USB Devices Continue To Pose Major Threat To Operational Technology Environments: Honeywell
Of the malware attacks, 51% are designed for USB devices, according to 2024 data, a near sixfold increase from 2019.
Bridgerton 3: Penelope-Colin to Anthony Kate Romance: What to Expect
Bridgerton Season 3 has set hearts aflutter with the announcement of its release dates: May 16, 2024, and June 13, 2024. Divided into two parts, this eagerly awaited installment promises to captivate audiences once again with its tantalizing blend of romance, drama, and intrigue. And if that revelation wasn't enough to stir excitement, a tantalizing sneak peek into the central storyline of Penelope and Colin has recently been unveiled, adding to the fervor surrounding the upcoming season. The anticipation for Season Three has been palpable, heightened by the release of pastel-hued first-look photos. These images not only confirmed the return of beloved characters but also hinted at significant developments, particularly in the character arc of Colin Bridgerton, now poised to take on a more prominent role as a leading man. Fans eagerly anticipate the return of wedding bells to The Ton, as Season Three promises to delve deep into the blossoming romance between Penelope Featherington and Colin Bridgerton. However, before we delve into the intricacies of their love story, let's take a moment to explore all the tantalizing details surrounding this highly anticipated season. In true Lady Whistledown fashion, we endeavor to bring you the hottest gossip from The Ton, including insights into the cast, storyline, and release schedule for Bridgerton Season Three. Netflix has finally lifted the veil on the release dates, much to the delight of fans. Part One is slated for release on May 16, followed by Part Two on June 13. Adjoa Andoh, who portrays the indomitable Lady Danbury, previously hinted at a 2024 release during an exclusive interview, suggesting that Season Three has been ready for some time, further fueling the anticipation among eager viewers. Returning to the fold are familiar faces such as Nicola Coughlan as the irrepressible Penelope Featherington and Luke Newton as the charming Colin Bridgerton. Joining them are the stalwarts of the Bridgerton family, including Jonathan Bailey as the dashing Anthony Bridgerton and Ruth Gemmell as the matriarchal figure, Violet Bridgerton. Exciting new additions to the cast include Daniel Francis, Sam Phillips, and James Phoon, promising to inject fresh energy into the series. Regrettably, Phoebe Dynevor, whose portrayal of Daphne Bridgerton charmed audiences in previous seasons, will not be reprising her role in Season Three. Nevertheless, the scintillating romance between Anthony Bridgerton and Kate Sharma, portrayed by Jonathan Bailey and Simone Ashley respectively, is set to continue its enthralling trajectory, much to the delight of fans. The plot of Season Three promises to be a captivating affair, centered around Penelope's quest for a suitable match and Colin's return to The Ton with newfound confidence and swagger. Departing from the chronological order of the book series, the narrative will focus on Colin and Penelope's love story earlier than expected, offering a fresh perspective and surprising twists for both book aficionados and casual viewers alike. Despite the absence of certain characters, Season Three is poised to deliver all the elements that have made Bridgerton a global phenomenon: humor, romance, and elements of romantic comedy. The cast's unwavering commitment to honoring the source material ensures an authentic and immersive viewing experience, promising to transport audiences once again to the opulent world of Regency-era London. As we eagerly await the release of Bridgerton Season Three, fans can expect to be swept away by a whirlwind of emotions, as love, betrayal, and scandal once again take center stage in the glittering halls of The Ton. So, mark your calendars and prepare to be enchanted by the next chapter in the captivating saga of Bridgerton. The stage is set, the players are ready, and the drama awaits.
Who is Uday Kotak? How He Lost More than 10 Thousand Crores in A day!?
Uday Kotak, the renowned Indian banker and billionaire, has long been a stalwart in the financial world. As the founder and former CEO of Kotak Mahindra Bank, his name has been synonymous with success and innovation. However, recent events have taken a drastic toll on his fortune, with more than Rs 10,000 crore wiped out [] The post Who is Uday Kotak? How He Lost More than 10 Thousand Crores in A day!? appeared first on Tfipost.com .
These cars will be launched in the Indian market, top models of Mahindra-Tata included
India's automotive market is set to witness a flurry of activity with the impending launch of several new car models. Among the leading contenders are renowned manufacturers Mahindra and Tata, both poised to unveil their top offerings. Let's delve into the details of these eagerly awaited vehicles. Mahindra's Marvels: 1. Bold and Dynamic SUVs: Mahindra, a stalwart in the Indian automotive scene, is gearing up to introduce a range of captivating SUVs. These vehicles are expected to combine ruggedness with modern design elements, catering to the diverse needs of Indian consumers. 2. Electric Revolution: With a growing emphasis on sustainability, Mahindra is also venturing into the electric vehicle segment. Anticipated releases include electric SUVs and compact cars, showcasing the brand's commitment to eco-friendly mobility solutions. 3. Cutting-Edge Features: The upcoming Mahindra models are poised to offer an array of cutting-edge features, including advanced infotainment systems, connected technologies, and state-of-the-art safety enhancements. These innovations aim to elevate the driving experience to new heights. Tata's Triumphs: 1. Iconic Sedans and Hatchbacks: Tata Motors, another heavyweight in the Indian automotive landscape, is set to captivate enthusiasts with its latest lineup of sedans and hatchbacks. Known for their reliability and value proposition, Tata cars are expected to continue their legacy of excellence. 2. Innovation in Motion: Tata's upcoming models are anticipated to showcase the brand's innovative prowess, with features such as intelligent connectivity, AI-driven assistance, and efficient powertrains. These advancements underscore Tata's commitment to technological excellence. 3. Embracing Electric Mobility: In line with the industry's shift towards electric mobility, Tata Motors is set to introduce electric variants of some of its popular models. These electric cars are poised to offer impressive range, performance, and charging capabilities, making them compelling choices for eco-conscious consumers. Market Impact and Expectations: 1. Intensified Competition: The launch of these new models from Mahindra and Tata is expected to intensify competition in the Indian automotive market. With both manufacturers vying for market share, consumers can look forward to a wider range of options and competitive pricing. 2. Driving Innovation: The introduction of advanced features and electric variants by Mahindra and Tata is poised to drive innovation in the industry. As competition heats up, manufacturers are compelled to raise the bar in terms of technology, design, and overall value proposition. 3. Consumer Choices: Indian consumers are increasingly spoilt for choice, with a plethora of options across various segments. The arrival of new models from Mahindra and Tata further expands this array of choices, allowing consumers to select vehicles that best suit their preferences and requirements. As the automotive landscape in India continues to evolve, the launch of new car models from Mahindra and Tata promises to inject fresh excitement into the market. With a focus on innovation, sustainability, and consumer-centric design, these manufacturers are poised to make a significant impact and redefine the driving experience for Indian consumers. New feature in WhatsApp, which will change your chatting style This feature prevents the vehicle from slipping, know how ABS works First sale of beautiful budget range phones today, discount offers also
Odisha lost 25 yrs under Naveen Patnaik government: Amit Shah
BHUBANESWAR: Setting the tone for the BJPs election campaign pitch, Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Thursday tore into the BJD government for keeping Odisha underdeveloped when several backward states have made rapid progress with accelerated growth of four to five times. Addressing an impressive Vijay Sankalp Samabesh at Sonepur, the first election rally by any of the top guns of the BJP, Shah launched a scathing attack on the Naveen Patnaik government accusing it of failing to resolve basic problems of the people in 25 years while Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed many critical issues of the country like Article 370, Triple Talaq and Ram Mandir in the last 10 years. It was lost years for Odisha under Naveen Patnaik government. Time has come for the people to uproot the inefficient and corrupt BJD government and install a double-engine government to take the state into the pinnacle of progress, Shah thundered. Invoking Lord Jagannath and revered deities of western Odisha, Shah said it is a matter of shame that people from the state are still migrating to places like Mumbai, Bangalore, Delhi, Surat and even Punjab despite abundant natural resources in Odisha. Dubbing the BJD government as nikamma (useless), the BJP stalwart said massive corruption is its hallmark and the public suffering has compounded as the government is run by a few bureaucrats. Without mentioning the proposed Choudwar textile park, Shah targeted the misplaced priority of state government as it has no plan for revival of the closed textile industries in the western region including the one at Sonepur. Instead of setting up textile industries where cotton cultivation is taken up in a massive way, the state government is planning it elsewhere. There is no logic as western Odisha disticts are major producers of cotton, Shah said adding, his party will set up a textile industry, a fisheries college, agro industry and an ayurvedic medicinal plant in the region. You gave 25 years to BJD. Give five years to BJP and see how a double-engine government solves all problems, he exhorted the people of the state. Recounting the liberal financial assistance given to the state government in the last 10 years, Shah said the Centre released more than Rs 10,000 crore under Jal Jeevan Mission for supply of tap water to all the households. The state has not been able to utilise even Rs 5,000 crore and a large number of households are going without tap water. Clearing the doubt among party workers that he may go soft on BJD after the failed talk of alliance, Shah called the Chief Minister as a liar for claiming credit for the free rice given to families covered under National Food Security Act and houses under PMAY. Scared of Modi popularity, the Naveen Patnaik government is not implementing Ayushman Bharat scheme depriving the poor people from availing free health services, he said. While assailing the regional party for ruining the Sri Jagannath Temple heritage, Shah said the inauguration of the temple corridor project at Puri was deliberately done during the Ram Mandir consecration at Ayodhya to divert the attention of the people of Odisha. Let the BJP come to power in the state, we will improve the temple town like Kashi Viswanath in Varanasi, he said. The meeting was attended by Union Minister Dharmendra Pradhan, Balangir MP Sangeeta Kumari Singhdeo, state BJP president Manmohan Samal and senior leader KV Singhdeo.
Politicians, LS Poll Candidates and Film Stars Exercise Franchise in Initial Hours of Polling
Politicians, LS Poll Candidates and Film Stars Exercise Franchise in Initial Hours of Polling Prominent persons, including senior politicians and candidates contesting in the Lok Sabha polls, turned up during the initial hours of polling in Kerala for the general election. Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, Leader of Opposition in the state assembly V D Satheesan, BJP state president K Surendran, saffron party candidates Suresh Gopi and Anil Antony as well as Congress' K C Venugopal and Shafi Parambil were seen casting their votes early in the morning. Besides them, Congress stalwart A K Antony, KPCC president K Sudhakaran, LDF convener E P Jayarajan and CPI(M)'s Thomas Isaac also came in the morning to exercise their right to vote. Leaders of the CPI(M)-led LDF, Congress-led UDF and the BJP-led NDA claimed that their respective fronts will create history in the state. Vijayan claimed that Kerala will ''gift'' a historic win to the LDF, a sentiment which was echoed by other Left leaders who all said that the BJP was never accepted by the people of the southern state and this trend will continue. Responding to reporters' queries about the BJP's claim of getting double digit seats in Kerala, the CM said the saffron party will not even get one seat. He said that even the Congress-led UDF will not win any seat as the people were unhappy with them. Antony, Venugopal, Satheesan and Shashi Tharoor said that there is a pro-Congress and UDF wave in the state and the grand old party was the better alternative. They all said that there was an anti-incumbency wave against the Centre and the Left government in Kerala and therefore, the Congress will win in all 20 seats. The Congress leaders also said that for the survival of the country, the ''communal and fascist'' government at the Centre should be removed from power and a government by the Congress-led INDIA bloc should come there. Candidates and leaders of both the LDF and UDF urged everyone to exercise their franchise as this election will decide the future of the nation. Besides them, prominent actors, including Sreenivasan, Fahadh Faasil, Tovino Thomas and Renji Panicker, as well as church heads like Major Archbishop of the influential Syro-Malabar Church Raphael Thattil and Cardinal George Alencherry also voted in the morning. Polling commenced in the state at 7 am today.
BJP Forms Alliance With Mehbooba, Alleges Omar Abdullah
SRINAGAR: National Conference (NC) candidate Ruhullah Mehdi officially filed his nomination for the Srinagar Lok Sabha seat, accompanied by a contingent of party stalwarts including NC President Farooq Abdullah, Vice President Omar Abdullah, Congress State President Vikar Rasool Wani, and other prominent leaders and supporters. The filing of nominations was marked by a strong show [] The post BJP Forms Alliance With Mehbooba, Alleges Omar Abdullah appeared first on Kashmir Life .
