RAHUL GANDHI TAKES ON MODI, SHAH, DOVAL: ‘THEY INSTIGATE VIOLENCE… WON’T UNDERSTAND THE PAIN’

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi marked the end of his 136-day Bharat Jodo Yatra Monday with a rally at Srinagar’s Sher-e-Kashmir stadium.

In his remarks, Rahul spoke about the phone calls he had received after the assassinations of his grandmother Indira Gandhi and father Rajiv Gandhi. “I understand what violence is. I have faced and seen it. One who has not faced violence will not understand it. (Prime Minister Narendra) Modi ji, (Union Minister Amit) Shah ji and the people of RSS have not seen violence.”

He said, “The people of Kashmir will understand it. The CRPF men, the Army men and their families will understand it. I mean to say those who instigate violence, like (Prime Minister Narendra) Modi ji, (Union Home Minister) Amit Shah ji, Ajit Doval and people of RSS, they cannot understand this. They will not understand the pain. What would have gone through the hearts of the children of Pulwama soldiers, I know. It has happened with me.”

Taking out a cellphone from his pocket, Rahul said, “Those who have seen the violence, we see this (phone) from a different perspective. For all of you, it is a telephone. For us, it is not just a telephone… When I took the phone call, a woman, who was with my mother, was screaming ‘Dadi ko goli mar di gayi (grandmother has been shot dead)’.”

He said, “What happens when a Kashmiri receives a phone call, I understand. My sister understands. The goal of the Yatra was to stop such phone calls — whether they come to the families of Army men, to the families of the CRPF men or the people of Kashmir. No mother, no child or son should have to take such a phone call again.”

Dressed in a Kashmiri pheran, Rahul also described the Valley as his “home” and dared the BJP leadership to organise a similar walk from Jammu city to Kashmir. “When I was coming to Kashmir, my security people said ‘you can walk anywhere in India; you can walk in Jammu, but these last four days in Kashmir you should travel in a vehicle’. The administration said, perhaps to scare me, ‘if you walk, a grenade could be thrown on you’,” he said.

“I said I am going home. I will walk among the people of my home. Why not give a chance to those who hate me to change the colour of my white T-shirt. Let them colour it red because my family has taught me, Gandhi ji has taught me, that if you have to live, you have to live without fear.”

Saying that the people of J&K “did not give him hand grenades but love”, Rahul said, “You welcomed me with tears. We walked on foot for four days. I guarantee you that no BJP leader can walk like that. It is not that the people of J&K will not let them walk. It is (their) fear.”

Saying that Lord Shiva’s “shunyata (nothingness)” and Islam’s “fana (ceasing to exist)” embody Kashmiriyat, Rahul said: “In this earth, there are these two ideologies that have a strong relation for many years to what we call Kashmiriyat… to unite people, not to attack others but to look into oneself… Since my childhood, I have lived in government houses. I don’t call the structures a home. A home for me is an idea, a way of life. And what you call here as Kashmiriyat, I treat that as my home.”

ONLY EIGHT OF 23 INVITED PARTIES TURN UP TO MARK END OF RAHUL’S YATRA

In the end, there was no clinching of hands showcasing Opposition unity, nor a dramatic show of support. If the Congress had expected a long line of Opposition leaders to turn up at Srinagar to mark the culmination of Rahul Gandhi’s cross-country Bharat Jodo Yatra, it was in for disappointment Monday.

Only a handful of leaders attended the Srinagar event, despite Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge having written to heads of 23 political parties, inviting them to join the concluding event.

What has perhaps surprised the Congress most is the absence of both the JD(U) and RJD, its partners in Bihar. The leaders of neither party joined the Yatra, and were missing in Srinagar too.

But the Congress can take heart from the fact that all its other allies, like the NCP, Shiv Sena, JMM and DMK, joined the Yatra at certain points.

Eventually, leaders of eight parties attended the Srinagar event, which was also hit to an extent by bad weather, with heavy snowfall starting Monday morning. Among them were the DMK’s Tiruchi Siva, CPI general secretary D Raja, the National Conference’s Omar Abdullah, the PDP’s Mehbooba Mufti, the RSP’s N K Premachandran, and the IUML’s K Navas Kani. Also present were representatives of the JMM and the VCK.

