Page 190 - Social Issues
Unfortunate that some states have opted out of 'Modicare' due to politics: Sitharaman
Observing that the Centre's ambitious Ayushman Bharat healthcare scheme achieved a paradigm shift within three months of its launch, Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said it was "unfortunate" that some states chose to opt out for reasons of political expediency.In a recent Facebook post, the Defence Minister said it was unfortunate that even after seven decades of independence, the desire for seamless and affordable health schemes remained elusive for a large section of the population and expressed hope that "Modicare" would help people across the country."Once fully implemented, PM-JAY will thus become the world's largest fully government-financed health protection scheme. In this context, it is very unfortunate that some states have chosen to opt out of the scheme for reasons of political expediency," the Defence Minister, who has been visiting hospitals to see the functioning of the scheme, said.The Union government had launched on September, 2018 the Ayushman Bharat Pradhan ...
Manipur celebrates R-Day despite strike
The 70th Republic Day was celebrated in Manipur on Saturday despite a shutdown called by insurgent groups.
Freedom fighter's daughter cries on stage, asks for govt help
The daughter of a freedom fighter on Saturday broke down and asked for the government's help during an event celebrating Republic Day, in which she was the chief guest.The woman, Rajeshwari Mishra, who has been for the last 40 years, apart of the annual flag hoisting event at the Shahjahapur district collectorate couldn't control her emotions and wept during her address after the flag hosting ceremony.Mishra, the daughter of Mahesh Nath Mishra said she had not been receiving any benefits from the government and asked for assistance from the government."Jin'ne apni shaheedi, apni kurbani di unki beti aaj thokrein kha rahi hai (The daughter of the person who gave up his life for the country is facing troubles," she told reporters after the event.District Magistrate Amrit Tripathi told ANI that he got to know that the woman has not been getting any help from the government for many years. He assured that every possible help would be given to the woman.The Union government had launched a .
Pope defends migrants, marginalised
Pope Francis railed Friday against the marginalisation of convicts and others who society has deemed "sinners," and staunchly defended migrants as he joined hundreds of thousands of young Catholics in Panama. In a swipe at US President Donald Trump's plans to build a border wall against Central American migrants, the pope told hundreds of thousands of young pilgrims that it was "senseless" to condemn every immigrant "as a threat to society." The Argentine pontiff was speaking at the end of a solemn ceremony commemorating Christ's Crucifixion, which drew the largest crowd of pilgrims of his five-day visit. The organisers said the Way of the Cross ceremony drew 400,000 pilgrims to hear the pope at a park in Panama City. The World Youth Day committee say 110,000 people had officially registered for the six-day event, which ends on Sunday. The Vatican faced questions Friday over why the pope, who addressed hundreds of Central American bishops the day before, had not taken the opportunity .
Senate to examine court request to put Salvini on trial
Rome, Jan 26 (IANS/AKI) A committee of the Italy's upper house of parliament will consider a request by a special court in Sicily to begin legal action against far-right Interior Minister Matteo Salvini in a migrant standoff case
Death toll in Mexican pipeline fire rises to 109
The death toll in a massive fire at an illegally tapped pipeline in Mexico has risen to 109 after 10 more injured people died at hospitals. Mexico's Health Secretary Jorge Alcocer said Friday that the latest victims who were severely burned died between Wednesday and early Friday. He said hospitals continue to treat about 40 injured victims. The victims were gathering gasoline from an illegal pipeline tap in the central state of Hidalgo a week ago when the gas ignited, littering an alfalfa field with charred bodies. About half of those who initially survived have since died of their injuries. A total of 14,894 illegal taps were found throughout Mexico in 2018. Experts have long said that workers and union officials of the state-owned oil company, Pemex, have been involved in the massive fuel thefts. The union, run autocratically by old-style union boss Carlos Romero Deschamps, has been marked by corruption scandals for decades. On Friday, a dissident union movement, calling itself ...
SC notice to Centre on allowing illegal migrants from Bangladesh to stay in Tripura
The Supreme Court on Friday sought response from the Centre and Tripura on a plea challenging 2015 amendment to the Passport Rules and the Foreigner Order that allowed people of minority community who have illegally entered India to stay back in India to escape persecution in Bangladesh.
