NO MINCING WORDS: KAPIL SIBAL SPEAKS OUT AGAINST GANDHIS

A day after the Congress Working Committee reaffirmed its faith in the leadership of Sonia Gandhi, senior Congress leader and former Union Minister Kapil Sibal said Monday it is time the Gandhis step aside from the leadership role and give some other person a chance.

Slamming the party’s decision to hold a brainstorming session, he said the leadership is living in “cuckoo land” if it is not aware of the reasons for the party’s decline even after eight years.

Signatory to a letter that 23 senior leaders had written to Sonia Gandhi in 2020 seeking sweeping changes in the party, Sibal is the first senior Congress leader to demand that the Gandhis make way for a new leader. He said the Gandhis should “voluntarily move away” because “a body nominated by them will never tell them that they should not continue to hold the reins of power.”

In an interview to The Indian Express, Sibal said he is neither surprised by the party’s defeat in the Assembly elections nor the decision of the CWC to reaffirm faith in the leadership of Sonia Gandhi. He said a large number of leaders outside the CWC have an entirely different point of view.

“I cannot talk on behalf of others. It is purely my personal view that today at least I want a ‘Sab ki Congress’. Some others want a ‘Ghar ki Congress’. I certainly don’t want a ‘Ghar ki Congress’. And I will fight for a ‘Sab ki Congress’ till my last breath. This ‘Sab ki Congress’ means just not getting together, but getting together all those people in India who don’t want the BJP,” he said.

Asked about the chorus of voices demanding the return of Rahul Gandhi as Congress president, he said, “We are assuming now that Rahul Gandhi is not the president of the Congress and Mrs Gandhi is. Rahul Gandhi went to Punjab and made the announcement that Charanjit Singh Channi will be the Chief Minister. In what capacity did he do that? He is not the president of the party, but he takes all the decisions. He is already the de facto president. So why are they asking him that he should take back the reins of power,” he said.

REAL NORMALCY IN J&K AFTER REMOVAL OF ARTICLE 370: SITHARAMAN IN LOK SABHA

“How can we say there was normalcy in Kashmir earlier when the Constitution of India was not applicable there? We were shown fake normalcy since 1947 under the garb of Article 370. Now, after the removal of 370, Kashmir has real normalcy,” Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said during her reply to debate on Jammu and Kashmir Budget in the Lok Sabha yesterday

Presenting a blow by blow rebuttal to Opposition charges about the Kashmir after the removal of Article 370 in 2019, a combative Sitharaman said that Kashmiris were denied rights enshrined by Constitution all these years.

“After the removal (of Art 370), 890 central laws have now become applicable to Jammu and Kashmir. The removal will give people their rights. The rights that were enshrined in the Constitution made by Dr Ambedkar are now available to the people of Kashmir,” she said.

Taking on the subject of Kashmiri Pandits, as shown in the movie ‘The Kashmir Files’, Sitharaman said that the “bitter truth” about what happened to them was suppressed with denials all these years.

“At that time when so much was happening to the Hindus and they didn’t know how to get out, and I don’t want to say… Can’t even utter this here… People were threatened to convert or else they would not be alive… this happened, but the truth was suppressed with denial…even today there was denial… Today people were talking about the film… even yesterday, there was denial from Congress’s official handle has tweeted that Kashmiri Pandits voluntarily left Kashmir,” she said.

Talking about the economy of Kashmir after 2019, Sitharaman listed the govt’s various achievments and said that Kashmir saw the arrival of the highest number of tourists.

Ragarding terrorism, Sitharaman read figures that all indicators of terrorism were falling. “There has been 33 per cent drop in police persons martyred. There has been 90 per cent decrease in ceasefire violations. As against 937 incidents in 2020, the reported incidents were 98,” she said.

BJP NAMES CENTRAL OBSERVERS FOR GOVT FORMATION IN 4 STATES

After its spectacular wins in the assembly elections, the BJP on Monday set in motion the process for formation of the govts by appointing senior Union ministers as observers in the states concerned to elect the chief ministers.

The BJP appointed its observers and co-observers to oversee the election of leaders for the legislature parties in Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Manipur and Goa.

In UP, Yogi Adityanath is expected to continue as the chief minister.

In Uttarakhand, where uncertainty deepened over who would be the chief minister in the wake of incumbent Pushkar Singh Dhami losing the election despite leading the party to a win, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh and Union Minister of State for External Affairs Meenakshi Lekhi will supervise the election of a leader.