“We all fought together for the independence of the country and liberated it from the British Raj. All secular parties must come together to liberate the country from the BJP Raj,” said the CPI’s Raja at the event. While Omar asked Rahul to undertake another yatra from the west to east of the country, and promised to walk with him, Mufti said the country sees a ray of hope in him.

BUDGET SESSION STARTS TODAY, AMONG OTHER ISSUES, OPPN SEEKS DISCUSSION ON ADANI

An all-party meeting convened by the government ahead of the Budget Session of Parliament, beginning Tuesday, saw demands by the Opposition for a discussion on the row over a report by a New York-based investor research firm accusing Gautam Adani’s companies of “brazen stock manipulation and accounting fraud scheme”, as well as on the curbs over the recent BBC documentary on Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The government, led by Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, assured the parties that it was willing to discuss every issue as per the rules, and sought the cooperation of the Opposition in running the proceedings smoothly.

The parties also sought a discussion on passage of the women’s reservation Bill, “threat to cooperative federalism”, unemployment situation and price rise.

The Congress did not attend the meeting as its leaders were in Srinagar for the concluding event of the Bharat Jodo Yatra.

The Trinamool Congress, the second-largest Opposition party in Parliament after the Congress, did not join others in demanding a discussion on the Adani row.

The Budget Session begins today with President Droupadi Murmu’s address to the joint sitting of the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will present the Union Budget tomorrow. The session will have 27 sittings and will continue till April 6 with a month-long recess to examine the Budget papers.

The first part of the Budget Session will conclude on February 13. Parliament will reconvene on March 13 for the second part of the Budget Session.

INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS

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61 KILLED AS TALIBAN SUICIDE BOMBER TARGETS PAKISTAN MOSQUE

A Taliban suicide bomber blew himself up in a mosque packed with worshippers during afternoon prayers on Monday in the high-security zone in Pakistan’s restive Peshawar city, killing 61 persons and wounding nearly 150 others, mostly policemen, officials said.

The blast occurred inside the mosque in the Police Lines area around 1.40 pm when worshippers, which included personnel of the police, Army and bomb disposal squad, were offering Zuhr (afternoon) prayers. The bomber who was present in the front row blew himself up, officials said. There were mostly policemen and security officials among the dead and injured.

Sarbakaf Mohmand, a brother of slain commander of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) Omar Khalid Khorasani, claimed that the suicide blast was part of the revenge attack for his brother who was killed last August in Afghanistan.

The outlawed TTP, known as the Pakistani Taliban, has carried out a number of suicide attacks in the past, targeting security personnel.

A police official said a portion of the mosque collapsed and several persons were believed to be under it. The headquarters of the Peshawar Police, Counter-Terrorism Department (CTD), Frontier Reserve Police (FRP), Elite Force and telecommunications department are also located near the blast site. The bomber entered the highly secured mosque inside police lines where four layers of security were in place.

‘AFTER INDIA & CHINA, US TRYING TO HIT ENERGY TIES WITH PAK’

Russia on Monday accused the US of “publicly, shamelessly and arrogantly” threatening countries like India, China and Turkey to prevent them from doing business with it and said Washington will now hinder Moscow’s cooperation with Islamabad in the energy sphere.

The comments by Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov came at a press conference with visiting Pakistani counterpart Bilawal Bhutto Zardari there. “There have been threats against China recently, as well as against India, Turkey, and Egypt. There is not a single country that the US would not send such neo-colonial messages to,” Lavrov was quoted as saying by Tass news agency.

The US has repeatedly warned countries against doing business with entities subject to US curbs as Washington cracks down on Russian attempts to evade sanctions imposed over its war in Ukraine.

Bilawal’s first visit to Moscow comes after a Russian delegation led by energy minister Nikolay Shulginov visited Pakistan recently to explore possibilities of providing oil to Pakistan. The overwhelming majority of countries, including Pakistan, are governed primarily by their national interests, the Russian top diplomat said.