In Wayanad, questions & answers emerge on Rahuls absence
Rahul Gandhi has a tummy ache. After Amethi 2019, there is no way he wants a headache in Wayanad, the constituency he represents in the Lok Sabha, where even his fanboys admit he is not visible often enough. In this green undulating expanse of coffee plantations and tea estates scalloping the mountainsides and the homes of wealthy landowners looking down upon verdant valleys, the population is predominantly Muslim and Christian. Rahul has sent sister Priyanka to campaign in his place, the day before the loudspeakers fall silent and the drums are put away. Kambalakkadu, a small marketplace with an even smaller public maidan is where Priyanka Gandhi will make her first stump speech on the last leg of her poll tour, a half hour or so helicopter hop from Karnataka. The vast majority of the crowd that has gathered to see and hear Priyanka comprises women, mostly with hijab or burqa to protect them either from sun or the BJPs glare. They crowd shop verandahs, a shaded long gallery of a street side building upon which Congress tricolor flags and buntings flutter in the wind. The lady is late, though. The sun is hot. The campaign platform is a purplish mobile van with an awning under which stands a tall lectern. In the background is dynasty art: brother and sister joyfully beaming at people. Is he going to win? With a larger majority, than before, says a young man. He will lose, declares BJPs formidable state president K Surendran who is contesting against Rahul. How did his majority happen? Its not the Congress vote bank that is responsible for his victory last time. This is a Muslim League stronghold. Congress minus the League is a big zero. The third candidate is Annie Raja, wife of the veteran communist D Raja. Many people in Wayanad are perplexed why she should be put up by the LDF against two formidable opponents. She is a gentle person, and it will be humiliating when she loses, observes a passerby, who had paused to watch. The crowd is being entertained by a local black-shirted IUML leader whose target seems to be the hapless Pinarayi Vijayan who is in hot water because of the corruption scandals raining on him and the ED expressing a keen interest in his Bangalore based daughter Veenas business against which a money laundering case has been registered. The IUML speechmaker is tenacious; he has to keep the waiting crowd interested until the star of the show arrives. Where is he hiding? Did he visit Wayanad when a young college boy was forced to commit suicide by RSS? Did he visit Wayanad when an elephant chased a man and trampled him to death, it was Rahul ji who helped the family. The human-animal conflict is a major crisis in the thickly forested district where 41 people were killed by elephants and seven in tiger attacks over the last decade. In 2022-23, 8,873 people were injured and 98 died, according to the Economic Review 2022-23. A few kilometers away, BJPs southern star K Annamalai is holding his road show in Wayanad. Annamalai, who quit the IPS to join the BJP, is trusted by Modi and the RSS to deliver Tamil Nadu to the saffron monolith. The Tamil Nadu BJP party president is in his customary white shirt, as punctual as any punctilious police officer who never keeps anyone waiting. Though Surendran plays the local card by calling Rahul an ally of the banned terror outfit PFI, Annamalai sticks to the national strategy adopted by all parties contesting for Kerala: a war for, or against Modi; Vocal for Local is on hold for now. Were not here to defeat Rahul Gandhi, but to save and serve this constituency, Annamalai, who is contesting from Coimbatore on the Kerala-Tamil Nadu border, declares. Rahuls nemesis Smriti Irani who had visited Wayanad in early April had questioned his loyalty to the people of any constituency he represents. Rahul Gandhi declared Wayanad as his family. What about his loyalty to Amethi? She had trounced him in Amethi, considered a Gandhi family pocket borough until 2019, by about 55,000 votes while Rahul won in Wayanad by 4.3 lakh votes: the current UDF target is to take that number to 5 lakh. The region has not been short of heavy hitters of all hues this election. On April 23, Mallikarjun Kharge held a road show. A senior Congressman looked uneasy when questioned why Rahul stood from Wayanad. He admitted that the Congress wasnt sure he would have won from Amethi last time, and even this time. You say Rahul will win by a bigger margin. What has he done for Wayanad? a local businessman is asked. What has he not done? He has done everything. How do you expect such an important man to come here all the time? He has people here who do what he instructs them. Drinking water connectivity is a boiling crisis across Kerala, particularly in hill areas like Wayanad. Surendran has scored points by getting bore wells dug and pumps installed at his own cost in some tribal areas. There is a feeling here that Rahul has neglected Wayanad by being absent, says Surendran. Wayanad has a strong minority vote bank. Wont that work for Rahul? The minority is not a single bloc. The Christians oppose whatever Muslims think or say. Youre underestimating Muslim women, they dont reveal their true intentions. Is the Ram Temple a factor in Wayanad? Of course, it is. There are a few temples here that are closely associated with Sri Ram. People here believe he passed through Wayanads forests during his exile, Surendran says. But this time, the veneration seems reserved more for Rahul. The dramatic arrival of Priyanka is heralded by drum beats and clouds of saffron, white, green and green confetti. Big sister is here with her brothers message. The lady herself is in a green salwar kameez and dupatta; cynics would gripe that she is playing to the Muslim gallery. She beams at the audience and waves. Priyanka has a presence, an undeniable aura as she mingles easily with the leaders and workers gathered on the stage. Her body language isnt arrogant, her face wears an unfaltering smile. She is the perfect political figure until she starts to speak. Her tone is monotonous, voice androgynous and words cliches. The BJP realises that despite all the infirmities in Congress, the Gandhi family is still a name to reckon with. Nazi propaganda genius Joseph Goebbels had a working maxim: Repeat a lie often enough and it becomes the truth. The BJPs repetitive rhetoric that Rahul has done little for Wayanad may not be the total truth but the party certainly hopes reiteration will work in its favour. The general wisdom is that Rahul will win a second term comfortably, though the margin may be considerably narrow.
Maharashtra: At stake political careers & legacies
MUMBAI: The second voting phase on April 26 in Maharashtra will take place for eight seats. While three phases are still remaining to cover all 48 seats in the state, a few significant factors have come to the fore for the April 26 polls: a victory or defeat in this phase will, in all probability, decide the political careers of many stalwarts. It will settle long, disputed legacy issues involving Uddhav Thackeray and Eknath Shinde, on the one hand, and the Pawar family, on the other. For the BJP, this phase will determine the political graph of Devendra Fadnavis his performance will underline whether he will assuredly be the main face of the party in the state. CM Eknath Shinde PM Modi and Union minister Amit Shah took a jibe at the Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena, dubbing it a nakali (duplicate) Sena. The top BJP leaders called the Shinde-led group the real Shiv Sena, portraying the CM as the true legacy carrier of Balasaheb Thackeray. Despite the tag of being real, the Shinde faction is contesting 13 seats against the duplicate Sena that is contesting 21 as a part of the Maha Vikas Aghadi alliance. If the CM succeeds in retaining the existing seats or getting a major portion of the seats, then he will consolidate his positions in the government and party. Shindes win will cast a shadow over Uddhav. The remaining elected representatives that are with Uddhav would likely desert him and join Shinde for a bright future. Devendra Fadnavis He is the BJP face in the state even though there are others to claim the first preference in the state party. Fadnavis is not contesting the Lok Sabha elections, but his political career is at stake. In the 2014 and 2019 elections, the BJP won 23 and 22 Lok Sabha seats and now there is a major challenge before Fadnavis to retain this tally. Fadnavis is facing a major problem; his party cut him to size by demoting him from the CMs post to deputy CM and further reducing his space by adding another deputy CM Ajit Pawar against whom Fadnavis built his career. If the BJP tally drastically goes down, then the talk of changing the state leadership will gather steam. Fadnavis rivals Pankaja Munde, Vinod Tawde and Eknath Khadse are waiting in the wings to take aim at him for poetic justice because Fadnavis as CM from 2014 to 2019 pin these leaders down. Ajit Pawar Ajit Pawar has staked everything by opening all cards. He fielded his spouse Sunetra Pawar from Baramati seat against her cousin Supriya Sule. With the Pawar-versus-Sule Pawar contest, Baramati has turned into the main battleground of the state politics. The victory and defeat will seal the political fate of both the junior and senior Pawars. Ajits son Parth badly lost the 2019 elections in Mawal against Sena candidate. Now his spouse is fighting the toughest battle against Sule. Sharad Pawar After a split in the party, when Sharad Pawar was asked who the promising face of his party is now, Pawar said: he, himself. Pawars 55-year-long political career is bigger than any other leader in the state and India as well. He was the youngest CM at the age of 38 in Maharashtra with a coalition experiment with Left and Right wing parties called as Progressive Democratic Front (PDC). Pawar has fought his recent battles with a handful of loyalists and won many. It was evident 2014 and 2019. His party was completely decimated in 2019, but after the ED notice, he rejuvenated his party and won 54 seats in the 288-member assembly and did PDC-like MVA experiment by bringing two different ideological poles, the Congress and Shiv Sena, together in 2019. The 2014 election battle is different because his nephew Ajit whom he trusted has left him. If senior Pawar ensures the victory of his daughter Supriya in Baramati with more seats than Ajit Pawar-led NCP, then again, his magic will continue and his nephew will be forced to eat humble pie. The result will permanently settle the question about the political heir of Sharad Pawar. Uddhav Thackeray He is fighting an existential battle. His son Aadityas future is also at stake. By MVA experiment, Uddhav fulfilled his long cherished dream of becoming the CM, but paid a heavy price. If Uddhav wins more seats than Shidnes Sena, the prospect of legacy battle would perhaps get settled. The MLAs who got out with Shinde would move away if the election result is not satisfactory. And if Uddhav loses in the high-voltage drama, then the dispute over the legacy of Balasaheb will be permanently settled. Thackerays Sena will be like his cousins party MNS a non-entity player.
BJP has announced support to Mehbooba Mufti, alleges Omar
SRINAGAR, Apr 25: National Conference (NC) candidate Ruhullah Mehdi officially filed his nomination for the Srinagar Lok Sabha seat, accompanied by a contingent of party stalwarts including NC President Farooq Abdullah, Vice President Omar Abdullah, Congress State President Vikar Rasool Wani, and other prominent leaders and supporters. The filing of nominations was marked by a [] The post BJP has announced support to Mehbooba Mufti, alleges Omar appeared first on Northlines .
