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Chattisgarh
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will visit Chhattisgarh on Saturday to take part in the celebrations of the 25th anniversary of the state's formation, and inaugurate or lay the foundation stones for development projects worth Rs 14,260 crore, officials said. Chhattisgarh, earlier part of Madhya Pradesh, was carved out as a state on November 1, 2000. The PM will arrive here at 9.40 am and head for Shri Sathya Sai Sanjeevani Hospital, Nava Raipur Atal Nagar, where he will interact with 2,500 children who have been successfully treated for congenital heart diseases in the 'Gift of life' ceremony, an official statement said. Later, at around 10.45 AM, he will inaugurate 'Shanti Shikhar' of Brahma Kumaris, a "modern centre for spiritual learning, peace, and meditation", it said. Thereafter he will unveil a statue of former prime minister late Atal Bihari Vajpayee on the premises of the newly built Chhattisgarh assembly in Nava Raipur. Modi will also inaugurate the new assembly building .
As many as 103 Naxalites, 49 of them carrying a collective bounty of more than Rs 1 crore, surrendered before authorities in Bijapur district of Chhattisgarh on Thursday, a police official said. The cadres, including 22 women, turned themselves in before senior police and Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) officials, citing disappointment with "hollow" Maoist ideology and differences within the banned outfit CPI (Maoist), Bijapur Superintendent of Police Jitendra Kumar Yadav said. This was perhaps one of the largest-ever surrenders by Left-wing extremists in a single day in Chhattisgarh. They were also impressed with development works being carried out in the Bastar region and decided to eschew the path of armed rebellion, he said. The cadres said they were particularly impressed by "Poona Margem (Rehabilitation for Social Reintegration) - a rehabilitation initiative launched by Bastar Range police for Naxalites, 'Niyad Nellanar' (your good village) scheme of the Chhattisgarh ...
An association of Catholic Christians in Meghalaya's Shillong has written to Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Vishnu Deo Sai, expressing concerns over the arrest of two nuns for allegedly being involved in human trafficking and religious conversion, and claiming that the charges against them were "baseless" and "falsely framed". Nuns Preethi Merry and Vandana Francis, along with Sukaman Mandavi, were arrested by the Government Railway Police (GRP) at the Durg railway station in Chhattisgarh on July 25, following a complaint by a local Bajrang Dal functionary, who accused them of forcibly converting three women from the state's tribal-majority Narayanpur district and trafficking them. The Catholic Association of Shillong (CAS), Meghalaya, headed by former Congress MP Vincent H Pala, claimed that the arrested persons were "only accompanying three young women, all above 18 years of age, with the full consent of their parents, for job opportunities". "Their work is in service to humanity, ..
Congress members from Kerala in the Lok Sabha on Wednesday demanded government intervention for release of two Catholic nuns jailed for alleged human trafficking and forced religious conversion in Chhattisgarh. Nuns Preethi Merry and Vandana Francis along with Sukaman Mandavi were arrested at the Durg railway station in the BJP-ruled Chhattisgarh on July 25 following a complaint by a local Bajrang Dal functionary, who accused them of forcibly converting three girls from Narayanpur and trafficking them. Raising the matter during Zero Hour, Congress members K C Venugopal and K Suresh said the incident is "deeply disturbing and shocking" as the nuns are innocent and were doing social work by providing palliative care for cancer patients. Venugopal said the nuns were manhandled and "falsely accused" of religious conversion and human trafficking by Bajrang Dal members. The two nuns were stopped at the Durg railway station while they were travelling to Agra. "These two nuns are in jail .