THE REST

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I WILL RATHER DIE THAN JOIN HANDS WITH BJP AGAIN: NITISH KUMAR

Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Monday asserted that he will "rather die" than realign with the BJP, stung by the saffron party's decision that there will be no alliance with the "unpopular" JD(U) leader.

Kumar made the remark while replying to questions here, from journalists, about the BJP's decision taken at its two-day state executive meeting that concluded in Darbhanga on the previous day.

I will rather die than join hands with them, do remember this," the septuagenarian said on the sidelines of a function organised on the occasion of Mahatma Gandhi's death anniversary.

Kumar, the state's longest-serving CM, reminded the BJP of the stupendous success it shared under his leadership at the hustings, including the 2010 assembly polls when the saffron party had won 91 seats, its best-ever performance.

RAHUL GANDHI’S 4,084 KM PUT HIM AHEAD OF ANDHRA-TELANGANA’S LONG MARCHERS

With 4,084 km covered over 135 days, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi has surpassed the distance covered by Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy during his padyatra over more than one-and-a-half years, from 2017 to 2019.

The YSRCP leader had walked 3,648 km, and swept to power by an unprecedented majority in the state in the elections that followed. It was till now considered the longest distance covered on foot by a politician in the country.

Before Jagan’s yatra, his late father Dr Y S Rajashekara Reddy (YSR) held the record for a long march in Andhra – having walked 1,500 km in 60 days, starting April 2003, which in turn saw him into the CM’s chair in the 2004 elections.

Even TDP chief and now Leader of the Opposition N Chandrababu Naidu had embarked on a padyatra in 2012, covering nearly 2,000 km in then undivided Andhra Pradesh.

Just days ago, on January 27, his son and TDP general secretary Nara Lokesh Naidu set off on a 4,000-km padyatra, from Kuppam in Chittoor district. Lokesh’s ‘Yuva Galam (voice of youth)’ march aims to cover 125 Assembly constituencies in 400 days, ending at Ichchapuram in Srikakulam on the Odisha border – just like Jagan did four years ago.

Even the BJP has emulated the parties in the region as it seeks to make its mark in Telangana. State BJP chief Bandi Sanjay Kumar started his Praja Sangrama Yatra in August 2021, and has so far completed four phases covering over 44 Assembly constituencies and clocking over 1,200 km.

ADANI GROUP COMPANIES SLIDE FURTHER; LIC DOWNPLAYS IMPACT

With just a day for its Rs 20,000 crore follow-on public offer (FPO) to close, Adani Enterprises Ltd, the flagship of the Adani Group, partially recovered Monday to end 4.2 per cent higher at Rs 2,878 a share, but continues to be at a 7-12 per cent discount to the FPO price band of Rs 3,112-3,276 a share.

The Adani Enterprises stock had plunged 18 per cent on Friday, and 1.18 per cent on Wednesday.

The slide in the fortune of Adani Group and its founder Gautam Adani continued Monday as shares of four of the nine listed group companies hit the lower circuit and two others fell.

As a whole, Adani group witnessed an additional decline in its market capitalisation of Rs 1.36 lakh crore taking the aggregate decline in market cap over the last three trading sessions to Rs 5.56 lakh crore.

In line with the decline in fortunes of the group companies at the stock exchange, Gautam Adani too witnessed further decline in his personal wealth as he slipped to 8th spot in the Forbes billionaire list on Monday. His net worth declined by USD 8.1 billion on Monday to USD 88.6 billion.

In a statement, LIC, the state-owned insurer, said it has invested Rs 36,474.78 crore in Adani Group as on date, and its exposure was 0.975 per cent of the total assets under management (AUM) at book value.

The total purchase value of equity, purchased over the last many years, under all the Adani Group companies is Rs 30,127 crore and the market value for the same as on January 27, 2023 was Rs 56,142 crore, it said in a statement. LIC did not disclose the current market value of its equity investment (post meltdown since last Wednesday).

“These investments have, however, been made over a period. The credit rating of all of the Adani debt securities held by LIC are AA and above which is in compliance with the IRDAI investment regulations as applicable to all life insurance companies,” said LIC.