Sun, style and strategy: Sartorial choices of Lok Sabha candidates in Kerala on fleek
THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: As the mercury climbs, so does the style quotient on the campaign trail. From seasoned veterans to fresh faces, candidates are shaking up their wardrobe and hair care routines to beat the blazing sun and win over voters. Some candidates stick to their signature style no matter the weather. Take the Vadakara LDF candidate K K Shailaja, whose crisp cotton sarees and infectious smile can cool down the hottest of days. When you imagine a politician in Kerala, the first image that comes to mind would be someone wearing a stiff white cotton shirt and the evergreen mundu. Though times have changed, some remain the same when it comes to the campaign trail. The majority of them are UDF candidates. They include UDF Kasaragod candidate Rajmohan Unnithan, Kannur candidate K Sudhakaran, Kozhikode candidate M K Raghavan, Thrissur candidate K Muraleedharan, Alappuzha candidate K C Venugopal and Mavelikkara candidate Kodikkunnil Suresh. LDF's Panniyan Raveendran is not to be ignored in his all time simple attire and long hair. To an extent, this saves them the trouble of choosing what to wear. Whether it is an election or not, white cotton shirts are what I choose any day, said K C Venugopal. 'No one wants to stay here anymore': The unflattering Kerala story Bonacaud Junction has to tell Another group of candidates are the kurtawalas. Elections have made them choose cotton kurtas over anything else. Thiruvananthapuram UDF candidate Shashi Tharoor, NDA candidate Rajeev Chandrasekhar and Pathanamthitta LDF candidate Thomas Isaac come under this category. Kollam NDA candidate K Krishnakumar wears cotton kurtas all day for campaigns. I wear cotton kurtas from Fabindia and try to have a change twice a day but it doesn't usually happen. Also in politics, changing more times can sometimes do more bad than good. However, if I get to change also, I immediately sweat. It's the heat of the campaign, that's fine, he said. Shafi Parambil, the Vadakara UDF candidate, can be seen in all kinds of clothes. One day he pulls off the chic young candidate in shirts and jeans, the next day he will be in white cotton shirts and mundu. Never does he miss wearing snazzy printed shirts and jeans and spreading his vibrancy into youth groups. From plain to printed, Alappuzha LDF candidate A M Arif is spiffy in linen shirts for campaigns. To escape the heat, the best is wearing linen shirts and mundu. I wear only linen for campaigns, said Arif. This candidate in the high-profile Thiruvananthapuram Lok Sabha seat has no house and lives in the party office NDA candidates Niveditha Subramaniam of Ponnani and Sobha Surendran of Alappuzha are saree folks. Cotton saree is a saviour in this weather, I avoid all other materials and try to change twice a day usually it doesn't happen but when I do, it's truly a refreshment and gives energy for the second half of the day, said Niveditha Subramaniam. Ernakulam LDF candidate K J Shine is usually seen in cotton sarees or set mundu but prefers salwar kameez for campaigns. During the first phase, I used to try and wear saree or set mundu but gradually I prefer salwar kameez to other clothing, said Shine. Battling hair loss amid the grueling campaign schedule, candidates like Krishnakumar and Niveditha Subramaniam prioritize haircare, finding time for weekly oiling sessions. Heavy hair loss is a factor while campaigning in this weather, you look haggard after campaigning but I try to oil my hair weekly, said Niveditha Subramaniam. Anna Linda keeps it real, admitting that election season leaves little time for hair and skincare routines. There is no time to take care of the hair and skin during election time, so he leaves it that way, she said about Hibi Eden's routine. The sartorial choices of candidates in this weather have been on fleek. From cotton classics to chic prints, they have made every effort to shine bright under the scorching sun.
Amit Shah shares victory mantra with party workers ahead of twin polls in Odisha
Bhubaneswar: After addressing a huge public meeting in Sonepur of Western Odisha, Union Home Minister and BJP Stalwart Amit Shah provides party workers and senior leaders with the mantra for victory in the ensuing Lok Sabha and Assembly polls in Odisha. A crucial meeting involving the key BJP activists of 13 parliamentary constituencies was held [] The post Amit Shah shares victory mantra with party workers ahead of twin polls in Odisha appeared first on Pragativadi | Odisha News, Breaking News Odisha, Latest Odisha News .
Mac Virus Scan: How to protect your Mac from malware
Macworld You may have been led to believe that you dont have to worry about computer viruses on your Mac. And, to some extent, theres truth to that. While your Mac can definitely be infected with malware , Apples built-in malware detection and file quarantine capabilities should make it less likely that youll download and run malicious software. Apple introduced malware detection to the macOS back in 2009 with Snow Leopard (Mac OS 10.6). This system consists of the quarantine of any app downloaded from the Internet, the use of Code Signing certificates to verify that an app is coming from a legitimate source, and regular security updates that include databases of known malware targeting the macOS. If you want some tips to help you keep your Mac secure from any potential malware read: How to protect your Mac from malware . We also discuss How secure is a Mac and what to do if you think your Mac has a virus separately. Here we will discuss how you can check your Mac for viruses and how to run a Mac virus scan. Read on to find out more. How Apple scans your Mac for viruses and malware Apple includes antivirus software in macOS that monitors your Mac for malware, blocks malware and removes it if necessary. There are three elements to this: XProtect, Gatekeeper and Notarization. PROMOTION Antivirus Deal: Intego Mac Premium Bundle Get Integos Mac Premium Bundle X9 with antivirus, firewall, backup and system performance tools for just $29.99 (down from $84.99) for the first year. Intego is Macworlds #1 choice of antivirus for Macs. Get Deal 1. Apps are checked before they can be installed Foundry Apple makes it hard to install an app that might not be safe on a Mac. Mac users can choose to only install apps from the Mac App Store, which is the safest option as it means that the app has been thoroughly checked by Apple before being distributed. Alternatively, there is an option to install apps from the App Store and identified developers. An identified developer is one whose software has been scanned by Apple to ensure it is safe. As long as the app has passed Apples tests it will have a Notarization ticket, which Gatekeeper looks for before telling macOS that it is safe to open. If you only install apps from the Mac App Store, or notarised apps from identified developers, you should be safe, but sticking to the Mac App Store is the safest option as apps on the Mac App Store cant be tampered with. If you want to make sure your Mac can only install apps from the Mac App Store these are the steps to follow: On Ventura or later: Open System Settings. Click on Privacy & Security. Scroll down to Security and select App Store below Allow applications downloaded from. On Monterey or earlier: Open System Preferences. Click on Security & Privacy. Click on General. Under Allow applications downloaded from select App Store. If you prefer to allow installations from outside the Mac App Store follow the same steps but choose App Store and identified developers from the options. If you choose to allow installations from identified developers then Apple will look for evidence that the app is notarized and it will also verify that the app hasnt been tampered with and no malware is present. Unfortunately in the past there have been apps that slipped through this process because a certificate was present, such as the case of the Shlayer malware , but Apple has ramped up security since and changes to notarized apps are pushed out as required. If Gatekeeper detects that the app has no notarization to prove the developer is certified by Apple, a message saying the app cant be opened because of your settings will be displayed. If you know that the software is from a legitimate developer you can override this and open the app. See: How to open a Mac app from an unidentified developer. However, you should be aware that even legitimate software has been known to conceal malware. 2. App Management stops unauthorized apps from making modifications Foundry App Management is a privacy setting that arrived in macOS Ventura. It is intended to prevent malicious software modifications by watching for attempts by software to modify other apps. If this happens, App Management blocks the modification and alerts the user, who can allow it if applicable. This means that apps can only be updated by the developer of that app. A modification from anyone else will be blocked. In System Settings there is an option in Privacy & Security for App Management. Users see details of any activity that has been blocked here and can allow the applications to update or delete other applications if they feel that it isnt malicious behavior. 3. XProtect blocks malware from running Even if the developer is recognized by Apple, the software will still be checked against a list of known malware in XProtect. XProtect will scan an app the first time it launches and it will scan the app every time there is an update issued for it. Updates to XProtect are pushed out frequently and macOS automatically checks for updates dailya Mac user doesnt even need to do anything as these updates are separate to macOS updates. This means that even the newest malware should be identified by XProtect, although Apple isnt always as fast at getting this information updated as other antivirus solutions are. See our round-up of the Best Antivirus for Mac , which features Intego as our number one choice. If malware is identified the app will be blocked and a message will appear giving the option to delete the software. To take full advantage of XProtect you need to be running macOS Catalina (10.15) or later, but we would advise that, because Apple only supports the last three versions of macOS, you will be safest if you are running macOS Monterey, Ventura or Sonoma. You should make sure your Mac is set to receive these updates automatically by following these steps: In Ventura or later : Open System Settings. Go to General > Software Update. Click on the i beside Automatic updates and check that Install Security Responses and System Files is selected. In Monterey or older: Open System Preferences. Click on Software Update. Click on Advanced. Make sure the box beside Install system data files and security updates is selected. 4. Malware is removed by XProtect Remediator Foundry When malware is identified on a Mac the user sees an alert suggesting that the affected app has been moved to the trash. The user is also asked to alert others to the malware, which they can do automatically. This doesnt mean it is entirely down to the user to delete the app and remove the malware though. The removal used to involve a separate Malware Removal Tool (MRT) found in /Library/System, but it wasnt an app users could run. However, since macOS Monterey MRT was replaced by an XProtect Remediator that scans for and removes malware. XProtect Remediator will scan your Mac at least once a day or more, and is updated much more frequently than MRT wassince MRT is no longer updated it is a good reason to make sure you are running macOS Catalina or later. XProtect Remediator will attempt to remedy or remove malware. 5. The developer loses certificate and app loses notarization If an app had been notorized by Apple but malware is identified that developer will lose the certificate that allows them to distribute apps and the app will lose its notarization. This change to the notarization is then pushed to other Mac users so that Gatekeeper knows not to allow that app to be opened. macOS checks for XProtect updates daily, but Notarization updates are issued even more frequently, so if malware is detected, or an app loses its Notarization, Mac users should quickly be protected. 6. Is Apples protection enough? Foundry If Mac users rely solely on XProtect and Apples other protections there are limitations in comparison to other anti-malware solutions, which are updated more regularly and have teams of specialists working on identifying malware. The protection offered by XProtect is also more basic than that of third-party anti-malware apps that can also protect you from phishing, social networking scams, and they can protect your Windows using friends. We make various recommendations in our test of the top Mac antivirus apps . XProtect is updated more frequently than it waswhich was one of the main criticismsbut other malware apps check for malware constantly. XProtect only checks for malware when an app is downloaded for the first time, if the app is updated and if the status of the developer signature or app notarization changes. Apples protections should keep your Mac free from most malicious software, but they do not make it impossible for malicious software to be installed on your Mac. If new malware is released today and you download and run it today you will have done so before Apples databases could have been updated. So its always best to be wise when downloading software from unknown sources. As we argue in a separate article: Macs do need antivirus software despite Apples protections in macOS. How to run a Mac virus scan macOS will automatically scan your Mac for any malware definitions that features in XProtect, you cant force it to do this. If you wish to enhance the protection to include other kinds of malware and scan for Windows viruses so there is no danger of passing them on, then you would be wise to install a third-party anti-malware app. There are lots of third-party apps that can to scan your Mac for viruses, including some free options and many that offer a free trial period. Before you can scan your Mac for viruses you may need to visit the Privacy & Security in System Settings or Security & Privacy in System Preferences to allow access. For example, in the case of Avira we had to click on Allow to let it scan our system. You will also need to allow Full Disk Access, which can also be done in Privacy & Security. Initiating a virus scan is an easy process that usually begins with the user clicking a Scan or Smart Scan button. Expect the scan to take a while if there is a lot of data on your Mac. These are the steps we went through to run a scan with Avira Free Security for Mac: Foundry Foundry Foundry Download Avira Avira Free Security for Mac here . Find the installer in your Downloads folder. Click on it. The installer window will open. Double-click on the Avira Security Installer. Click on Open. The installer will open. Click Accept & Install. Wait while it installs. Press Command and Spacebar and start typing Avira to find and open Avira Free Security. You need to allow the software to scan your Mac (this is the case with all antivirus apps), so click Open Full Disk Access. A System Settings window will open in Full Disk Access. You need to make sure that the slider beside both Avira Scan Service and Avira Security Helper is on. Enter your password to allow this. Now you can run a scan for viruses. Click on the Start Smart Scan button and wait. You can then choose to Fix issues and the Scan will remove some cookies and free up some gigabytes of space without you needing to pay anything. When we ran Avira it didnt find any viruses, but it did find 487 tracking cookies and indicated that we could free up 2.13 GB of space. If you do encounter any viruses there is a free 60-day trial, so you could take advantage of the trial and then cancel it before the 60 days are up and the subscription period starts. Foundry Foundry Foundry Best free Mac Antivirus Here is our pick of the best free Antivirus options if you dont want to pay to scan your Mac for viruses. Avast Free Antivirus AVG Antivirus for the Mac . Bitdefender Virus Scanner for Mac . Avira Free Security for Mac Intego VirusBarrier Scanner Best apps to check a Mac for viruses The best antivirus protection is paid for though. We have lots of options in our round up of the best antivirus solutions for Mac , here are few: 1. Intego Mac Internet Security X9 Price When Reviewed: From $24.99 for first year, then $84.99 a year (1 Mac) Using our link Best Prices Today: $39.99 at Intego (first year) Read our full Intego Mac Internet Security X9 review 2. AVG AntiVirus for Mac Price When Reviewed: Free download Best Prices Today: $0 at AVG Read our full AVG AntiVirus for Mac review 3. McAfee Total Protection Price When Reviewed: From $39.99 for first year, then $119.99 a year (5 devices) Best Prices Today: $39.99 at McAfee Total Protection Read our full McAfee Total Protection review 4. Sophos Home Premium for Mac Price When Reviewed: $45 for the first year Best Prices Today: $44.99 at Sophos Read our full Sophos Home Premium for Mac review Antivirus, Security Software and Services
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Pakistan stalwart Bismah Maroof announces shock international retirement
Having made her international debut in 2006, Maroof represented Pakistan in 276 international matches, aggregating 6,262 international runs, including 33 half-centuries to go with 80 wickets.