The party seems to be divided over Pramod Sawant continuing as the chief minister in Goa, where the BJP has won 20 seats, just one seat short of majority.

In the 60-member House in Manipur, the party won 32. Although incumbent Chief Minister N Biren Singh led the campaign in Manipur, there are other claimants to the post.

COVID DASHBOARD – INDIA

As of 0800 IST / March 15

from mohfw.gov.in ,

New Cases on Monday 2,568

Active Cases 33,917 (-2,251)

Total Deaths (Deaths Yesterday) 5,15,974 (26)

INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS

======================

RUSSIA BOMBARDS KYIV EVEN AS PEACE TALKS GO ON

Negotiators from Russia and Ukraine met again on Monday for another round of talks aimed at finding a way out of the war, even as Russian forces broadened their devastating offensive and the Kremlin insisted that it would not pull back until “all plans” for the invasion are fulfilled.

Mykhailo Podolyak, a member of Ukraine’s delegation, said that the talks had taken a “technical pause,” and would resume on Tuesday. Before the talks, which were held virtually, Ukrainian officials hinted at progress, with one member of Kyiv’s delegation saying over the weekend that Russia was “much more sensitive to Ukraine’s position” and that “some concrete results” could be reached within days.

The fourth round of negotiations came even as Russia intensified its attacks, launching a flurry of strikes in Kyiv on Monday.

In Mariupol, a convoy of 160 civilian cars left the surrounded port city along a designated humanitarian route, the city council reported in a rare glimmer of hope a week and a half into the deadly siege that has left people desperate for food, water, heat and medicine. It didn’t say how many people were headed westward for the city of Zaporizhzhia. But it said that a ceasefire along the route appeared to be holding. Previous attempts to evacuate civilians from the city of 430,000 were thwarted by fighting.

The UN has recorded at least 596 civilian deaths since Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, though it believes the true toll is much higher. More than 2.8 million have crossed into Poland and other neighboring countries in what the UN has called Europe’s biggest refugee crisis since WW II.

Meanwhile, in a sign that Russia was not softening, Kremlin’s spokesman Dmitri Peskov said the war effort was succeeding, and “all plans set out by the Russian leadership will be realised in full, within the approved time frame. ”

But one of President Putin’s closest allies said Russia’s military operation in Ukraine had not all gone as quickly as the Kremlin had wanted, the strongest public acknowledgement yet from Moscow that things were not going to plan. National Guard chief Viktor Zolotov, speaking at a church service on Sunday, blamed the slower than expected progress on what he said were far-right Ukrainian forces hiding behind civilians, an accusation repeatedly made by officials in Russia.

US 'CONCERNED' ABOUT CHINA'S ALIGNMENT WITH RUSSIA

The US is urging China not to help Russia out in the Ukraine crisis amid growing apprehension in Washington over whether Beijing and New Delhi will bail out Moscow from a debacle the West is seeking to impose on it. US national security adviser Jake Sullivan met top Chinese diplomat Yang Jiechi in Rome on Monday to convey Washington’s concerns over possible military and financial aid to Russia after US officials claimed that Moscow was seeking military supplies and economic assistance from China on finding itself in a quagmire in Ukraine.

China rubbished the reports calling it disinformation. Kremlin too denied the claim. “No, Russia has its own potential to continue the operation,” said spokesman Dmitry Peskov.

India has not figured publicly in the US concerns about countries coming to Russia’s help, but reports that New Delhi is considering buying Russian crude and other commodities at discounted prices with payment via a rupee-rouble transaction animated discourse in Washington, where US partisans see a Moscow-Beijing-New Delhi partnership emerging, despite tensions between China and India and healthy ties between US and India.

Washington’s energy dependent Nato partners, however, have it easier with US “understanding”. They continue to buy Russian gas and oil, virtually underwriting Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine even as they condemn it.

While US demands from China are strident and public, its pressure on India is more muted, with expressions of understanding New Delhi’s longstanding military supplies dependency on Russia.

US ASTRONAUT TO RIDE RUSSIAN SPACECRAFT HOME

US astronaut Mark Vande Hei has made it through nearly a year in space, but faces what could be his trickiest assignment yet: riding a Russian capsule back to Earth in the midst of tensions between the countries. Nasa insists Vande Hei’s homecoming plans at the end of the month remain unchanged, even as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has resulted in cancelled launches, broken contracts and an escalating war of words by the Russian Space Agency’s hardline leader.

