
09:18 Bengaluru shamed again! Woman molested on road, caught on camera:
In horrifying video footage, two men on a scooter are seen blocking a young woman’s path, getting off and then groping her just hours into the New Year in Bengaluru.
The incident is said to have taken place around 2:30 am on Sunday and was recorded by a camera installed at a house off Kammanahalli 5th Main Road in east Bengaluru.
The visual shows that the accosted woman had just got off an auto-rickshaw and was just metres from her house.
The incident comes to light when the safety of women is being questioned after a mob molested, groped and passed lewd remarks against women during New Year’s Eve revelry.
09:06 Justice Khehar sworn in as CJI today:
Justice Jagdish Singh Khehar will today assume the office of Chief Justice of India as the tenure of Justice TS Thakur ended yesterday.
On December 19, President Pranab Mukherjee had cleared the name of Justice Khehar.
Justice Khehar, who will be sworn in by President Mukherjee, will be the 44th Chief Justice of India and will hold the post of seven months.
The Supreme Court yesterday once again dismissed a plea challenging the appointment of Justice Khehar as the next CJI, saying, it is in the public interest that the ‘curtain should be brought down’.
The apex court had dismissed two similar pleas filed in the past fortnight, challenging the appointment of Justice Khehar.
08:31 JUST IN: Election Commission to announce assembly polls in UP, Punjab, Uttarakhand and other states at 12 noon today.
08:29 Sundar Pichai likely to unveil Google’s plans for small businesses today:
After the India visit of Travis Kalanick, founder and chief executive officer of US-based taxi aggregator Uber, Google CEO Sundar Pichai would be in New Delhi for an event on small and medium businesses one of the new focus areas of the global technology major.
According to sources, Pichai could possibly meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi and NITI Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant as well. Law and IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad is likely to meet Pichai at the event where he has been invited to speak.
Sources say Pichai is already in India. He would end his trip with an event in Delhi and then go to Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur his alma mater where he would be felicitated and then have a fireside chat at the venue. This is Pichais third official visit to India since he took over as Google CEO.
According to sources, Google is planning to launch a series of products for the SMB segment. The company is looking at small businesses as a major source of revenue in the near future. With products such as Google for Business and a new Cloud region, the company wants to tap into the multi-million dollar opportunity in India. Its products compete with those from the stables of global giants like Microsoft and Amazon Web Services.
— Karan Choudhury/Business Standard
08:10 BJP leader Krishna Bhattacharya’s house in West Bengal’s Uttarpara allegedly attacked by TMC workers, last night. Case registered.
07:57 Bengaluru molestation: Police finds evidence, registers FIR:
Three days after New Year eve revelry turned into a nightmare for several women who were allegedly molested at a large gathering in Bengaluru’s downtown area, police today claimed to have found “credible” evidence of molestation and have registered an FIR.
As the incidents drew widespread outrage with no action from the police, Bengaluru’s new Commissioner of Police, Praveen Sood through a series of tweets said his team was working on the case silently.
“As promised we have found credible evidence repeat credible evidence in a case of wrongful confinement, molestation and attempt to rob,” Sood had said in a tweet.
“We have taken action by registering an FIR. Investigation is in progress. Police is working…. though silently,” he had said in another tweet.
Stating that enquiry is underway by an officer of DCP rank, he has said that they have gone through the feeds from 45 cameras on MG road, and unedited video is available with police.
Eyewitness accounts had suggested that women were molested and groped and lewd remarks were also passed by miscreants late night on December 31 in the posh area even as it was claimed that 1,500 police personnel had been deployed to control the crowds.
Police had earlier said that no one had come forward to file a complaint about the incident.
00:28 US to become world’s greatest magnet for job creation: Trump:
The US is set to become the world’s greatest magnet for innovation and job creation, President-elect Donald Trump said.
“Instead of driving jobs and wealth away, America will become the world’s great magnet for innovation and job creation,” Trump said in a tweet.
Trump’s tweet came as Ford announced that it has decided to scrap its USD 1.6 billion manufacturing plant in Mexico and instead invest USD 700 million in Michigan.
Making the announcement, Ford CEO Mark Fields said that the new policies of the incoming administration drove the decision.
After winning the November general elections, the President-elect has been instrumental in several domestic and foreign companies making investments in the US and creating thousands of jobs.
Source: Rediff