Nitish Kumar's party attacks BJP as tension mounts in alliance

News Network
August 8, 2022

Patna: Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar has called a meeting of all Janata Dal (United) MLAs and MPs on Tuesday, leading to speculation his growing friction with the BJP may come to a head.

Chief among the many reasons why Mr Kumar is upset with the BJP, which is an alliance partner of the Janata Dal (United), or JD(U) in Bihar, has been the BJP-led central government's offer of token representation to allies as Union Ministers.

Mr Kumar's party had denied another Rajya Sabha berth last month to his former JD(U) colleague RCP Singh, who had taken a spot in Prime Minister Narendra Modi's cabinet last year without consulting Mr Kumar. Mr Singh bade farewell to the JD(U) over the Rajya Sabha snub.

"There's a conspiracy against me because I'd become union minister," said Mr Singh, a former Indian Administrative Service officer who was once the national president of JD(U). "I'll just say that there's no cure to jealousy," he said while leaving the JD(U) yesterday. "Nitish Kumar will not become Prime Minister in any of his seven lives," he said, describing the JD(U) as a sinking ship.

Mr Kumar reacted by sending out his party's top leaders to respond to allegations by Mr Singh of pettiness and for allegedly dragging his family into a political fight citing illegal property deals.

The JD(U) national president Rajiv Ranjan (Lalan) Singh in a hurry to blunt the attacks by Mr Singh, however, appeared to have overcorrected when he ended up threatening the alliance party BJP.

"What is the need to join the Union Cabinet? The Chief Minister had decided in 2019 we won't be part of the Union Cabinet," Rajiv Ranjan told reporters. He said the JD(U) won't join the Union Cabinet in the near future too, leading to speculation of a rift that can't be mended.

The sudden increase in outburst of Mr Kumar's aides like Rajiv Ranjan is seen as a calculated move to put pressure on the BJP to concede to the Chief Minister's demands, which includes removal of Bihar assembly Speaker Vijay Kumar Sinha, for whom Nitish Kumar's dislike is an open secret.

The Chief Minister, citing health reasons, had stayed away from a meeting of the government think-tank NITI Aayog in Delhi this weekend, which 23 Chief Ministers including West Bengal's Mamata Banerjee had attended. The absence was seen as yet another show of anger by Mr Kumar at the BJP.

Mr Singh had denied the charge of negotiating directly with the Modi government for a ministerial position in the centre. He said Home Minister Amit Shah had spoken to Mr Kumar about cabinet expansion and offered one berth to the party on the condition that Mr Singh himself become a Union Minister.

Mr Singh also denied the JD(U)'s allegations that there are irregularities in his property deals. "These properties belong to my wife and other dependents, who have been paying due tax since 2010," he said. "I don't know what the party wants to investigate. I have nothing to hide," he said.

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News Network
May 3,2024

Mangaluru, May 3: The Mangaluru City Corporation will resort to water rationing from May 5 as the Thumbe vented dam, which supplies drinking water to the city, is facing a shortage in water storage.

Instead of daily supply, water will be supplied on alternate days, the Executive Engineer (Water Supply) at the corporation said in a release.

The release said that water will be supplied to Mangaluru City North on May 5. There will be no water supply to Mangaluru City North on May 6. Instead water will be supplied to Mangaluru City South on May 6. Likewise the supply on alternate days will continue.

The inflow in the Netravathi has stopped, the release said, requesting people to cooperate with the corporation and not waste water for washing vehicles and other purposes.

An engineer at the corporation said that water level at the dam stood at 4.27 m on Wednesday against the full storage level of 6 m. If water is supplied daily to the entire city (Mangaluru City North and Mangaluru City South) the existing storage will last only for 16 days, the engineer said. Hence the decision to supply water on alternate days has been taken to supply water till May-end.

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News Network
April 27,2024

The spokesman for the Yemeni Armed Forces has said it has carried out new operations against American and British targets in retaliation for their aggression on the country.

Brigadier General Yahya Saree said on Friday that Yemen’s naval forces struck a British oil tanker in the Red Sea with missiles.

Saree also said the military also shot down an American MQ-9 drone in Sa’ada province.