Horrible to see youth opposing concept of marriage, couples not conceiving children, says N Chandrababu Naidu
It is horrible to see the youths of the country opposing the concept of marriage and even if they are married, they are not interested in conceiving a child, said Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu on Friday. Speaking at an event here, Chief Minister Naidu said: "Nowadays, youth are reluctant to get married. Even after getting married, the couple is least interested in conceiving a child. It is horrible.""Sadly, birth rates are decreasing while deaths rates are increasing in our state," he said.Stating that India's family system is very unique and respectable, Chief Minister Naidu said that Indian couples have to take up the responsibility of "bearing at least one child." "Countries like China and Japan are witnessing a downfall of the young population. At present, India is not facing such a problem but it may occur in the future," Naidu said while comparing India's population growth with China.The Chief Minister also spoke about the age restriction that he has set for
Muzaffarpur shelter home: Police file charge sheet against 3 in missing case of 11 women
The police on Friday filed a charge sheet in connection with the missing of 11 women from Brajesh Thakur owned Swadhar Greh here.The charge sheet has named three people including Madhu, a close associate of Muzaffarpur Shelter Home rape case key accused, Brajesh Thakur.The cases have been registered under relevant sections of the law. A total of 11 girls and four boys were reported to be missing from the shelter home owned by Thakur.More than 40 minor girls were allegedly sexually assaulted over a period of time in the shelter home which was run by Thakur's state-funded NGO.Subsequently, the NGO was blacklisted and the girls were shifted to other shelter homes in Patna and Madhubani.Meanwhile, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on January 16 registered an FIR against the director of Samaj Samiti Boys' Children Home in Bhagalpur and DORD Children Home in Gaya, for allegedly physically and mentally assaulting the inmates.
Cong demands action against Sarma for making 'inflammatory' statements
The opposition Congress in Assam wrote to the director general of police (DGP) on Friday, urging him to take action against senior minister Himanta Biswa Sarma for allegedly trying to polarise the state on religious lines by making inflammatory statements. The Asom Gana Parishad (AGP), which recently snapped ties with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Assam over the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, also accused the saffron party-led state government of promoting religious separatism. In his letter to the DGP, Leader of Opposition in the state Assembly Debabrata Saikia demanded that Finance Minister Sarma be booked under sections 153(A) and 295(A) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) for allegedly making "communal statements, promoting enmity between different groups of people and outraging religious feelings". Section 153(A) of the IPC pertains to promoting enmity between different groups on the grounds of religion, race, place of birth, residence, language etc. and doing acts prejudicial to
Andhra Pradesh CM asks people to have more children
Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu on Friday asked people to have more children or to at least take the responsibility to give birth to at least one child.
CPI(M) warns of protest on Feb 4 against Citizenship Bill
The CPI(M) on Friday announced it will hold a nationwide protest on February 4 against the controversial Citizenship Bill, alleging that the legislation "infringes" the basic premise of the Constitution and "threatens" the idea of unity in diversity. It also said the 10-per cent quota announced recently for the poor from the general category in education and government jobs is a "mockery" of the very concept of economically weaker sections. The reservation is meant for individuals whose annual earning is below Rs eight lakh and who possess less than five acres of agriculture land. The Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, passed in Lok Sabha on January 8, seeks to provide Indian citizenship to non-Muslims from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan. A large section of people in the northeast has opposed the Bill, saying it would nullify the provisions of the Assam Accord of 1985. The CPI(M) said the bill will "destabilise" the northeast region of the country. "The politburo of the CPI(M) urges .
'Pay Rs 10L in 15 days to bereaved families of 7 manual
The National Commission for Safai Karamcharis has directed the Puducherry government to ensure that Rs 10 lakh mandatrory compensation is paid in 15 days to each to the next of kin of seven manual scavengers who died in the line of their work here between 2007 and 2016. Commission Chairman Manhar Valjbhai Zala and its member Jagadish Hiremani who were here Friday to review implementation of schemes for the workers here, told reporters later that nine cases of deaths of manual scavengers were reported here during this period. Zala said the government had extended the solatium only to next of kin of the two families and the other seven families were yet to get the mandatory compensation. The government has been directed to provide the solatium to these families also within the next 15 days. He said 709 deaths were reported in the country, with tamil nadu accounting for the most at 165, followed by Gujarat with 132, and Karnataka with 69. The Commission had asked the ...
