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File photo of Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal.

Mr Gupta has written a letter to Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal for immediate release of funds and grants under various heads. “The festive season is round the corner, all employees expect salaries, pensions and other payments on time,” he wrote in the letter.

Mr Gupta said due to “non-payment” of global share, municipal reforms fund and other grants to NDMC, financial situation of the civic body has become “worse”.

The Mayor apprised the Chief Minister through his letter that due to non-payment of pension by the corporation for more than a year, nearly 80,000 families have been suffering.

“As a result of cutting of funds of Rs 158 crore under education head and Rs 30 crore under health head, many important schemes are pending,” he said.

Mr Gupta has also urged the government to establish a strong coordination with NDMC for an early resolve of fund-related issues and better delivery of services to the people.



 

File photo of former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. (Agence France-Presse)

During the probe into the alleged scam in Talabira-II coal-block allocation, Singh was asked by CBI, “When the letter dated August 17, 2005 of Naveen Patnaik addressed to you as PM had only requested to provide required coal linkage for the important project of M/s HINDALCO, which was already allocated, why did you approve the accommodation of HINDALCO in the share of coal in Talabira-II coal block.”

Responding to the query, Mr Singh said, “This letter of CM of Odisha also mentioned about the allocation of Talabira-II coal block to M/s HINDALCO Industries Ltd. This was required to be looked into by the Ministry of Coal.

“It was interpreted by the MoC that the request in the letter was regarding issue of allocation of Talabira-II coal block. This recommendation was approved by me after it was examined by the PMO officials,” said Mr Singh, who was also the Coal Minister at that time.

“With regard to the query that giving coal block could be more beneficial financially to the company than giving a coal linkage as the price of coal from coal block is much cheaper than price of coal from coal linkage; I state that it is true of all allocations to the private sector,” Mr Singh said.

Mr Singh further said that if this logic was applied, the government should not make any allocation for the private sector.

“In this context, the recommendation of the Chief Minister of Odisha vide his letter dated August 17, 2005 favouring HINDALCO for allocation of Talabira-II is relevant,” he said.

While Mr Birla had written letters requesting the government to “change the decision” of not considering HINDALCO for the coal block, Patnaik had requested a review of the decision.

The special court had summoned Mr Singh, Mr Parakh, Mr Birla and others as accused in the case while refusing to accept CBI’s closure report.

They have all denied any wrongdoing in the case.

The Supreme Court had on April 1 stayed the trial court’s order summoning them as accused.

Mr Singh said while the Coal Ministry “interpreted” Patnaik’s request to be for allocation of the block, Mr Parakh had proposed to “accommodate” HINDALCO.

“This was approved by me after it was examined by the PMO officials,” the former Prime Minister said.

Mr Singh said the issue was to see whether HINDALCO could be accommodated without harming the interest of Neyveli Lignite Corporation Ltd (NLC), a PSU, which was initially recommended by screening committee for the block.

“On being asked as to why I approved the proposal of Secretary, MoC, to accommodate HINDALCO in the share of coal in Talabira-II coal block, though the SC (screening committee) had in its minutes mentioned that coal linkage of 3.06 MTPA had already been allocated to HINDALCO which was sufficient to meet the full requirement of 650MW power plant and that no separate coal block needs to be given for the Aditya Aluminium Project; I state that I went by the advice of Secretary (Coal) and as endorsed by the officials of the PMO,” Mr Singh said.

“It was due to the letter of the CM of Odisha (Patnaik) that the whole matter was re-opened. The issue was to see whether Birla could be accommodated without harming the interest of NLC,” he said.

As per the 25th screening committee, the case of a number of companies, including HINDALCO, was not considered favourable and it had decided to allocate Talabira-II coal block to NLC.

Shashank Manohar’s first stint as BCCI President was from 2008-2011 .

© AFP

Shashank Manohar was unanimously elected as President of BCCI. Here are the highlights of what he said:

# BCCI is a huge brand in itself. Without the support of the fans, it would not have gotten big. I would like to carry forward the good work done by Jagmohan Dalmiya.

# The BCCI will appoint an ethics officer to look into the complaints of conflict of interest issue.

# The BCCI will also educate the players in order to wipe out corruption from the game.

# The accounts of all the state associations would be handled by an independent officer.

# Any expenditure spent in excess of 25 lakhs would be put out on the website.

# To clear the myth of lack of transparency, we will be putting out details on the website immediately.

# There are no spinners in country and it is the duty of the BCCI to see there is an available lot.

# BCCI would like to develop women’s cricket.

# Priority of BCCI will be to conduct 2016 World Twenty20 in the best possible manner.

# I will not exercise my chairman’s vote in the AGM until the constitution is amended.

# The BCCI will implement all the measures in two months period.

He was the Unanimous Choice

Manohar was the unanimous choice as BCCI President and this was confirmed in the Special General Meeting of the BCCI in Mumbai on Sunday.

This will be Manohar’s second stint as BCCI President, having taken over from Sharad Pawar in 2008/09. It lasted for three years and it ended in 2011 when N. Srinivasan was appointed as the BCCI President.

Manohar took over the post at the Board’s SGM which lasted less than half an hour. He was the only candidate left in the fray for the election in which the deadline for filing nomination ended Saturday evening.

The election was necessitated by the sudden demise of Jagmohan Dalmiya, who had a short term of seven months after his election in March this year. Dalmiya was made the interim President when Srinivasan “stepped aside” in the wake of revelations that his son-in-law was involved in betting during the 2013 IPL season.