5 times Malavika Mohanan gave us travel goals through her stunning vacation pics
Malavika Mohanan, a true travel enthusiast, has always taken to her social media to share her travel diaries with her fans! This stunning lady knows how to ace each travel look and we are simply in awe of that! From looking absolutely stunning in sarees to some eye catchy western outfits, there isn't any look she cant pull off! This avid traveller has been giving us some major travel goals and now. We just eagerly want to pack our bags and leave for a vacation! Here are 5 looks of Malavika from her travel diaries. The Seaside Look! View this post on Instagram A post shared by Malavika Mohanan (@malavikamohanan_) Malavika Mohanan looks stunning in this black outfit & the serene beach is an absolute a treat to our eyes. Malavika looks so ethereal in this simple look. Captivating Bhutan View this post on Instagram A post shared by Malavika Mohanan (@malavikamohanan_) In this reel, we see the beautiful land of the thunder dragon, Bhutan through Malavikas lens and its soo jaw dropping. The beautiful valleys and majestic mountains have left us awestruck and we are all set to pack our bags, and get moving! Magical Malavika in Pink City - Jaipur View this post on Instagram A post shared by Malavika Mohanan (@malavikamohanan_) Well, the selfie with the pink cap has our hearts! A comfy outfit and the beauty of Jaipur is just breathtaking, and this gorgeous pink city is on our bucket list. Kerala Diaries View this post on Instagram A post shared by Malavika Mohanan (@malavikamohanan_) A vision in white salwar kameez and the gorgeous beauty of Kerela is what this picture screams! Malavika looks surreal and in this ethnic look and fashion with a dash of style is what this look is about. London in leather View this post on Instagram A post shared by Malavika Mohanan (@malavikamohanan_) When in London, wear leather! Malavika takes her fashion game an even higher with this leather jacket and skirt look! Also Read: These 5 looks of Malavika Mohanan are drop dead gorgeous! Check out!
Tamannaah summoned by cyber cell in illegal IPL streaming probe
Tamannaah Bhatia and Bollywood stalwart Sanjay Dutt find themselves summoned by the Maharashtra Cyber Cell for their purported involvement in the 2023 case concerning the illicit streaming of IPL matches. As per reports, Tamannaah is scheduled to appear before the cell on 29 April. Meanwhile, Dutt who was scheduled to appear on April 23 to record his statement, failed to make an appearance.
Open drains, garbage-littered streets, poor law and orderthe story of Badli
NEW DELHI: Nestled on the outskirts of bustling New Delhi, the village of Badli paints a picture of quaint yet pressing struggles. Its winding alleys, adorned with refuse and open drains, bear witness to the cramped existence of its inhabitants, dwelling in structures of modest stature but towering resilience. Echoes of discontent reverberate through the air, mingling with the stagnant waters of frequent floods that plague the village streets. Its baffling to reconcile our reality with the grandeur of being in the nations capital, laments Sunil Yadav, a voice among many in the chorus of dissatisfaction. Yet, beyond the tangible debris lies an invisible adversary pollution. Badli shares its breath with the nearby Sanjay Gandhi Transport Nagar, a bustling nexus of logistics where the daily dance of trucks further fouls the air. Close proximity to the Bhalswa landfill only compounds the issue. Naveen Gupta, a seasoned denizen, bemoans the perennial neglect from law enforcement, allowing the soil to absorb the blood spilled in senseless violence. The area is also frequently in the news as crime is rampant. Naveen Gupta, who has lived in the village for the past 30 years said. Our area has always been neglected by the police. As a result, murders and other serious crimes have always been common here But amidst the gloom, a beacon of progress emerges the extension of the Delhi Metros golden thread. Naveen Kumars voice rings with gratitude as he extols the newfound ease of traversing the city, a journey once measured in hours now condensed to mere minutes. Before the metro, it would take us almost two hours to reach central Delhi. The same journey now takes barely half an hour, says Naveen Kumar. Political tides ebb and flow in Badli, a microcosm of the larger electoral landscape. Over the years, the Badli seat in the Delhi assembly has witnessed a carousel of political affiliations, with the BJP reigning from 1993 to 2008, followed by the Congress from 2008 to 2015, and currently, the AAP since 2015. Ajesh of the AAP currently holds sway, securing 49.65% of the votes in 2020. Yet, the stage is set for a new act in the drama of democracy. Badlis fate hangs in the balance as stalwarts vie for the peoples mandate. Yogendra Chandolia, adorned with the BJPs banner, seeks to reclaim lost ground, while Udit Raj, a prodigal son returning under the Congresss flag, aims to rewrite his political narrative.
PM has no bias, he had only reacted to Congress manifesto, says Tamilisai Soundararajan
COIMBATORE: Former Governor and BJPs South Chennai candidate Tamilisai Soundararajan on Wednesday said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi does not discriminate against minorities and he had only reacted to the Lok Sabha election manifesto of the Congress party. Interacting with the media at the Coimbatore International Airport, Tamilisai asserted that Modis mantra is development and growth for all and he never differentiated between the minority and majority communities. In a recent election speech the PM warned that the Congress wants to distribute the nations wealth among infiltrators and those who have more children if it comes to power. This is widely deemed to be a reference to the Muslim community. Actually the PM stated that our countrys resources are plundered and our property should not go into the hands of infiltrators as over one crore who intruded into West Bengal were issued ration cards by the state government, Tamilisai clarified. In her defence of the BJP stalwart, Tamilisai also said even Muslims benefited from the central governments popular schemes. Muslims too were among the 10 crore beneficiaries of free LPG connections and the National Health Protection Scheme. However, the opposition parties are creating an impression that only they can protect the minorities. By projecting the BJP and Prime Minister Modi as against them (minorities) they are trying to make it a major issue in the election campaign, she said. Tamilisai also charged that Congress leader Rahul Gandhi was not in the country to speak against it. We dont know where he is now. It is sad the Congress is accusing the PM when the party is having a leader like Rahul Gandhi who is unable to stand with the people during the election, said Tamilisai in an apparent reference to his recent absence from the poll campaign owing to ill-health. While referring to the BJP governments efforts to empower Muslim women, Tamilisai also took potshots at Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin. Despite CM Stalin speaking about womens rights, he did not take steps to help Muslim women go to the Hajj alone. However, the PM has given visa relaxation and appointed a woman as the V-C of Aligarh Muslim University, she remarked. Tamilisai also raked up her partys claim that the names of several eligible voters in the state were missing from electoral rolls. She urged the Election Commission to reconsider including the voters in the list as lakhs of voters were denied the right to franchise. Its sad that the Election Commission officials are saying that they can rectify the fault in the voters list only in the next election, she said. Tamilisai also questioned why CM Stalin, who is raising his voice even for small issues, remains silent over the alleged deletion of voters from the list. She also visited the temple near Perumanallur at her native place. ECI urged to ban Modis campaigns Madurai: Various human rights organisations like the Peoples Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) and the Peoples Watch, have requested the ECI to impose a ban on PM Narendra Modis election campaigns, after he allegedly violated the Model Code of Conduct (MCC) and used pejorative language against minority communities during a recent canvassing trail. The bodies collectively submitted a petition to Collector-cum-Returning Officer MS Sangeetha, in which they said that PM had made a hate speech in Rajasthans Banswara. Modis speech, the statement added, was aimed at instigating hatred between Hindus and Muslims.
WRAPUP 2-Israel says Rafah assault looms; massive Gaza airstrikes end weeks of relative calm
WRAPUP 2-Israel says Rafah assault looms; massive Gaza airstrikes end weeks of relative calm Israeli warplanes pounded the northern Gaza strip for a second day on Wednesday in a fierce assault that has shattered weeks of comparative calm, and Israel said it was moving forward with plans for an all-out assault on Rafah in the south. After an abrupt Israeli pullback at the start of this month, Palestinians at both ends of the Gaza Strip were again fleeing for their lives from bombing they described as some of the war's worst. A spokesperson for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government said Israel was moving ahead with its plans for a ground operation on Rafah but gave no timeline. Western countries, including Israel's closest ally the United States, have pleaded with it to hold back from attacking the city on Gaza's southern edge, which is sheltering more than half the enclave's 2.3 million people. At the White House, U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan said Washington was still talking with Israel about Rafah and officials from both countries expected to meet again in person soon. We've had very detailed discussions ... to talk through not just our concerns, but our view that there is a different way to go about dealing with the Hamas threat in Rafah, he told reporters. A senior Israeli defence official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Israel was poised to evacuate civilians ahead of its attack and had bought 40,000 tents that could house 10-12 people each. All that remained was for Netanyahu to give the order. Displaced people sheltering in Rafah are weighing whether to flee again. Tamer Al-Burai, who fled from Gaza City and is now living in Rafah in a cluster of tents with seven households of extended family, said the entire group was heading to the north since Israel sounds more serious in its threats this time. We have women, children, elderly and sick people, who may face problems escaping should the invasion happen suddenly, he told Reuters over a chat app. Invasions happen under heavy fire and people die as they leave. So we decided we should leave earlier. HAMAS RELEASES HOSTAGE VIDEO At the opposite end of the Gaza Strip in the north, the city of Beit Lahiya came under massive shelling for a second day on Wednesday, a day after the Israeli military ordered residents out of four districts declared a dangerous combat zone. Israel said its operations there targeted areas from where the armed wing of Hamas-aligned Islamic Jihad fired rockets at two Israeli border settlements on Tuesday. Israel has said it will eradicate Hamas following the militant group's rampage in southern Israel on Oct. 7 in which 1,200 people were killed and 253 were taken hostage, according to Israeli tallies. Hamas released a video on Wednesday that apparently showed Israeli American hostage Hersh Goldberg-Polin, 23, alive. His father, Jonathan Polin, urged leaders to reach a ceasefire deal. We're relieved to see him alive but we're also concerned about his health and wellbeing as well as that of all of the other hostages and all of those suffering in this region, his father said in a video message. The war, now in its seventh month, has killed more than 34,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza health authorities. The offensive has laid to waste much of the enclave, displacing most of its 2.3 million people and creating a humanitarian crisis. In the past 24 hours, Israeli strikes have killed at least 79 Palestinians and wounded 86, the Gaza Health Ministry said. In the U.S., protests, some broken up by police, against Israel's campaign in Gaza are spreading on college campuses, as are concerns about Jewish students facing intimidation or antisemitism. Democratic U.S. President Joe Biden, who seeks re-election in November, has seen his stalwart backing of Israel erode support among Democratic voters. Asked about the protests, the White House walked a careful line on Wednesday. Biden's press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said the president believes free speech and nondiscrimination are important on college campuses and students should feel safe. Residents in the north of Gaza, many of whom have started to return to homes abandoned in the first phase of the war, on Wednesday described some of the most intense bombing since the war's early weeks. We don't know why this is all happening. Is it because ... we finally got some aid through after months of starvation, and the Israelis didn't like that? said Mohammad Jamal, 29, a resident of Gaza City. In Washington, Sullivan said the U.S. has seen a marked increase in aid reaching Gaza and especially vulnerable north Gaza since Biden and Netanyahu spoke on April 4. Sullivan said the aid flow needed to increase further, a repeated U.S. demand. The comment came after U.N. aid agency UNRWA said on Tuesday that the number of relief trucks entering the enclave had reached the highest point so far in the conflict. In the Nasser hospital complex, the main medical facility in the south, authorities said they had recovered more bodies from a mass grave, taking the total to 334. Palestinians say Israeli troops buried corpses there with bulldozers to cover up crimes. The Israeli military denies this although it says its troops dug up some bodies at the site and reburied them after testing to make sure no hostages were there.
