Gujarat govt responsible for 2002 riots; I am not scared of Modi: Rahul Gandhi

January 28, 2014

Rahul_Gandhi
New Delhi, Jan 28: Taking on Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi, Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi said Gujarat government was involved in 2002 riots.

Speaking to an English news channel on Monday, Rahul defended the Congress government for 1984 riots and said, "Gujarat government was involved in 2002 riots while Congress government tried to stop 1984 riots."

At the same time, he said that, "Some Congress men were probably involved in 1984 riots, legal process is on."

To questions whether he would apologise for the 1984 riots and whether he felt that there was no need for it, Gandhi said, "First of all, I wasn't involved in the riots at all. It wasn't that I was a part of it."

While on the topic of taking reins of the Congress party in the upcoming General Elections, Rahul said, "I am the vice president of the party and will take full responsibility if we (Congress) lose the elections."

When asked about the criticism heaped on him by BJP leader Subramanian Swamy, Rahul said, "He (Swamy) has been attacking my family for 40 years. Let him take the legal process and solve it."

While on personal criticism the Congress leader said, " I respond by understanding why I am being attacked. Beat me to death, but I will keep asking questions that are relevant to the system."

"It does not matter. Keep throwing stones at us. I am being attacked because I am doing things dangerous to the system," he added.

Further while answering to a question that if not 'Gandhi' had he joined politics, Rahul said, "Unfairness makes my blood boil. That's at the heart of my politics."

To questions about dynasty politics, Gandhi said that he is "absolutely against the concept of dynasty. But it happens in BJP, SP, DMK and Congress everywhere."

"I am absolutely against the concept of dynasty. Anybody who knows me knows that and understands that. But you are not going to wish away dynasty in a closed system. You have to open the system," Rahul added.

When asked if he agreed with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's view that Modi presided over the "mass massacre" of innocents on the streets of Ahmedabad, Gandhi said, "what the Prime Minister is saying is the fact. Gujarat happened and people died."

Asked if he was avoiding a direct face-off with Modi by not becoming the Prime Ministerial candidate of the Congress, the Congress Vice President said, "to understand that question, you have to understand a little bit, who Rahul Gandhi is and you get an answer to the question to what Rahul Gandhi is scared of and not scared of."

To a question as to what was his view of BJP's Prime Ministerial candidate, he said, "I think, we will defeat the BJP in the next elections....I will win the election. I am reasonably confident."

He added that Congress was "battle ready" and "going to win". Asked if he would take responsibility if Congress doesn't win the election, he said, "if we don't win, I am the Vice President of the party. I will take responsibility."

On naming Modi as PM candidate, he said, "BJP believes in concentration of power in one person. I fundamentally disagree with that. I believe in democracy. I believe in opening of the system.... We have fundamentally different philosophies."

The questioner said Rahul Gandhi has avoided the whole question about whether he was open to PM's post and avoiding a difficult contest.

In reply, Gandhi referred to his speech at the AICC meet here and said announcing a PM candidate before an election is "announcing your PM without asking your MPs. It is not actually written in the Constitution."

He avoided direct reply to questions on whether political parties should be brought under the purview of RTI, saying Parliament should decide on it if political parties are unanimous on this. "My position is that the more openness, the better."

Asked why Congress protected former Maharashtra Chief Minister Ashok Chavan despite a judicial commission's indictment, Gandhi said the party had taken action wherever corruption was involved.

He said he made his position clear on Chavan after the Maharashtra Cabinet had rejected the judicial commission's findings.

On corruption charges against Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh, he said, "there is a legal process. Follow it and conclude it."

With regard to performance by Aam Aadmi Party, he said, "There are things how they have reached out to people. Don't take that away from them."

Rahul Gandhi further said law should take its course regardless of individual personalities if AAP government in Delhi takes any action against the CWG scam.

Asked whether Congress would continue to support AAP government if it goes against Dikshit in the CWG scam, Gandhi said,"I have already said that regardless of who the person is, if there is an issue of corruption, the law should take its own course. That's my position."

To questions about AAP's ways of functioning, Gandhi said that what he liked about that party was that people were coming into their system.

"What I liked about what I saw in the Aam Aadmi Party was people coming into their system. I liked that. But what's different between us and them is that we have structure. We develop processes. That I didn't see much of (there)," he said.

He recalled that he made a comment about AAP, where he said that there is something that Congress can learn from them.

"What I felt that we could learn from them is that they reached out to people in a particular way that was good. There are things that I don't think we should take away from them."

At the same time, he emphasized that the real power of the Congress is the depth of the Organization and "you can't make changes by destroying things."

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News Network
December 13,2025

New Delhi: School-going children are picking up drug and smoking habits and engaging in consumption of alcohol, with the average age of introduction to such harmful substances found to be around 13 years, suggesting a need for earlier interventions as early as primary school, a multi-city survey by AIIMS-Delhi said.

The findings also showed substance use increased in higher grades, with grade XI/XII students two times more likely to report use of substances when compared with grade VIII students. This emphasised the importance of continued prevention and intervention through middle and high school.