He added that the new operations were also a show of solidarity with Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, amid the Israeli genocide there. 

“The Yemeni Armed Forces salute all the people of Yemen for their faithful response to the call of the fighter leader Sayyed Abdulmalik Badr El-Din Al-Houthi, may Allah protect him, in their unprecedented large-scale interaction in support of our oppressed brothers in the Gaza Strip, affirming support for the Armed Forces in their military operations against the ‘Israeli’ enemy and against the American-British aggression supporting it in the Red and Arabian Seas and the Indian Ocean,” Saree said.

He stressed that the Yemeni armed forces will continue operations in the Red and Arabian Seas as well as the Indian Ocean until the Western-backed Israeli genocide comes to a halt.

Since the start of the brutal campaign in Gaza, the regime has killed more than 34,300 Palestinians and injured over 77,000 others. It has cut off fuel, electricity, food and water to the more than two million Palestinians living there.

The Yemeni Armed Forces have been targeting Israeli vessels or those “associated” with the occupying regime in the Red Sea and the Arabian Sea since October 7, 2023.

The regime ignited its bloody war machine in the besieged Palestinian territory on that October day in response to Operation Al-Aqsa Storm conducted by the resistance movement Hamas.

The maritime attacks have forced some of the world’s biggest shipping and oil companies to suspend transit through one of the world’s most important maritime trade routes.

Tankers are instead adding thousands of miles to international shipping routes by sailing around the continent of Africa rather than going through the Suez Canal.

The pro-Palestine maritime campaign has also prompted airstrikes by the US and its allies on Yemen – in violation of the Yemeni sovereignty and international law.

In consequence, Yemen’s armed forces have declared US and British vessels as legitimate targets.

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News Network
May 1,2024

Bengaluru: A red alert denoting severe heat wave has been issued for six districts of Karnataka by the Karnataka State Natural Disaster Monitoring Centre (KSNDMC), as temperatures are likely to cross 46 degrees Celsius.

Bagalkote, Belagavi, Dharwad, Gadag, Haveri and Koppal districts will see temperatures ranging from 40 to 46 degrees Celsius between May 1 and May 9, according to KSNDMC.

The monitoring centre also pointed out that when comparing the maximum temperature recorded in Karnataka in the past seven years – between 2017 and 2024 – April 30, 2024 recorded the highest, 45.6 degrees Celsius.

Meanwhile, in a statement released by the India Meteorological Department in Bengaluru, the trough/wind discontinuity from southeast Madhya Pradesh to South Interior Karnataka (SIK), across Vidarbha, Marathawada and North Interior Karnataka (NIK) extending up to 1.5km above mean sea level persists.

But as per IMD, the department issued a severe heat (red) alert only when the actual maximum temperature crosses 47 degrees Celsius.

The maximum temperatures are likely to continue and also be around 40 to 46 degrees Celsius over parts of NIK districts, such as Raichur, Kalaburgi, Yadgir, Bellary and Vijayapura districts till May 6, the natural disaster management centre said on social media platform X.

The remaining NIK districts, most of the SIK districts and Dakshina Kannada district are likely to experience maximum temperature between 40 and 44 degrees Celsius, it added.

Parts of Kodagu, Udupi, Hassan, Shivamogga, Chikkamagaluru and parts of Uttara Kannada districts are likely to experience between 33 and 40 degrees Celsius till May 6, according to the centre.

From May 7, maximum temperatures are likely to come down by 2 to 3 degrees Celsius across the state, according to KSNDMC.

Meanwhile, as per realised rainfall across the state data by KSNDMC, while isolated rains were observed in six districts -- Haveri, Dharwad, Gadag, Vijayapura, Shivamogga and Uttara Kannada -- dry/negligible rains were received in 25 districts, including Bengaluru rural and urban on April 30.

Maximum rainfall of 35mm was recorded at Bhogavi in Haveri district.

As per the cumulative date of rainfall from January 1 to April 30, only coastal Karnataka recorded an excess of 59% rainfall from usual, while the rest of Karnataka had deficit rainfall ranging from 13% to 80%, said a press release by KSNDMC, which compiles the data from telemetric rain gauge locations established by it across the state.

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