UN expert urges caution on Bangladesh's Rohingya island 'relocation' plan
Bangladesh must not "rush to relocate refugees" from the Rohingya Muslim minority, a top UN rights official said Friday, amid plans to move the community to an island vulnerable to extreme monsoon weather. Some 750,000 Rohingya Muslims from Myanmar escaped a bloody military crackdown in northern Rakhine state since August 2017 and joined some 300,000 refugees living in the already overcrowded Bangladesh camps. Dhaka has spent some USD 280 million transforming Bhashan Char, a muddy silt islet that only emerged from the Bay of Bengal nearly two decades ago, into a camp for some of the refugees. But the island, in a coastal region where extreme weather has killed hundreds of thousands of people in recent decades, is one hour by boat from the nearest land and over a stretch of sea prone to violent storms. Yanghee Lee, a UN Special Rapporteur of human rights, visited the island on Thursday and urged Bangladesh to observe "caution and patience" before proceeding with any relocation ...
Japan court upholds sterilization to register gender change
Japan's Supreme Court has upheld a law that effectively requires transgender people to be sterilised before they can have their gender changed on official documents. The court said the law is constitutional because it was meant to reduce confusion in families and society. But it acknowledged that it restricts freedom and could become out of step with changing social values. The law states that people wishing to register a gender change must have their original reproductive organs removed and have a body that "appears to have parts that resemble the genital organs" of the gender they want to register. The decision, published Thursday, rejected an appeal by Takakito Usui, a transgender man who said forced sterilization violates the right to self-determination and is unconstitutional.
BJP leader extends R-Day greetings, terms 10% quota historic
: Puducherry unit of the Bharatiya Janata party (BJP) Friday described as historic and revolutionary the introduction of 10 per cent reservation for the economically weaker sections of society. President of the party unit V Saminathan, while greeting the people here on the eve of the Republic Day, said Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been keen on eradicating poverty and announced the quota to achieve that end. In his Republic Day message, Saminathan said the NDA government at the Centre was marching ahead in all economic and social development sectors. "Our country is now standing high among the comity of nations by achieving distinct results in the implementation of programmes to promote scientific discoveries, economic development and eradication of poverty," he said.
Love India, its people irrespective of caste, religion: Kejriwal
Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Friday urged people to fill their hearts with love for the country and not to hate people from any religion or group.
We are privileged to call Gandhi, Mandela as our own: South African President Ramaphosa
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa on Friday said that both India and South Africa feel privileged enough to call the two icons of freedom, Mahatma Gandhi and Nelson Mandela, as 'our own.'"We do know about the influence that Gandhi had on Mandela," said Ramaphosa, on two-day visit to India, while delivering the first IBSA Gandhi-Mandela Freedom Lecture here."As the president of South Africa, I am particularly proud that the seeds of Gandhiji's political awareness were sown and given birth in our country," said Ramaphosa, who is the Chief Guest at India's Republic Day celebrations here on Saturday. The South African President cited the incident when Gandhi was first victimsed of the then ongoing racial oppression, also known as 'apartheid' in South Africa.He said that barely days after arriving in South Africa as a newly qualified barrister, Gandhi experienced the brutal treatment of apartheid, when he was forcibly removed from a train compartment that was supposedly ...
SC issues notice to Centre on plea challenging Passport Rules, Foreigners Order
The Supreme Court on Friday sought the Centre's response on a plea challenging the constitutional validity of the amended passport rules and the foreigners order of 2015, which regularised the entry and stay of illegal immigrants in India allegedly on the basis of religion. A bench comprising Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justice Sanjiv Khanna issued notices to the Centre, the Ministry of External Affairs and the Tripura government and sought their responses on a plea filed by the Tripura People's Front (TPF), challenging the validity of the Passport (Entry into India) Amendment Rules, 2015 and the Foreigners (Amendment) Order, 2015. The petition claimed that the new rules and order had introduced religion as a new principle in the citizenship law, describing it as "communally-motivated humanitarianism". "The sub-ordinate legislations impugned are, however, unprecedented in the sense that never before has religion been specifically identified in the citizenship law as the ground for .
Sri Lankan police confiscate assets belonging to drug smugglers
The Sri Lankan Police decided on Friday to take steps to confiscate the assets of 24 drug smugglers who have fled the country, a police spokesman said.