All the six units of East Zone unanimously proposed Manohar’s candidature for the president’s post, reflecting Srinivasan’s diminishing hold in Board’s power politics.

A BCCI by-election needs only one proposer from the zone which is electing the president and it was the East’s turn this time. Manohar got the nod from all the six associations and was the lone nomination at the end of the 7 pm deadline yesterday.

Interestingly, one of the proposers for Manohar was Dalmiya’s son Avishek, who was representing his family club National Cricket Club (NCC) in the SGM.

Srinivasan skipped the meeting and the Tamil Nadu Cricket Association was represented by PS Raman.

The others who also proposed Manohar’s name were Sourav Ganguly from Bengal, Sourav Dasgupta from Tripura, Gautam Roy from Assam, Ashirbad Behera of Odisha and Sanjay Singh of Jharkhand State Cricket Association (JSCA).

His anointment also means that Srinivasan now has little chance of coming back into the BCCI fold till 2017 when the Vidarbha man’s tenure ends

Thakur Believes BCCI Will Carry on Reforms Under Manohar’s Leadership

Thakur has said that the BCCI will continue the reforms under leadership of new president Shashank Manohar, which the Board had started in the last six months.

“After the sad demise of Mr Dalmiya. It was important to continue the reforms taken place in last six months. We have seen the previous tenure of Manohar, where his work has been appreciated by everyone and we believe under his leadership BCCI will continue with the reforms which has taken place under Dalmiya’s leadership,” Thakur said. (Read More)

Manohar’s Experience Will Help Indian Cricket, Says Sourav Ganguly

Former India skipper Sourav Ganguly said he believes Manohar will do a good job. “A lot of important people have led BCCI in the past and Manohar has also done it quite well. I am sure he will do a good job,” said Ganguly, who has been named as Cricket Association of Bengal (CAB) president. (Read More)

During the special drive daytime (2 pm to 5 pm) carried out on October 1 and October 3, a total of 82 cases were registered against drunken drivers, including drivers of two-wheelers, three-wheelers and cars, Additional Commissioner of Police (Traffic) Jitender said.

Drunken drivers will be counselled at all traffic police stations to ensure their safety and as well as other commuters and pedestrians, the police officials said.

The main aim of the special drive is to impart traffic education to violators of safety, the police official said, adding that the drive would continue.

“The government is at an advanced stage in considering the requirement of furnishing PAN card details if cash transactions beyond a certain limit are undertaken,” Mr Jaitley said in a Facebook post.

He said the monitoring regime of the Income Tax Department has been strengthened and its capacity to access information and apply technology driven analytical tools to expose evasion has been enhanced. (Also read: Non-Declarants of foreign assets to face consequences: Jaitley)

“Its ability to detect large cash withdrawals, or large cash transactions which enter the system, is being strengthened. GST (Goods and Services Tax) regime once introduced will also be a landmark step in this direction.”

“Thus for commodities like gold where the initial purchase by the exporter is after the payment of custom duty, the subsequent transactions which are mostly in cash, can easily be found out,” Mr Jaitley said.

In Budget for 2015-16, the Finance Minister had proposed making quoting of permanent account number (PAN) mandatory for all sale and purchase of over Rs 1 lakh.

“Quoting of PAN is being made mandatory for any purchase or sale exceeding the value of Rs 1 lakh. The third party reporting entities would be required to furnish information about foreign currency sales and cross border transactions,” Mr Jaitley had said.

Thereafter, the government had received representations from various persons, including MPs, MLAs, trade and industry associations, among others, against the proposed mandatory quoting of PAN for sale or purchase in excess of Rs 1 lakh.

Stressing that bulk of black money is still within India, Mr Jaitley said there was a need to change the national attitude so that plastic currency becomes the norm and cash an exception and the government is working with various authorities to incentivize this change.

“Being seized of this problem, the government has been working with various authorities in order to incentivize this change. The opening of a large number of payment gateways, internet banking, payment banks and the emerging reality of e-commerce will prompt the use of banking transactions and plastic money rise significantly,” Mr Jaitley said.

The JAM (Jan Dhan, Aadhaar, Mobile) Trinity and the Direct Benefit Transfer of subsidies to the accounts of beneficiaries of various government schemes will also be a step ahead in this direction, Mr Jaitley added.

Each of the 18 crore beneficiaries of Jan Dhan accounts has been provided with RuPay cards, which will encourage them to use plastic currency and get familiarised with it, he said.

The MUDRA scheme, over the next few years, has a target of 6 crore families out of 25 crore families in India to become entrepreneurs.

Loans being made available to them by the banks can only be withdrawn from the ATMs by use of MUDRA credit cards which are being provided to them. More and more of their transactions will be through plastic currency or through the banking channel, Mr Jaitley added.

The West Bengal State Election Commission have postponed counting of votes in the election.

“We have decided to postpone counting of votes,” State Election Commissioner Susanta Upadhyay told newspersons at SEC office in Kolkata.

The counting was scheduled to be held on October 7.

He said the SEC would go through reports and video footages of violence from its own sources and also news channels before taking any further decision.

Opposition parties in the state have demanded that the elections be countermanded and fresh elections held, alleging large-scale violence by the ruling Trinamool Congress.

To a question on repoll, Upadhyay said, “There is no question of ordering repolls at this juncture. We will take a decision after going through reports and video footages.”