Congress finally clears pending names
Party stalwart Ramasahayam Surender Reddys son gets nomination from Khammam Lok Sabha constituency
Congress finally clears pending names
Party stalwart Ramasahayam Surender Reddys son gets nomination from Khammam Lok Sabha constituency
DSCI Cybersecurity Centre of Excellence hosts Cybersecurity and Privacy Conference
Hyderabad: The DSCIs Cybersecurity Centre of Excellence (CCoE), Telangana hosts a Cybersecurity and Privacy Conference at Hyderabad. This pioneering effort by Dr Sriram Birudavolu, CEO of the Cybersecurity Centre of Excellence Telangana was aimed at sensitising the government departments to the vulnerabilities of cyber-attacks and developing a strategy to counter the same. The conference was attended by distinguished guests from various departments of the Government of Telangana, including Dr Jayesh Ranjan, Special Chief Secretary, ITE&C Department and Department of Industries & Commerce, who was the Chief Guest of the event.Ms Rama Devi Lanka, Director, Emerging Technologieswas the Guest of Honour, and Mr Venu Prasad, Jt. Director (Infra & Communications)was a special guest at the conference. Industry stalwarts such as Mr Vinayak Godse, CEO DSCI, and Mr Srikanth Srinivasan, Vice President of NASSCOM were also present at the conference and enriched the gathering with their valuable insights. Over 200 government representatives from 30+ departments attended the event. The event featured specialized sessions covering a wide range of topics, including Cybersecurity Best Practices, Data Privacy and DSCI Privacy Seal, Risk Management, Incident Response, and more. Led by industry experts, these sessions provided invaluable insights into tackling modern cybersecurity challenges.The DSCI Cybersecurity Centre of Excellence team also conducted a VPAT evaluation of the government website and presented the outcomes. They also shared insights on what the various departments should consider and the role CCoE can play in helping them implement those solutions.The conference witnessed a dynamic exchange of ideas, fostering collaborations between government entities and industry stakeholders to strengthen the cybersecurity ecosystem. Mr. Jayesh Ranjan appreciated the team at CCoE for conducting the VPAT exercise for the government website. He encouraged the departments to identify common areas for collaboration to utilize the transformative potential of Cybersecurity Centre of Excellence, Telangana and devise strategies to safeguard the critical infrastructure and sensitive data assets in this digital era. According to Dr Sriram Birudavolu, CEO of the Cybersecurity Centre of Excellence Telangana, The CCoE has been set up with an aim to provide secure and resilient cyberspace to fulfil the needs of the digital economy and society by creating a cluster of cybersecurity organisations in the state. This conference was organized to highlight the vulnerabilities and give a holistic view of cybersecurity best practices and affordable indigenous solutions to the government departments. the conference emerged as a cornerstone event, highlighting proactive efforts to fortify the cybersecurity landscape across government entities.The CCoE conducted a vulnerability assessment and penetration testing exercise on a government website. Seven startups and partners of CCoE were recognized for their exemplary performance in conducting penetration testing exercises on government department websites, underscoring their commitment to advancing cybersecurity standards.Leading industry players actively participated in the event, showcasing their latest product and service offerings tailored to meet the cybersecurity needs of government departments. Stalls set up by companies such as TCP Wave, Qualys, Seqrite, Cotelligent, and others provided attendees with insights into cutting-edge cybersecurity solutions.
SRK, Ranbir & Saif rejected THIS Kjo movie
'2 States' celebrated its 10th anniversary recently, revealing intriguing casting revelations. Initially offered to Bollywood stalwarts Shah Rukh Khan, Saif Ali Khan, and Ranbir Kapoor, the romantic drama based on Chetan Bhagat's book saw Arjun Kapoor eventually taking the lead alongside Alia Bhatt. Vishal Bhardwaj was initially set to direct but creative differences altered the course. Despite initial refusals, Arjun Kapoor's casting proved fortuitous, yielding significant success. Producer Sajid Nadiadwala expressed reservations initially but later acknowledged Kapoor's aptness for the role. The film, capturing Krish Malhotra's and Ananya's cross-cultural romance during MBA studies at IIM-Ahmedabad, grossed Rs 175 crore worldwide. Inspired by Bhagat's own love story, the film resonated with audiences, cementing its status as a beloved Bollywood classic despite its journey through different casting choices.
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Thoonga Nagaram steps out to watch Alagar enter Vaigai
MADURAI: Chants of Vararu Vararu Alagar Vararu and Govinda Govinda echoed through the streets of Madurai as Lord Kallalagar, adorned in traditional green silk attire, was taken on a procession on his vahana, a golden horse, before entering the Vaigai River early on Tuesday. Lord Kallalagars procession from Alagar Hills to Madurai, part of the Chithirai festival celebrations, is the largest festival in Madurai, attracting lakhs of devotees who congregate to witness the procession and the rituals. After visiting hundreds of mandagapadis, with more than 460 mandagapadis located along the procession path, Lord Kallalagar was brought in a golden palanquin to the Arulmigu Prasanna Venkatachalapathy Temple in Tallakulam on Monday night. After performing rituals, the deity was adorned in green silk, representing agricultural prosperity, and taken on the golden horse from the temple to the Vaigai River. Earlier, Lord Veera Ragava Perumal, mounted on his vahana, a silver horse, was brought to the northern banks of the Vaigai. Lord Kallalagar was brought to the Vaigai northern banks by 5.45 am. Upon arrival, Lord Veera Ragava Perumal, in a symbolic gesture, received Lord Kallagar on a special platform made for the deity to enter into the river. The procession circled on the platform after entering the Vaigai, allowing lakhs of people to get a darshanam of the deity. Devotees chanted Govinda Govinda and showed deepam to offer their prayers to Lord Kallalagar. After the pooja, the procession proceeded along the Vaigai Bank road to Ramarayar Mandapam for the Theerthavari ritual, during which thousands of devotees sprayed scented water on the procession deity using thopparai, customary bags made of goat leather. The procession then proceeded to the Vandiyur Perumal temple. Later in the day, Lord Kallalagar will head to the Thenur Mandabam, to lift the curse of Sage Manduka, and then proceed to the Ramarayar Mandapam during midnight for Dashavatar darshanam. Lakhs of people from various places reached Goripalayam to view Kallalagar entering the Vaigai River. Owing to the immense crowd, the Vaigai Bank road was fully packed and minor issues were reported, which were addressed by the cops at the venue. In contrast to last year, people were allowed to enter the Vaigai River this year, averting a stampede-like situation that occurred near the Devar statue last year. Considering the water flow in the river, swimmers from police and fire departments were deputed, along with life jackets and life buoys. Man fatally stabbed amid crowd, one held Madurai: The Mathichiyam police arrested a man in connection with the fatal stabbing of a 28-year-old, and injuring his friend in Alwarpuram around 1.30 am on Monday. Police identified the deceased as Sonai (28) of Sivaganga district. Sonai was standing with his friend M Karthick. Karthick was reportedly involved in a dispute with the accused, A Sathishkumar, as his wife and the latter were involved in an extramarital affair. With this as the motive, Sathishkumar stabbed Karthick, amidst the Chithirai festival crowd. When Sonai attempted to stop the attack, he sustained stab injuries. The duo was taken to the Government Rajaji Hospital, where Sonai succumbed to his injuries. Karthick is undergoing treatment. Meanwhile, the Mathichiyam police arrested Sathishkumar and are investigating. ENS
I am Balasaheb Thackerays follower, people will vote for that: Rahul Shewale
Shiv Sena stalwart defends legacy amid traitor accusations and internal strife ahead of elections
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US charges, sanctions Iranians linked to Revolutionary Guard cyber command
US charges, sanctions Iranians linked to Revolutionary Guard cyber command The U.S. government on Tuesday announced criminal charges and sanctions against four Iranians over an alleged multi-year cyber campaign targeting more than one dozen American companies, the Treasury Department and the State Department said. Sanctions were also announced against two companies, Mehrsam Andisheh Saz Nik and Dadeh Afzar Arman, that according to the Treasury Department employed the individual defendants and were front companies for Iran's Revolutionary Guard cyber command. Federal prosecutors in Manhattan said the corporate targets were primarily defense contractors that had access to classified information, while other targets included a New York-based accounting firm and New York-based hospitality company. Prosecutors said the defendants infected computers with malware by using spearfishing, which involves tricking email recipients into clicking malicious links, and impersonating women to gain people's confidence. More than 200,000 employee accounts were compromised at the accounting firm, and more than 2,000 were compromised at the hospitality company, prosecutors said. The alleged wrongdoing occurred between 2016 and 2021. Criminal activity originating from Iran poses a grave threat to America's national security and economic stability, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement. The individual defendants Hossein Harooni, Reza Kazemifar, Alireza Nasab and Komeil Salmani are all in their mid- to late-30s and at large, prosecutors said. Each was charged with wire fraud, wire fraud conspiracy and conspiracy to commit computer intrusions. Harooni was also charged with damaging a protected computer, and Harooni and Nasab were charged with aggravated identity theft.
