Modi eyes first-time voters in TN

Asks Workers To Meet Youth In Constituencies

Shanmughasundaram.j@timesgroup.com

Chennai:14.01.2019

Stating that BJP is the natural choice of the first time voters, who will decide the future of the nation, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday urged the party functionaries to give top priority to these voters, who were not interested in “dynasty” parties.

Sending a clear message to booth level workers of the party “to make first time voters their priority”, Modi urged party workers to establish a deeper connection with youngsters in the age group between 18 and 22 years. This was during the teleconference interaction titled, ‘My Booth is Strong Booth’, between Modi and BJP workers from Mayiladuthurai, Perambalur, Sivaganga, Theni and Virudhunagar constituencies.

He asked party workers to organise a massive gathering of the first time voters to get them to register their names in the electoral rolls.

“They are not interested in dynasty, they are interested in development,” said Modi.

They are not interested in “promise” and “drama”, they are interested in “performance” and “delivery”, he added.

Listing out the establishment of educational institutions like IITs and increase in 30% medical seats in the last five years, he said, “From study to startups and skills to sports, we have created a big supporting system for the youngsters and opened the door for more opportunities. Reach them with all the information on development projects and ensure there will never be a doubt in their minds as to who is working for a better future,” he said. BJP is their natural choice, he said.

Party state unit leaders and functionaries to shoot videos of beneficiaries of Union government schemes and post it on social media to reach out to a larger section, he said.

Taking a dig at opposition parties, Modi accused them of having formed “an opportunistic alliance”. He said "dynastic parties” want to build their own empire, while BJP wants to empower people. “Unlike other parties, we are not in politics for divide and rule or building vote banks. We are here to serve the country in every possible way. On one hand, we have developed agenda…and the election is an opportunity to take the agenda of development to new heights.”

BJP, which started with two MPs, got the opportunity to serve many states and the nation. “Our success naturally angered so many people, who are doing nothing, but negative politics,” charged Modi. They are abusing BJP and himself. But they should not underestimate the people of India, he said.

“Our friends in the opposition are anyway a confused a lot. They have no opportunity to say that Mod is bad, government is not working and people dislike the BJP. Yet, the first thing they do is forming an opportunistic alliance,” he said

Ahmedabad-born woman appointed New York Supreme Court judge
Prashant.Rupera@timesgroup.com

Vadodara:14.01.2019

Justice Ushir Pandit-Durant spent her childhood growing up with in the bylanes of Ahmedabad. Last month, she took her oath of office as a Supreme Court judge in the state of New York, now the first South Asian — and Indianorigin — woman to to be elected to the position.

Justice Pandit-Durant immigrated to the US with her family in the 1970s, at a tender age of 11. Turning 57 next month, this Gujarati will now preside over criminal cases in Queens County. He induction ceremony was also a first of sorts, as she took her oath on the Bhagavad Gita.

As an Indian teenager in the US, her first challenge was to learn English; she was not taught the subject in her Ahmedabad public school. But she was quick to pick up the American culture and establish herself in the community and school.

After attending St John’s University for four years, where she received her bachelor’s degree, she spent three years at New York Law School. “Later, when other law graduates wanted to join big law firms, I joined the Queens district attorney’s office as an assistant district attorney. I wanted to dedicate my professional life to public service,” she told TOI.

“As a prosecutor, I tried numerous felony cases. In one notable case, during a gang shooting, an innocent child was shot by one of the gunmen. The child survived, and the gunmen were arrested,” she said. Justice Pandit-Durant, the then-lead prosecutor on the case, brought the case to trial and the gunmen were convicted of attempted murder.

She then advanced to the appeals division of the district attorney’s office. The division argues cases in the higher courts, confronting legal challenges in attempts to overturn lower court decisions. As an appellate advocate over a period of 15 years, she successfully represented the district attorney on more than 30 appellate arguments in the higher state and federal appellate courts.

Later, she left the district attorney’s office in 2015 when she was elected as a civil court judge. She presided over criminal court cases pending in Manhattan and then Queens.