Responding to the Adani Group’s 413-page response to its report on Sunday, Hindenburg Research said, “India’s future is being held back by the Adani Group, which has draped itself in the Indian flag while systematically looting the nation.” The Adani Group had said Sunday that the Hindenburg report is an “attack on India”.

DEATH SENTENCE FOR MAN WHO ATTACKED TWO COPS AT GORAKHNATH TEMPLE

A special court in Lucknow Monday awarded the death sentence to 30-year-old Ahmed Murtaza Abbasi, an IIT-Bombay graduate, for attacking and injuring two police constables with a sharp-edged weapon while trying to forcibly enter the premises of the Gorakhnath temple in UP’s Gorakhpur in April last year.

In a statement, UP Police said that Abbasi was “highly radicalised” and in “direct touch” with ISIS fighters and sympathisers. It said that he was funding “terror fighters” and sympathisers in Syria, and was planning to go to that country.

“He was ISIS’s lone wolf and an expert in terror financing. He was involved in spreading terror literature in electronic format and was in touch with ISIS people,” UP DGP Dr DS Chauhan said.

Abbasi’s father Muneer Ahmed, who worked for a legal consultancy in Mumbai before returning to Gorakhpur two years ago, had said that his son was undergoing treatment for depression and “not well since around 2017”.

‘FROM MARCH, BROADCAST 15 HOURS OF MONTHLY NATIONAL INTEREST CONTENT’

Beginning March, all private television channels will be required to air national interest content for 15 hours every month. A detailed advisory to this effect was issued by the Ministry of Information & Broadcasting Monday.

With the advisory, the ministry has clarified that the national interest content can be embedded in the programmes being telecast, and that the content need not be of 30 minutes at a stretch. The public service broadcast can be split over smaller time slots, but can’t be done from midnight to 6 am, the ministry said.

The broadcasters are also required to keep the record of the content telecast for a period of 90 days. The Electronic Media Monitoring Centre, under I&B Ministry, shall keep the record of the content telecast for a period of 90 days, the advisory said. The government requires the broadcasters to submit a monthly report online on the Broadcast Seva Portal.

INFLATION IN INDIA LIKELY TO FALL TO 5% IN 2023, 4% IN 2024: IMF

Inflation in India is expected to come down from 6.8% in the current fiscal year ending March 31 to 5% the next fiscal, and then drop further to 4% in 2024, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said on Tuesday.

"Inflation in India as in other countries is expected to come down from 6.8% in 2022 to 5% in 2023 and then 4% coming towards the target in 2024," Daniel Leigh, Division Chief, Research Department of the IMF told reporters. "That partly reflects the central bank's actions," he added, According to the World Economic Outlook update released by the IMF on Tuesday, about 84% of countries are expected to have lower headline (consumer price index) inflation in 2023 than in 2022.

Global inflation is set to fall from 8.8% in 2022 (annual average) to 6.6% in 2023 and 4.3% in 2024 -- above pre-pandemic (2017–19) levels of about 3.5 percent, it said.

COACH REID STEPS DOWN FOLLOWING INDIA’S DISMAL WORLD CUP CAMPAIGN

Graham Reid came to India fearing he’d ‘lose the job in three months’. Instead, he stayed on as the chief coach for longer than any of his predecessors. And during this four-year period, the Australian learnt – and passionately sang – the national anthem, instilled a sense of calmness in the perennially chaotic world of Indian hockey and guided the team to unprecedented heights, including a return to the Olympic podium after four decades.

On Monday, a week after India’s embarrassing exit from the World Cup, Hockey India claimed Reid had resigned as the coach. The federation did not clarify if any effort was made to convince the coach, who was responsible for India’s bronze medal at the Tokyo Olympics, to stay back.

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THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen. - Albert Einstein

OFF TRACK

Today I asked myself how to handle life? My room gave me the perfect answer:

Roof said: Aim high;

Fan said: Be cool;

Clock said: Value time;

Calendar said: Be up to date;

Mirror said: Observe yourself;

Wall said: Share others' load;

Window said: Expand the vison;

Floor said: Always be down to earth.

Then I looked at my bed, and it said: Razai taan ke so ja...sab moh maya hai!!!!!!!!!!!