How to back up a MacBook or Mac
Macworld You may have arrived at this article because you have just encountered the nightmare scenario of having your Mac fail without a backup, or perhaps you know someone who has had such a dreadful situation befall them and you want to make sure it doesnt happen to you. Or maybe you just messed up a document you were working on, saved over something you didnt want to lose, or realized that you deleted a chunk of work by accident. Recovering unsaved of deleted Word documents can be a particular challenge. If only you had a backup and could recover an earlier version. Whatever your reason for wanting to find out the best way to back up your Mac, we aim to help you come up with a Mac backup plan. Well look at the various kinds of Mac backups you can have, including local wired or wireless backups, live backups, remote backups, and online backups. Well also examine the best Mac backup solutions, including backing up to iCloud or another online service such as Dropbox, using Time Machine or other backup software for a local backup (we have an in-depth article about how to use Time Machine here ), and the various remote backup services that are available to you if you want to make sure that you can recover your data if both your computer and local backup gets wiped out. If you have just lost everything on your Mac due to a damaged drive then have a look at this article for some ideas on ways to recover your data from your damaged drive . We have a separate guide to the best backup software . Why you need to back up your Mac Were probably preaching to the converted here, but well quickly run through the reasons why you really ought to be backing up your Mac, in no particular order: Because you (or someone else) might spill a drink on your MacBook. Because your drive could fail and it can be particularly challenging to recover data from SSDs. Because you could lose your Mac or someone might steal your Mac. Mac malware is rare, but if you get hit a backup will enable you to recover your data from before the infection. You should back up your Mac before installing a major update to macOS in case something stops working and so you can revert to the old version of the OS. You will be able to access old documents and versions of documents that predate edits. You might think that there is nothing on your Mac that needs to be backed up perhaps you sync everything in iCloud but we guarantee there is something you will miss if you wipe your Mac and expect to get everything back to the way it was. It makes it really easy to set up a new Mac. If you get a new Mac you can easily recover all your data onto it and carry on as if it was the same Mac. It means you could access your data using another Mac if you have the backup available. Some things, like photos, are impossible to replace or recreate so make sure they are stored safely. Best way to back up a Mac or MacBook There are lots of ways you can backup your Mac, but if you were to choose just one way to backup a Mac, which should it be? Well, the simplest and cheapest solution is probably to back up using Time Machine , Apples free backup software. The only associated cost would be purchasing an external drive but since you can purchase 1TB storage for less than 40/$30 these days, it shouldnt break the bank. Weve got a round-up of the best hard drives here. Backing up your Mac with Time Machine is a good solution, but is it the best backup solution? A better solution might be one that is not kept at the same location as your Mac, given that if there was a fire or flood, both Mac and backup could be destroyed. There are many alternatives to Time Machine that you might prefer. We look at the best backup software separately, including Acronis, ChronoSync, Carbon Copy Cloner, Carbonite and SuperDuper. Well look at some of the options below, but our advice is dont rely on just one of the following! Option 1: Use Time Machine Apple includes its own backup software, Time Machine as part of the macOS. Its an exceptionally easy-to-use solution. All you need to do is plug in an external storage device, hard drive or SSD, and start backing up with Time Machine. We have a complete guide to using Time Machine to back up your Mac . Time Machine wont just back up your Mac, it creates a versioned backup, which means it will keep hourly backups for the past 24 hours, daily backups for the past month, and weekly backups for each month. As a result, you can recover an earlier version of a document if you need to. Having a versioned backup is a benefit because not only does it protect you if something goes wrong with your Mac, it also protects you from user error (saving over a document for example). ChronoSync ($49.99/36.00 at Econ Technologies) can also make versioned backups too. Other benefits of Time Machine include its tight integration with macOS. Armed with a Time Machine backup you can easily transfer all your data, settings, and apps from one Mac to another. Its also really intuitive to use. The main disadvantage of Time Machine is that you need to remember to plug in your hard drive otherwise nothing will be backed up. You could set up Time Machine on a NAS drive for a wireless backup, but that might be a bit slower. Youll also need a lot of storage available because Time Machine backups take up more space than all the data on your Mac, because of those incremental backups. Wed recommend using a drive with at least four times as much space as you have on your Mac. See our round-up of the best hard drive we also have a collection of the Best SSDs for Mac . How to back up your Mac with Time Machine We have a step-by-step guide to backing up with Time Machine , but essentially you just need to do the following: Plug in a hard drive or SSD (alternatively you can use a NAS drive). You should see an alert on your Mac asking if you want to use the drive with Time Machine. Click Use as Backup Disk. If you dont see the alert, make sure the drive is formatted correctly it needs to be Mac OS Extended (Journaled), if it isnt read this . If you still dont see the alert, open System Settings > General > Time Machine and choose Backup Disk. (System Preferences > Time Machine for older macOS versions). Choose the storage device and click Use Disk. We cover how to delete Time Machine Mac backups in a separate article. Option 2: Use iCloud With iPhones and iPads you can save a backup of your device in iCloud that you can recover your device from. If you get a new iPhone you can use the iCloud backup to recover all your settings and data to the new device. If you were hoping that you could back up your Mac to Apples iCloud instead of an external hard drive prepare to be disappointed though: you cant back up your whole Mac to iCloud and iCloud doesnt work with Time Machine. That doesnt mean that iCloud cant be used to back up some of whats on your Mac though. You can automatically sync certain files from your Mac to iCloud, you shouldnt see this as a backup though, because if you delete the file, or amend the file, there wont be an old version you can go back to. This is a sync rather than a backup. Having your files synced to iCloud is great though because you can access them on any of your Apple devices (and even from a PC if you log into your account via iCloud.com). The files you can sync this way include everything on your Desktop and everything in your Documents folder. If you use apps like Pages and Numbers the documents you create will also be saved to the cloud, and your Mail and Messages can also be stored in the cloud. You will need to pay Apple a monthly subscription for iCloud storage. Monthly subscription prices are as follows: US: 99c (50GB), $2.99 (200GB), $9.99 (2TB), $29.99 (6TB), $59.99 (12TB) UK: 99p (50GB), 2.99 (200GB), 8.99 (2TB), 26.99 (6TB), 54.99 (12TB) Canada: $1.29 (50GB), $3.99 (200GB), $12.99 (2TB), $39.99 (6TB), $79.99 (12TB) Australia: $1.49 (50GB), $4.49 (200GB), $14.99 (2TB), $44.99 (6TB), $89.99 (12TB) Euros: 99c (50GB), 2.99 (200GB), 9.99 (2TB), 29.99 (6TB), 59.99 (12TB) You can also sync your Photos to iCloud Photo Library, and, if you have a lot of music on your Mac, you can store all your music in iCloud using iTunes Match (for $24.99/21.99 a year,) or, if you already subscribe to Apple Music (9.99/$9.99 a month) you can use iCloud Music Library to access your music anywhere. We explain the difference between iTunes Match and Apple Music here. Thats what you can sync automatically, but as we said above, you can use iCloud to back up some of the data on your Mac just by copying a folder to your iCloud Drive rather than syncing it. How to sync your Mac to iCloud Heres how to sync your Mac using iCloud. Open System Settings and click on the Apple ID section. (Older Macs: System Preferences > iCloud). Click on iCloud. Sign in to iCloud if you arent already. Go to the Apps Using iCloud section and make sure that everything you want to sync is selected. You can also sync your Desktop and Documents folders. To find this option click on iCloud Drive and ensure that Desktop & Documents Folders is selected. Foundry Foundry Foundry How to backup your Mac to iCloud This wont be automated in the same way as the sync, but its a good idea to copy any datathat isnt being synced over to iCloud from time to time. Heres how to do that: Open the Finder Click on the iCloud Drive folder in the bar on the left. Open a second Finder window and locate any folder, files or data associated with an app that isnt based in the cloud. You can now copy that data onto your iCloud Drive. Foundry Foundry Foundry Now you will not only be able to access the data on any of your Apple devices, and even via the web on a non-Apple device, you will be able to recover it if something goes wrong with your Mac. Its also a great way to get an offsite backup. Just dont forget to regularly update that backup. Option 3: Use another cloud backup solution There are many alternatives to iCloud if you are looking for a way to sync and share your files. You might already be using Dropbox, Google Drive, Microsoft OneDrive, or one of the other Cloud storage services we look at separately. These solutions are generally used for sharing files with colleagues or friends, or storing files that everyone can collaborate on, rather than backing up all your data. Like iCloud you can subscribe to data plans that would allow you to store all your data in the cloud, but as with iCloud you wouldnt easily be able to download a clone of your Mac should it be lost or stolen. How to back up to Dropbox, One Drive, or Google Drive If you want to back up a few files then Dropbox, One Drive or Google Drive could be a good solution. Youll have the benefit of being able to access the files from any device and you will essentially have a low-cost off-site backup. In the case of Dropbox, sign up for a Dropbox account here , download the software, and install it. (Or log into your existing account if you are already signed up). Once the software is installed on your Mac open Dropbox this will actually take you to the web interface where you can copy your files too. Click on Upload Files or Upload Folder on the right, locate the folder you wish to upload and click on Choose. Wait while the folder uploads. You can also easily drag your files and folders into Dropbox via the Finder. When DropBox is installed on your Mac you will see a Dropbox tab under Favourites in the Finder, just drag and drop anything into that folder and it will be backed up to Dropbox, and accessible on any other computer or iOS device that has Dropbox installed. The process is similar for the other cloud storage services. Option 4: Use an off-site backup Those cloud services above are more for syncing and sharing files, not for storing all your data, but there are dedicated online backup solutions, such as Carbonite , which will backup your Mac over the web, for a fee (from $4.75 a month or $56.99 a year, 30-day free trial). CrashPlan is another option (from $2.99 a month, $35.88 a year, 14-day free trial). The benefit of one of these dedicated cloud backup services is that the backup is remote so if your Mac was destroyed in a fire or flood along with your Time Machine backup, youd have a copy of all your data in a secure facility (these places will have a way of keeping your data safe and accessible even if they suffer a power cut or similar, although were not sure about end-of-the-world scenarios). If your Mac fails, is lost, or is stolen, you can recover everything from this cloud backup, as long as you have access to the internet. The main disadvantage of either of these methods is that it can take a long time to complete that initial backup of your data, especially if you have a slow broadband connection, and, on the flip side, it can take an equally long time to recover all your data in fact it could take weeks to restore all your data. You may also want to look at whether your broadband service is capped for uploads and downloads, because you may tip it over the edge and encounter extra fees if you were to upload or download a few hundred gigabytes of data. Another option is to look for a service that will send you a drive to backup to which you can then send to them for storage. How to back up your Mac to an online backup service As with the alternatives to Time Machine that we discussed above, the way you back up your Mac to one of these online services will be determined by the one you choose, however, the process is likely to run something like this: Register for an account with the service you may have to sign up for a subscription rather than make an upfront payment as is often the case these days. Install the software provided by the supplier and run through the setup process. Its possible that the backup process will begin immediately. This can take A Very Long Time. How quickly the backup happens is mostly determined by your broadband connection, but there might be settings available in the apps Preferences that can let you speed things up. Another way to speed things up is to leave some things out of the backup, so take a look through whats being backed up and deselect things that you dont need. When the worst happens and you need to restore your data youll probably need to log in with your ID and password so make sure you keep a copy of them somewhere other than on the Mac you are backing up. Option 5: Clone your hard drive As with Time Machine, you can use the backup drive or clone to recover your Mac in the case of failure and to retrieve an earlier version of a document or a deleted photo. And, as with Time Machine, you do need to remember to plug in your drive for the backup. A clone is slightly different to a Time Machine backup because it can be used to boot from, so you could plug it into another Mac and boot up from it without recovering your Mac, which could be useful as a temporary measure. You cant use a Time Machine backup in this way. However, the ability to recover your Mac from a clone is no longer as simple as it was. Over the past few years, starting with Catalina and culminating with the arrival of the M1 Mac, the way that Apple organizes the startup volume has changed. Apple now splits the volume in two, separating data (which can be written) from the system volume (which is read-only and is where all your system settings and all the things macOS needs to work are stored). Not only is this system volume read-only, its now a sealed volume, which means that it will be invalidated if the seal is broken which will be the case if you try to boot from an external drive. There are some workarounds that some backup software developers have used to get around this issue, but essentially it isnt as reliable a way to recover a Mac from a backup as it once was not least because Apple could change things again making your bootable clone redundant. So recovering from a clone is no longer the best way to recover your Mac following disaster. However, the data volume can still be backed up. To do this you could simply use Disk Utility to copy the Data volume to a disk image or back it up to a drive. We look at a number of Mac backup software options separately, including: : Carbon Copy Cloner ($49.99/41.85, 30 day trial) has evolved from creating bootable clones. You can set backups to run or have them be triggered by events, such as plugging in a drive. Backups are incremental, just like Time Machine. ChronoSync ($49.99) can be used to create clones and archives of the Data volume, but another thing it can do is allow you to synchronize folders on your Mac with another drive or computer regularly. SuperDuper ($27.95/27.50) You can make bootable clones and can even clone and Smart Update Time Machine backups. The latest version of SuperDuper adds support for creating bootable clones on Big Sur and Monterey Macs and is Apple silicon native. How to clone your Mac The method you use to clone your Mac will depend on the software you are using to back up your Mac, the Mac you own and the version of macOS it is running it may just not be possible but if your Mac can create a clone you can expect it to be something like this: Plug in your external storage. You may need to format, or reformat, the drive, before you can use it. In that case, open Disk Utility and with the external drive selected, click on Erase, choose the macOS Extended (Journaled) from the format options, and click Erase again. Open your cloning software. Its likely that the software will give you an option to Copy whats on your Macs internal storage to the external drive. Youll want to pay attention to what you can copying make sure you copy all files, for example, because otherwise your clone might not be bootable. Before the copy gets underway you may need to enter your password and confirm that you are happy to erase anything on the external drive. Expect the cloning process to take a while, once its done, click OK. Backup Software, Mac, MacOS, Personal Software