While her term in the civil court was 10 years, after getting elected to the New York State Supreme Court, her term is 14 years now.

Turned away by daughter, 91-yr-old woman dies in cab

Kolkata:  14.01.2019

An ailing nonagenarian died in a cab after she was refused entry to her daughter’s house at Mudiali. Though the driver took her to a hospital, she was declared “brought dead”.

The deceased, Shobharani Mazumdar, 91, used to stay with her son and daughter in turns. After living with her son for a few weeks, she decided to go to her daughter’s house in Mudiali on Saturday morning. The son hailed her an app cab and asked her grandson to accompany her to Mudiali.

However, Mazumdar’s daughter refused to let her in as she was getting ready to go out to a social gathering.

As the woman called her brother to sort out the issue, Mazumdar started feeling uneasy. Despite the situation worsening, Mazumdar’s daughter asked the app-cab driver to take the elderly woman back to her brother’s place. In the confusion, the grandson left the spot.

Sources said the elderly woman seemed unwell as the driver started for Kudghat. Seeing her condition, he called up her son and informed him.

As Mazumdar’s conditioned worsened, he turned the car towards M R Bangur Hospital to admit her there. The woman was declared “brought dead” by the hospital. TNN

SOARING ANGER

2 pilots fight before flight, grounded, sent for refresher class

Saurabh.Sinha@timesgroup.com

New Delhi:

A catfight between two pilots at an airport going to operate a flight together got so intense that the airline had to ground both and give them a refresher on “crew resource management” (CRM) before letting them fly again.

This episode happened recently between two commanders of a leading Indian carrier’s Airbus A320 fleet who were heading to an aircraft to operate a flight. While senior officials of this airline confirmed the catfight, they did not give details of the same, despite repeated attempts.

“This happened some days back. They were put off roster (not given flying duties) and given corrective CRM and simulator CRM line oriented flight training (LOFT) corrective training,” said an official. Sources say the fight had happened at an Indian airport when the two commanders were going to operate a domestic flight. Aviation website SKYbrary describes CRM as “the effective use of all available resources for flight crew personnel to assure a safe and efficient operation, reducing error, avoiding stress and increasing efficiency.”

LOFT “is carried out in a flight simulator as part of initial or recurrent flight crew training… special emphasis on abnormal situations which involve communications, management and leadership,” the website says.

According to DGCA circulars, the “overall objective of LOFT is to improve total flight crew performance, thereby preventing incidents and accidents during operational flying.” In the past several airlines have seen heated exchange between crew members.

Kumbh Mela gears up for a sea of devotees

09oAvijit.Ghosh@timesgroup.com

14.01.2019

Early morning, just after sunrise, the water looks like liquid gold at Sangam. It’s cold, the water colder. At the confluence of the Ganga, Yamuna and the vanished Saraswati, though, unperturbed men and women bathe under the watchful eyes of the jal (water) police and a Modi cut-out.

From January 15 to March 4, an estimated 130-140 million pilgrims and tourists are expected to do the same during the Kumbh Mela. For the devout, a holy dip will rid them of their sins.

The term Kumbh is contested. Some insist that the 2019 event is Ardh Kumbh, in accordance with the traditional alternating cycle of Kumbh and Ardh Kumbh every six years. But last year Yogi Adityanath’s Uttar Pradesh government rechristened Ardh Kumbh as Kumbh. Kumbh henceforth will be officially be known as Mahakumbh. Interestingly, Modi had described the event as “Ardh Kumbh” in a December 16 speech in the city.

Renaming is the flavour of the season; till last month, Allahabad was the town’s official name. The renaming, especially of the festival, is argued even at the Sangam ghat. But there’s unanimity that the scale of arrangement is unprecedented. In 2013, the mela was spread over 1,700 hectares; this time it is 3,200.

The budget for Kumbh 2019 is ₹4,300 crore; as per reports, it was about a third in 2013. “Jo na 2001 mein hua, na 2013 mein hua, aisi vyavastha dekhne ko mil rahi hai (The arrangement is more than 2001 or 2013),” says boatman Ramesh Nishad.