Vande Hei — who on Tuesday breaks the US single spaceflight record of 340 days — is due to leave with two Russians aboard a Soyuz capsule for a touchdown in Kazakhstan on March 30.

THE REST

=========

UKRAINE CRISIS: OPPOSITION PUSHES GOVT TO ENSURE STUDENTS COMPLETE COURSES

Raising concerns over the future of the students who have returned from war-hit Ukraine, Members of Parliament (MPs) asked the govt on Monday to ensure facilities for the students to complete their course without imposing a financial burden on them. The govt assured the MPs it would “ponder over making the required arrangements.”

Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan, while replying to a question raised by Congress MP Gaurav Gogoi, said the govt will look into the measures that can be taken for the students who have been brought back from Ukraine under Operation Ganga, so that they can complete their education.

In the Zero Hour in the Lok Sabha, Congress MPs Abdul Khaleque and Kodikkunnil Suresh, and YSRCP’s M Sreenivasann Reddy asked the govt to engage with private universities in the country to help the students. “They have to be accommodated in Indian medical colleges at a reasonable fee,” Reddy said.

Pointing out that the students “survived a war” and that the “abrupt halt in studies and uncertain future compounded by looming debt traps for families who took loans”, Suresh said their education loans must be waived off.

Congress’s K C Venugopal agreed. He said: “What is going to be done to the students is a great concern in the country now. The education of those students has now come to a standstill. What is going to be done by it, the govt has to clarify because they have to provide relief in that matter,” he said.

BJD’s Amar Patnaik said the govt should increase the number of seats in all the private and Govt medical colleges by two to five per cent.”

A REPORT CLAIMS RELIANCE-FUNDED FIRM BOOSTED BJP CAMPAIGN ON FACEBOOK

The Congress on Monday cited a media report, which claimed that a Reliance-funded firm boosted BJP’s campaigns on Facebook, to allege that “murder of democracy” was taking place with the ruling party being promoted through “divisive proxy ads” during elections.

CPM general secretary Sitaram Yechury described it as a “brazen destruction of the foundations of our democracy”.

The attack by Opposition leaders came over an Al Jazeera report which claimed that loopholes allowed India’s largest conglomerate to pump in millions of rupees to place and promote surrogate advertisements to boost the reach and popularity of the BJP in the lead up to the 2019 parliamentary elections and nine state elections.

The firm in question is a subsidiary of Jio Platforms Ltd, owned by billionaire Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Group, according to the report.

SC SLAMS KERALA OVER PENSION FOR MINISTERS’ STAFF AFTER 2-YEAR SERVICE

Stating that it had taken note of a media report, the Supreme Court on Monday slammed the Kerala govt for providing “life-long” pension to the personal staff of state ministers after they had completed just two years of service.

Declining to entertain a plea by the Kerala State Road Transport Corporation (KSRTC) challenging the price charged for diesel by state-owned oil marketing companies from bulk buyers, Justice S Abdul Nazeer said: “It is the only state where the Minister appoints persons for two years and they get full pension throughout their life. Tell your govt….If you have the money for that, why are you here for this? Please convey this.”

Senior Advocate V Giri, appearing for KSRTC, responded that he will convey the apex court’s concerns. The two-judge bench, led by Justice Nazeer and including Justice Krishna Murari, gave the petitioner the liberty to approach the Kerala High Court on the issue of fuel price.

COVID VACCINE DRIVE TO COVER 12 TO 14-YR-OLDS FROM TOMORROW

India will expand its Covid vaccination drive to cover children in the age group of 12-14 years from Wednesday, besides offering a booster dose to all those above 60 years irrespective of their comorbid status.

The Health Ministry yesterday said, “The Union Govt after due deliberations with scientific bodies has decided to start Covid vaccination for 12-13 years and 13-14 year age groups (those born in 2008, 2009 and 2010, i.e., those who are already above 12 years of age) of population from March 16. Corbevax manufactured by Biological E, Hyderabad, will be administered.”

The govt yesterday decided to remove the condition of comorbidity for the precautionary dose for the population above 60 years of age. “From March 16, the entire population above 60 years will be eligible for the precautionary dose of Covid vaccine,” the ministry said, with Covid cases at their lowest in 680 days and schools reopening in the midst of pandemic retreat.

COVID-HIT TOURISM SHED 2.15 CR JOBS

The govt on Monday admitted in the Lok Sabha that a whopping 2.15 crore jobs were lost in the tourism sector on account of Covid-19.