Retirement plan ready: Congress' Manickam Tagore takes swipe at PM Modi
Retirement plan ready: Congress' Manickam Tagore takes swipe at PM Modi In a scathing attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the ruling BJP at the Centre, Congress leader Manickam Tagore claimed on Tuesday that his party faces a resounding defeat in Rajasthan and elsewhere in North India, also known as the heartland. Speaking to reporters on Tuesday, the Congress leader, who is seeking a fresh term in the Lok Sabha from Tamil Nadu this year, said, The people of India have made up their minds to oust him and send him on retirement on June 4 (the scheduled counting of votes for the 18th Lok Sabha). His retirement plan is ready. Claiming that the BJP-RSS have always stood 'against reservation', the Congress leader said, We are a party that has always fought for reservation in the country and introduced quotas. We have been implementing reservations in the country for the last 75 years. Tagore, the sitting Congress MP from Virudhunagar constituency in Tamil Nadu, is seeking a fresh term in the Lower House this year. He cast his vote at Thirunagar in Madurai district during polling in the opening phase of the general elections on April 19. However, he is pitted against formidable challengers in the form of actor-turned-politician Raadhika Sarathkumar, who is the BJP's pick for the constituency, and Vijaya Prabhakaran of the DMDK. The constituency happens to be the birthplace of K Kamraj, one of the stalwarts of Dravidian politics. All 39 Lok Sabha seats in Tamil Nadu polled in the first phase, last week. A total of 102 seats across 21 states and UTs voted in Phase 1. The secular alliance led by the ruling DMK scored a near-clean sweep in Tamil Nadu in the 2019 polls, winning 38 of the 39 seats. (ANI)
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How Congress' fall in Surat mirrors its wider decline across India
AHMEDABAD: When BJP secured its inaugural uncontested seat in the 2024 Lok Sabha from Surat city in Gujarat, it captured the nation's attention, focusing it on Surat's political landscape. Today, Surat stands as a bastion of the BJP, with Congress having seemingly vanished from the scene. Yet, there was a time when Congress held sole dominion over this very city. Traditionally, Surat was never an activity hub for the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) or BJP. However, over the past three decades, the party has experienced a remarkable ascension. Today, it stands at an unparalleled pinnacle, largely due to the diminishing presence of the Congress party's cadre and leadership. Simultaneously, the BJP's five decades of dedicated effort, coupled with demographic shifts, enabled it to step into the void within Surat's political landscape, the economic hub of the state. Not far back, BJP had little in presence even in the Surat Municipal Corporation. It was in the mid eighties that a group of councilors broke away from the Congress party and allied with the BJP and took over reigns in the municipal corporation. Since then BJP has never looked back in Surat. Another major turning point for the BJP was in a municipal election a quarter of a century ago, when a whopping 98 of its councilors got elected after the Congress failed to ensure timely delivery of election documents to its candidates. Moreover, there was an anti Congress sentiment due to the Bofors bribery accusations in the 1990s. As a result, out of the four assembly seats in the Surat constituency, the Congress party lost three to BJP and one to Yuva Vikas Party (then supported Janta Dal led by the then leader late Chimanbhai Patel). Since then, Congress has never succeeded either regaining power in the municipal corporation or even winning all four assembly seats. Senior Journalist of Surat, Bakul Tailor, said: The fall of Congress and rise of BJP can be credited to two to three developments: First, the change demography. Earlier the city politics was dominated by local indigenous communities like Koli Patels, Khatris, Gola and Gannchi. But with flourishing diamond and textile industries, people from Saurashtra, North Gujarat, Rajasthan, and Punjab started pouring in the city. People from Saurashtra were Patidars, from North Gujarat, there came members of the Jain Community, and from Rajasthan and Punjab, mostly Baniyas influenced by the BJP. This migration slowly and steadily built a strong vote bank for the BJP. BJP benefited more from these communities because of its members across the city and in all 10 seats. 2009 delimitation also helped the ruling party to cut to size minority domination in any assembly seats of the city, he added. Surat Congress Leader and INTUK member Kamran Usmani said: Changing demography and changes in leadership proved a double blow to the Congress party. After the sudden demise of C D Patel, Amarsinh Chaudhary, and the retirement of stalwart Jeenabhai Darji, local party leaders like Kadir Pirzada, Jawahar Upadhyay, Thakor Naik, Pratap Kantharia and Sunil Bhukhanwala failed to rise to the occasion and provide a strong leadership and keep the party united and take it forward. Instead they kept themselves busy in groupism and ensuring that no new leadership develops in the party. Against that, the BJP got leaders like Kashiram Rana, Fakir Chauhan, organiser Arvind Godiwala, Suman Desai, Ramanlal Patel and Jayanti Kevat who worked day and night in expanding party network. In 1995, the BJP single-handedly won the state assembly, which helped the local leaders to take up development projects in the city and change the perception of local voters towards the party. It helped develop an image that BJP is result oriented and believes in public welfare. During this long journey, many congress leaders joined BJP and strengthened its presence not only in Surat city but even in South Gujarat, be it leaders like Rupin Pachhhigar, Manu Jarkahiya, Dinesh Kachdiya, from Surat city or Jitu Chaudhary from Valsad Prabhu Vasava from Bardoli. Mangal Gavit From Dang, Chhana Chaudhry Vansda.
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Fahadh Faasil opens up about working with Kamal Haasan, Mammootty and Rajinikanth
Fahadh Faasil opens up about working with stalwarts Kamal Haasan, Mammootty and Rajinikanth One of the most versatile actors in Indian cinema today, Fahadh Faasil has had the rare opportunity of collaborating with some of the biggest names in the industry. In a recent interview, the renowned actor shared his experiences of working alongside icons [] The post Fahadh Faasil opens up about working with Kamal Haasan, Mammootty and Rajinikanth appeared first on Northlines .
Jolt to BJD as Party Leader Raseswari Panigrahi Resigns from Party
Sambalpur: Former Sambalpur MLA Raseswari Panigrahi on Tuesday resigned from the primary membership of the BJD, apparently protesting denial of party ticket to her to contest the forthcoming 2024 assembly polls Panigrahi represented Sambalpur in the Odisha Legislative Assembly from 2014 to 2019. She dropped enough hints that she resigned from the party in protest against fielding an outsider as the candidate for Sambalpur Lok Sabha seat and giving ticket to an ineligible candidate for the local assembly seat. I resigned from the BJD to uphold the dignity and honour of Sambalpur. I will work for the self-esteem and self-respect of this land, said, adding, she would refrain from electoral politics for some time now. Panigrahis outsider remark is seen as directed against Pranab Prakash Das, the BJD organising secretary hailing from coastal Odisha district of Jajpur. Das is contesting from Sambalpur Lok Sabha seat and is pitted against BJP stalwart and Union minister Dharmendra Pradhan. The BJD has fielded Rohit Pujari for Sambalpur assembly seat. Panigrahis ineligible tag is also seen as directed against former minister Rohit Pujari. On June 23, 2023, Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik had dropped Pujari from his cabinet on the ground of poor performance.
Singanamala, the land of political stalwarts, freedom fighters
ANANTAPUR: Singanamala Assembly constituency in Anantapur district has a history of producing political stalwarts and freedom fighters. It has not only given ministers to the State but also sent Neelam Sanjiva Reddy to the august office of the President of India. Even before independence, the Singanamala region was known for producing leaders who strove to uplift the people. It has become popular as the land of revolutionaries and social workers. While, legendary communist leader Tarimela Nagireddy hailed from Tarimela village in the constituency, Neelam Rajasekhara Reddy is another leader who made an arc on the political scape of the country. Singanamala was part of the Putluru Assembly constituency in 1952 and in 1967 during the delimitation process, it became the Assembly constituency replacing Putluru. It comprised Singanamala, Bukkarayasamudram, Garladinne, Narpala, Atmakur, and Kuderu mandals. It was reserved for the SCs in 1978. In the 2009 delimitation process, the Atmakur mandal went to the Raptadu Assembly constituency, and Kuderu mandal was merged with the Uravakonda Assembly constituency. In their place, Yellanuru and Putluru mandals became part of the Singanamala Assembly constituency. Since its inception, as many as 12 elections have taken place in the constituency. It was represented by leaders like Rukmini Devi, Jayaram, Shamanthakamani, and Sake Sailajanath. Samantakamani contested five timesin 1985 and 1989 from Congress, and from TDP in 2004 and 2009but won only once. She was a two-time MLC. While the Congress won four times, the TDP emerged victorious five times, and Janata Party, Independent, and YSRC candidates have won one time each. Old-timers in the constituency recall how the region produced stalwarts of communists and Congress parties, who played an important role in national politics. Remember, former President of India Neelam Sanjiva Reddy hailed from Illur village in Garladinne mandal of Singanamala constituency. In 1953, he was the deputy chief minister of Andhra State and in 1956 became the first Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh and was re-elected as Chief Minister in 1962. In 1964, he became a Rajya Sabha member and was part of Lal Bahadur Shastris cabinet as Union minister for steel. Later, he became Lok Sabha speaker and in 1977 became President of India. Tarimela Nagireddy, known as peoples leader, represented the region thrice in the Assembly. He was elected from Putluru once and from Anantapur twice. Four women represented Singanmala for a considerable time. Shamantakamani and her daughter Yaminibala, Rukmini Devi, and Jonnalagadda Padmavati represented Singanamalla in the Assembly. B Rukmini Devi, Shamantakamani, Kotapalli Jayaram, and Sake Sailajananth became ministers and served Andhra Pradesh.
New flagship product line Kaspersky Next introduced
New flagship product line Kaspersky Next introduced Kaspersky (www.Kaspersky.co.za) introduces its new flagship product line 'Kaspersky Next' combining robust endpoint protection with the transparency and speed of EDR (Endpoint Detection and Response) alongside the visibility and powerful tools of XDR (Extended Detection and Response). Customers can now choose one of three product tiers tailored to their business requirements, the complexity of their IT infrastructure, and their available resources. According to Enterprise Strategy Group's SOC Modernization and the Role of XDR report (https://apo-opa.co/3U7TsR1) from a survey conducted together with Kaspersky, 52% of companies state security operations are more difficult today than they were several years ago. Primary reasons for this challenge are: the evolving and rapidly changing threat landscape (41% of respondents named it); the expanding attack surface (40%); the lack of cybersecurity skills or staff to keep up with security analytics and operations (20%). Amid the constantly evolving cyberthreat landscape, it is vital for companies to have a comprehensive cybersecurity solution they can trust and rely on for effective protection. As a leading innovative and technological company, Kaspersky is continuously developing its solutions to address all the cybersecurity requirements of businesses, helping them build up reliable cybersecurity frameworks. Kaspersky Next is a new line of cybersecurity products that includes robust endpoint protection powered by AI capabilities, and goes beyond the classic EPP (Endpoint Protection Platform), bringing together EDR and XDR for corporate customers of any size and industry. As the most advanced and effective cybersecurity solutions, EDR and XDR help companies to withstand the more prevalent, evasive, and sophisticated attacks, providing businesses with total visibility, control, rapid response and proactive threat hunting. Kaspersky Next is deployment-agnostic and allows for both cloud and on-premise installations. Companies can manage it either through a streamlined console to perform core cybersecurity tasks quickly, or via an enterprise-grade console with more granular controls and advanced monitoring. The new product line helps companies build crucial cybersecurity functions, to provide robust protection against multiple types of threats that business face the most, such as ransomware, malware and data breaches, and avoid infrastructure penetration through Business Email Compromise, supply chain attacks, exploits and other vulnerabilities. Kaspersky Next includes multiple automation features such as cloud monitoring and blocking, vulnerability and patch management, IoC (Indicator of compromise) scan and playbooks that help businesses not only to support the effective detection and remediation of complex and new threats, but also to significantly reduce the burden on cybersecurity teams by minimising the number of routine cybersecurity tasks. Kaspersky Next currently comprises of three product tiers: Kaspersky Next EDR Foundations provides powerful endpoint protection that identifies and neutralises threats before they can harm business processes. Flexible, straightforward security controls and built-in IT scenarios enable hands-off operation and let companies customise their security policies to suit their unique needs. This solution is recommended for companies where information security is performed by IT departments. Kaspersky Next EDR Optimum provides strong endpoint protection with essential EDR functionality, advanced controls, patch management and cloud security. Threat visibility, investigation and response are guided to help businesses deflect attacks rapidly and with minimal resources. This solution is recommended for companies with small information security teams. Kaspersky Next XDR Expert aggregates, analyses and correlates data from various sources across an organisation's IT infrastructure, providing real-time visibility and deep insights into evolving cyber risks to deliver advanced threat detection and automated response. It's the robust cybersecurity solution that can also integrate with third-party vendors. This solution is recommended for companies with experienced cybersecurity teams or Security Operations Centers (SOC). Kaspersky Next is a part of the company's B2B product ecosystem and it is designed to be directly compatible with other Kaspersky solutions and services. With the growing demand for more comprehensive cybersecurity protection, companies can also easily migrate from one tier to another depending on their current cybersecurity requirements. Anton Ivanov, Chief Technology Officer at Kaspersky, said: Today we are launching our market-leading XDR and reinventing our corporate product offering, as we embark on a new chapter of our history as a B2B vendor. Kaspersky Next makes EDR and XDR simpler for companies and organisations of all sizes. We are bringing top protection powered by unique expertise to all customers from those with zero cybersecurity officers to those that have experienced cybersecurity teams. Our goal is to allow companies to build reliable and cost-effective information security systems of the highest quality for their specific requirements. (With Inputs from APO)
BJP Will Win All Seats In Madhya Pradesh: Chief Minister Mohan Yadav To NDTV
The BJP will sway all seats in Madhya Pradesh and Congress stalwarts like Kamal Nath and Digvijaya Singh have been restricted to their seats when it comes to campaigning, Chief Minister Mohan Yadav told NDTV. Watch this exclusive.