The study led by Dr Anju Dhawan of AIIMS's National Drug Dependence Treatment Centre, published in the National Medical Journal of India this month, looks at adolescent substance use across diverse regions.

The survey included 5,920 students from classes 8, 9, 11 and 12 in urban government, private and rural schools across 10 cities -- Bengaluru, Chandigarh, Delhi, Dibrugarh, Hyderabad, Imphal, Jammu, Lucknow, Mumbai, and Ranchi. The data were collected between May 2018 and June 2019.

The average age of initiation for any substance was 12.9 (2.8) years. It was lowest for inhalants (11.3 years) followed by heroin (12.3 years) and opioid pharmaceuticals (without prescription; 12.5 years).

Overall, 15.1 per cent of participants reported lifetime use, 10.3 per cent reported past year use, and 7.2 per cent reported use in the past month of any substance, the study found.

The most common substances used in the past year, after tobacco (4 per cent) and alcohol (3.8 per cent), were opioids (2.8 per cent), followed by cannabis (2 per cent) and inhalants (1.9 per cent). Use of non-prescribed pharmaceutical opioids was most common among opioid users (90.2 per cent).

On being asked, 'Do you think this substance is easily available for a person of your age' separately for each substance category, nearly half the students (46.3 per cent) endorsed that tobacco products and more than one-third of the students (36.5 per cent) agreed that a person of their age can easily procure alcohol products.

Similarly, for Bhang (21.9 per cent), ganja/charas (16.1 per cent), inhalants (15.2 per cent), sedatives (13.7 per cent), opium and heroin (10 per cent each), the students endorsed that these can be easily procured.

About 95 per cent of the children, irrespective of their grade, agreed with the statement that 'drug use is harmful'.

The rates of substance use (any) among boys were significantly higher than those of girls for substance use (ever), use in the past year and use in the past 30 days. Compared to grade VIII students, grade IX students were more likely, and grade XI/XII students were twice as likely to have used any substance (ever).

The likelihood of past-year use of any substance was also higher for grade IX students and for grade XI/XII students as compared to grade VIII students.

About 40 per cent of students mentioned that they had a family member who used tobacco or alcohol each. The use of cannabis (any product) and opioid (any product) by a family member was reported by 8.2 per cent and 3.9 per cent of students, respectively, while the use of other substances, such as inhalants/sedatives by family was 2-3 per cent, the study found.

A relatively smaller percentage of students reported use of tobacco or alcohol among peers as compared to among family members, while a higher percentage reported inhalants, sedatives, cannabis or opioid use among peers.

Children using substances (past year) compared to non-users reported significantly higher any substance use by their family members and peers.

There were 25.7 per cent students who replied 'yes' to the question 'conflicts/fights often occur in your family'. Most students also replied affirmatively to 'family members are aware of how their time is being spent' and 'damily members are aware of with whom they spend their time'.

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News Network
December 5,2025

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New Delhi, Dec 5: IndiGo CEO Pieter Elbers issued a public apology this evening after more than a thousand flights were cancelled today, making it the "most severely impacted day" in terms of cancellations. The biggest airline of the country cancelled "more than half" of its daily number of flights on Friday, said Elbers. He also said that even though the crisis will persist on Saturday, the airline anticipates fewer than 1,000 flight cancellations.

"Full normalisation is expected between December 10 and 15, though IndiGo cautions that recovery will take time due to the scale of operations," the IndiGo CEO said. 

IndiGo operates around 2,300 domestic and international flights daily.

Pieter Elbers, while apologising for the major inconvenience due to delays and cancellations, said the situation is a result of various causes.

The crisis at IndiGo stems from new regulations that boost pilots' weekly rest requirements by 12 hours to 48 and allow only two night-time landings per week, down from six. IndiGo has attributed the mass cancellations to "misjudgment and planning gaps".

Elbers also listed three lines of action that the airline will adopt to address the issue.

"Firstly, customer communication and addressing your needs, for this, messages have been sent on social media. And just now, a more detailed communication with information, refunds, cancellations and other customer support measures was sent," he said.

The airline has also stepped up its call centre capacity.

"Secondly, due to yesterday's situation, we had customers stranded mostly at the nation's largest airports. Our focus was for all of them to be able to travel today itself, which will be achieved. For this, we also ask customers whose flights are cancelled not to come to the airports as notifications are sent," the CEO said.

"Thirdly, cancellations were made for today to align our crew and planes to be where they need to start tomorrow morning afresh. Earlier measures of the last few days, regrettable, have proven not to be enough, but we have decided today to reboot all our systems and schedules, resulting in the highest numbers of cancellations so far, but imperative for progressive improvements starting from tomorrow," he added.

As airports witnessed chaotic scenes, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) stepped in to grant IndiGo a temporary exemption from stricter night duty rules for pilots. It also allowed substitution of leaves with a weekly rest period. 

Civil Aviation Minister Ram Mohan Naidu has said a high-level inquiry will be ordered and accountability will be fixed.

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