Prior to the pandemic, 3.48 crore jobs depended on tourism but these numbers have plummeted, said Union Minister for Culture and Tourism G Kishan Reddy. “That is why the govt is working on the promotion of domestic tourism, diverting outbound tourists to domestic tourist trips. It is aiming to incentivise industries contributing most to the tourism economy, and is providing tax benefits, subsidies and income to industry players. Tourism division is with the states, not the Centre,” Reddy added, describing tourism as the worst-affected by Covid.

RETAIL INFLATION HITS 8-MONTH HIGH OF 6.07% IN FEBRUARY

Retail inflation hit an eight-month high of 6.07% in February, remaining above the RBI’s comfort level for the second month in a row, while wholesale price-based inflation soared to 13.11% on account of hardening of crude oil and non-food item prices, govt data showed on Monday.

The previous high for retail inflation was 6.26% in June 2021. The consumer price index (CPI)-based retail inflation, which is taken into account by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) while deciding its monetary policy, rose mainly because of costlier food items, as per the data released by the National Statistical Office.

INDIA WIN BENGALURU TEST, TAKE SERIES 2-0

India snuffed out a faint spark in Sri Lanka's second innings to wrap up the second Test inside three days for a comprehensive 238-run victory, in Bengaluru, on Monday. The two-Test series ended in 2-0 win for India.

Facing a herculean task, Sri Lanka took the field on Day 3 with a lot of determination though it was always going to be tough to negotiate the Indian attack on a track that offered turn and uneven bounce from Day 1.

Resuming at 28 for one in pursuit of an improbable 447-run target, the Sri Lankan batters, led by skipper Dimuth Karunaratne (107), resisted the Indian attack for some time before folding for 208 in the post-tea session.

Left-handed Karunaratne, one of the most consistent performers for Sri Lanka in recent times, scored his 14th Test century. Bumrah (3/23) eventually sent him back with a slightly seaming delivery that beat his bat and shattered the stumps.

The lethal Indian fast bowler, who consistently made life tough for the Lankans, returned match figures of 8 for 47, having taken five at home for the first time in the first innings.

Ravichandran Ashwin (4/55), Axar Patel (2/37) and Ravindra Jadeja (1/48) did their bit in wrapping up the Lankan innings.

India have now won all three pink-ball Tests at home, having beaten Bangladesh (in Kolkata, 2019) and England (in Ahmedabad, 2021) before.

Scores – India 252 & 303/9 (declared); SL 109 & 208

Player Of The Match - Shreyas Iyer

Player Of The Series - Rishabh Pant

INDICATORS

Sensex 56,486 (+936), Nifty 16,871 (+241), Trading Value NSE (Rs.crores) 60,579

Nasdaq 12,582 (-263) Dow 32,945 (+1), S&P 4,173 (-32)

US$-Rs. 76.41 GBP-Rs. 99.56, Euro-Rs. 83.62, UAE Dhm-Rs.20.80, Can$-Rs. 59.79, Aus$- Rs. 55.28

GBP 0.76 /US$, Euro 0.91 /US$, Jap.Yen 117.91 /US$, Aus$ 1.38 /US$, Sing 1.36 /US$, Bang Taka 84.55 /US$, Can$ 1.27 /US$, Mal Ring 4.20 /US$,

Pak Re 178.94 /US$, Phil Peso 52.41 /US$, Russian Rouble 121.05 /US$, NZ$ 1.47 /US$, Thai Baht 33.38 /US$, Ukraine Hryvnia 29.45 /US$

Bitcoin - USD 38,900

Dollar Index 98.94 Brent Crude 102.12 BDI 2,727

Gold world Spot Price USD/aoz 1,944 India (Rs. per gm 24k/22k) 5,247 / 4,810, Silver (Rs. Per KG) 74,700

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

Do you want to know who you are? Don't ask. Act! Action will delineate and define you. - Thomas Jefferson

OFF TRACK

A man got a call from unknown number..

Girl:" Hi, are you single.. ??

Man:" Yes, but who are you..??

Girl:" Your wife.. Aaj ghar aana tab bataoogi..

Another call from an unknown number..

Girl:" Are you married ??

Man:" Yes, but who are you.??

Girl:" Your girlfriend, you cheat!!

Man:" Sorry baby, I thought it was my wife..

Girl: "Wife hi hoon kutte, aaj tu bas ghar aaja..