For the government, sanitation seems to be a key area. “In all, 1,22,500 toilets, including 20,000 septic tank toilets, are being laid out,” says AP Paliwal, additional director for health and sanitation (mela). He talks about an elaborate mechanized system of compactors and tippers for solid waste management. “We don’t want a single drop of sewage to pollute the river.”

Using drones for surveillance, carrying out mock anti-terror drills and setting up an integrated command and control centre with 1,100 cameras for real-time feed — the BJP government is keen to project Kumbh as a safe and efficiently-managed, high-tech event. Digital screens across the city show films on Kumbh day and night.

(With inputs from Kapil Dixit) Full report on www.toi.in

HOLY SMOKE: The festival will start on January 15 and end on March 4. Over 130 million pilgrims are expected to participate in the mela

Ex-manager of coop society arrested for ₹2,000 crore fraud

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

New Delhi  14.01.2019

: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) arrested Machindra Khade, a former manager of a Maharashtra-based cooperative society, on Sunday for alleged cash deposits of ₹2,000 crore and further laundering this money to banks in Hong Kong by layering transactions using multiple shell companies in India and abroad.

The accused was earlier manager of the Renukamata Multi-state Cooperative Urban Credit Society from where he had laundered large amounts of cash using fake import documents in the guise of diamond import.

“Investigation conducted by ED revealed that the accused persons fraudulently arranged illegal foreign outward remittances by submitting forged bills of entry in IndusInd Bank branch of Opera House, Mumbai, and remitted ₹2,000 crore to various accounts in Hong Kong in violation of various guidelines of Reserve Bank of India during 2013-14,” the agency said.

Besides Khade, the agency arrested Sanjay Jain, former director of Raghukul Diamonds, and Saurabh Pandit, director of Sky Light and Link Fai, companies based in Hong Kong. It also attached property worth ₹20 crore of the accused.

The ED had registered a case under Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) based on the FIR filed by DB Marg police station, Mumbai, against Yogeshwar Diamonds Pvt Ltd, Shree Charbhuja Diamonds Pvt Ltd and Kanika Gems Pvt Ltd for illegal remittance of foreign exchange.

The probe showed that the accused had collected cash at Renukamata Multistate Cooperative Urban Credit Society and obtained the signatures of account holders on blank RTGS slips.

Khade was arrested and produced before special PMLA court, Mumbai, on Sunday and was remanded to ED custody for four days.

4 more held for pledging fake jewels, cheating bank of ₹1cr

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

Villupuram:14.01.2019

A day after police detained a gold jewel appraiser of the Thiruvampattu branch of the Punjab National Bank, four others, including the appraiser’s wife, have been arrested by the police for allegedly cheating the bank of ₹1crore by mortgaging fake jewellery.

R Jeganathan, 39, his wife J Sathya, 31, both hailing from K V R nagar in Villupuram, S Suresh Babu, 46 of Alamelupuram, V Venugopal, 35 of Thiruvampattu, and A Muneeswaramoorthy 31of Keezhmampattu village have been detained in connection with the fraud so far.

Investigating officer Jeevaraja Manikandan told TOI, “Jeganathan worked as a contract staff at the Thiruvampattu branch of PNB near Gingee for the past seven years. On Thursday evening, one of the bank cashiers grew suspicious after Jegnathan quoted higher value for gold jewels mortgaged by a customer Saravanan.” The cashier then informed the branch manager V Nadharao. On questioning, Jeganathn gave contradictory statements and upon cross checking the jewels, he found they were fake.

Shocked, Nadharao scrutinized the ledger books and personally verified the bank lockers and found that the accused with the help of his associates had cheated the bank to a tune of ₹1.35 crore.

Speaking to TOI, Villupuram SP S Jayakumar said, “Based on the manager’s complaint, five accused were arrested on Saturday night and a case was registered under various sections of IPC. “We have launched a search to nab three more absconding accused,” he said.