The incident took place on Sunday afternoon in Naugaonwa village of Alwar when a Rajput Barat (wedding procession) was passing through a Muslim-dominated area.
AI And Deepfake Misuse A Real Threat To The Election Outcomes - Shamla Naidoo
Ms. Shamla Naidoo is currently Head of Cloud Strategy & Innovation at Netskope, and serves as a non-executive director for multiple domestic and international companies, and an adjunct professor of law at the University of Illinois, Chicago. She has successfully led digital strategy in technology leadership roles, including as CISO and Head of Information Technology Risk at IBM. Applying her experience in the healthcare, finance, hospitality, energy, and manufacturing sectors, Ms. Shamla Naidoo advises governments and industry on how to embrace innovation while managing risk. In view of the impending threat of the potential misuse of AI tech to spread disinformation among the public with an influence the electoral choices/outcomes, Deccan Chronicle had an exclusive interaction with Ms. Naidoo to bring to our readers the scope of the impact these activities can have, and how does one avoid falling trap to the malafide intent of perpetrators. While you have highlighted a possible misuse of technology to manipulate voters in your comment. How real and potent is this threat? This is a very real threat that is likely to keep growing. Technology has always been weaponised for political disinformation, but with the emergence of generative AI technology, which is the technology behind ChatGPT and other similar AI assistants, threat actors are employing more sophisticated and efficient techniques to influence the masses, especially with deepfakes. Until just a few years ago, creating fake pictures, audio samples or videos still required some technical skills and a lot of money, and thus their authors were focusing on content likely to influence a maximum number of voters to maximise the return on investment. But now that creating deepfakes is easier, they can spread more of them, and also narrow their targeting down to smaller communities and sections of the population, or even specific individuals. India is a prime target because it is the largest democracy on the planet, and there will always be those who are interested in influencing the electoral process. Another issue is that a large part of the population has become digitally connected only in recent years and thus may not be as well equipped to interpret and question online disinformation as populations that are more seasoned internet users. It is perhaps no surprise that the World Economic Forum ranked India highest for risk of disinformation and misinformation earlier this year. Is there any evidence to indicate that such a misuse has happened in the past anywhere in the globe during elections? There is no shortage of evidence that technologies have been used to influence past elections. Most took the form of information or disinformation campaigns on social media, or cyber operations designed to disrupt electoral online operations, especially where citizens can cast their votes online. Today, deepfakes are the newest weapon in a threat actors arsenal to supercharge disinformation with content that looks increasingly realistic but is fake, and we dont need to look far to find examples targeting these elections. With that said, early research tends to show that the actual influence of fake news and disinformation campaigns over voters final decisions is limited. And at the same time, it is a difficult thing to measure since the goal of fake news is to convince people it is real, and we therefore all think that we are making decisions based on real information. We could tackle this with a neutral party identifying fake news from real information, but the big question is: who is legitimate and credible enough to be this neutral party? In any case, it would be interesting to see if we can measure such analysis for India specifically in the months after the election, and see if deepfakes are having a level of influence, but theres no doubt that some voters will make their decisions based on incorrect information, and for the sake of democracy, this is something that should not happen. What are the key steps to either erase the possibility of such events happening or neutralise its impact? We dont have the technical or human means to avoid this problem entirely, so we need to focus on neutralising its impact. We can do that by warning and educating citizens about this threat, and encouraging them to develop healthy reflexes to question what they are seeing online, and ensure what they are reading or seeing is true. I think the Verify before you Amplify motto from the Electoral Commission is spot on in terms of the mindset we want the population to be in. Whoever wins the election is also going to have to reflect on developing bespoke laws around disinformation, which should also penalise the spread of AI-generated content like deepfakes for such ends. Regulations would also be the opportunity to define the roles and accountability of all involved parties in this battle, including social media platforms or political parties. What is the potential of deepfake and AI misuse in identity theft scenarios? What are the fail safe built in like other technologies to prevent the misuse? In an era of social media, and with improvements in AI technologies, threat actors can easily steal identities and do whatever they want under their victims names. All the source material they need to clone voices or create fake pictures or videos is usually available on peoples social media accounts. In corporate environments, we are seeing more and more scenarios of impersonation of company executives, and threat actors can go as far as creating deepfakes of their victims colleagues on live video calls to deceive them. Limiting our online personal identity, and ensuring that our privacy parameters are set to a maximum on our social media accounts is probably the best way to shield ourselves from identity theft. And exercising suspicion, going as far as confirming someones identity when interacting online, is the best way to avoid falling victim to a fake. To mitigate the damages of identity theft, organisations operating in sensitive industries, such as banks or government agencies are rolling-out increasingly powerful authentication technologies, often powered by AI as well. But they are not foolproof and at the end of the day it falls on us to be cautious and protect our identities. What are some of the key challenges facing the world in the realm of cybersecurity? How can we tackle these? Two key cyber challenges we are seeing the world over are AI security and cloud security. AI security is a multi-pronged issue. The advances in AI are allowing threat actors to increase the power and scale of their traditional operations and attacks, by automating a number of steps. Some risks are emerging from the advent of Generative AI tools like ChatGPT as well, where employees using them may leak sensitive data owned by their organisation. Many organisations are also rushing to embed generative AI into their products or digital services, sometimes without the right cybersecurity standards in mind, and this innovation wave is creating a whole new ecosystem and supply chain that cybercriminals are already targeting. The continued adoption of cloud technology among organisations is also posing risks, with cybercriminals abusing cloud services and business applications to deliver malware to employees and potentially gain access to their system, where they can steal data, launch an attack and/or ask for a ransom. Some of our data show that India is heavily concerned by this. For the stability and security of our societies, it is important that organisations - from private companies to government agencies - have cybersecurity standards that can counter these modern threats. Different integrated security models have been developed with this objective in mind, such as Security Service Edge platforms for example. What does the future of cybersecurity look like with almost everything getting digitized? At this stage, it almost feels like we are going to be stuck in an eternal arms race between cybercriminals and cybersecurity professionals. The more digitised the world becomes, the more exposed the world is to cyber threats. Governments and organisations are cognizant of this, and developing and adopting best-of-breed cybersecurity solutions to keep up with an ever growing cyber threat. They are also cognizant that they will not be able to keep up without sharing their resources, and we are seeing an increasing number of initiatives designed to increase collaboration and intelligence sharing between countries or private companies operating in the same industries. Cybercriminals are efficient because they are working as a team, and thus it is important that those working to protect the digital world from threats also work in unison. Please tell us about your journey from South Africa to becoming a global expert in the domain of cybersecurity and digital transformation. I entered the cybersecurity space in 1999. I started my journey as an entry level technologist in South Africa, and as part of my engineering job, I started to learn and apply security controls. By the time cybersecurity became its own function, I was skilled and ready to hold responsibilities in this space. There weren't as many cybersecurity specialists at the time as there are today, and I was approached for an opportunity to work in the tech space in the USA.
Amit Shah to launch BJP campaign in Sonepur on April 25
BHUBANESWAR: Union Home Minister Amit Shah will address a public rally at Sonepur, one of the seven Assembly segments under the Balangir parliamentary constituency, on April 25. State BJP vice president Golak Mohapatra on Saturday said the BJP stalwart will launch the campaign from the western Odisha town which will impact the seven Assembly segments under Balangir Lok Sabha seat. After the Sonepur rally, Shah will arrive at the state capital for a night halt. He will meet state leaders and workers of BJP and discuss electoral strategy. Asserting BJP is going to form a double engine government in the state, Mohapatra said Maa, Mati, Matrubhasa and Odia Asmita will be the main poll plank of the party. He said the poll campaign of the party will gather momentum after the visit of Shah. The union minister had last visited the state in August, 2023 sparking speculations of an electoral understanding with BJD after he met Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik at the state secretariat followed by a secret meeting with Patnaiks private secretary VK Pandian. Shahs Sonepur meeting will have an impact on the electorates of Balangir parliamentary constituency. The party has renominated four-time MP Sangeeta Kumari Singh Deo from the Lok Sabha seat which covers Birmaharajpur, Loisingha, Balangir, Patnagarh, Titilagarh and Kantabanji Assembly segments. Balangir is one the four Lok Sabha seats going to polls on May 13.
Battle for Delhi: AAP-Congress alliance challenges BJP in Lok Sabha Polls
The temperature of Delhi and politics is increasing with each passing day. On May 25, the citys voters will elect their seven representatives to Parliament. Like in previous elections, the leaders and workers of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), Congress, and other parties have hit the streets to canvass. But what is different this time is that bitter rivals AAP and Congress have joined hands to take on the common enemy, BJP. As per the seat sharing agreement, the AAP has settled for four constituenciesEast Delhi, New Delhi, South Delhi, and West Delhi. On the remaining three seatsNorth East Delhi, Chandni Chowk, and North West DelhiCongress will be contesting. On the other hand, the BJP has replaced all its sitting MPs except on the North East Delhi seat. As the trio campaign starts under the scorching summer sun, it will only get hotter in the coming days. While the BJP claims it will sweep the polls like last timebagging all seven seats with a significant margin, the AAP-Congress is hopeful to dent the electoral prospects of the saffron party. Seeing the initial campaign, the AAP is trying to create sympathy for the arrest of Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in connection with the alleged excise policy scam. The Congress is trying to remind the voters of days under the leadership of the late Sheila Dixit, while the BJP is trying to ride on the face of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. But is there really any positive political movement in AAP or Congresss favour? If the BJP claims of no anti-incumbency, then why did it drop six MPs? This week, we delve deeper to gauge which party holds the ground, the issues that may combust, and the odds of a candidate entangled in this seven-piece puzzle. In Delhi, BJP targets third consecutive sweep; AAP hopes to capitalise on 'sympathy wave' for Kejriwal WEST SIDE STORY The largest parliamentary constituency of Delhi is likely to witness a tight contest between the BJP and the AAP. The former has fielded Kamaljeet Sehrawat, former MLA and mayor of erstwhile South Delhi Municipal Corporation (SDMC), against Mahabal Mishra of the AAP, former MP from the seat. The constituency came into existence a year before the 2009 Lok Sabha elections after the delimitation exercise. Earlier parts of the constituency were included in Outer Delhi and others in South Delhi. It has seen three general elections2009, 2014 and 2019and the party that won the seat, ruled at the Centre.The constituency has a total strength of 24,88,831 eligible voters including 13,27,008 males, 11,61,717 females and 106 third gender. It is spread across 10 Assembly segmentsMadipur, Rajouri Garden, Hari Nagar, Tilak Nagar, Janakpuri, Vikaspuri, Uttam Nagar, Dwarka, Matiala and Najafgarhcurrently all held by the AAP. In previous polls, there has been a three-cornered contest. However, with AAP and Congress stitching an alliance, the fight has now remained between BJP and AAP. What can Delhi expect from BJPs manifesto? In 2014, BJPs Parvesh Sahib Singh Verma won the polls by a margin of 2.68 lakh votesthe highest since that year. In 2019, he improved further and won the elections with the highest-ever margin of 5.78 lakh votes. Still, he was dropped, and the baton was handed over to Sehrawat, a law graduate and former teacher widely acknowledged for her connection with the public. Though it is her first Lok Sabha elections, she has experience in public life. Besides serving as Mayor, in the past decade, Sehrawat has gradually risen in the organisational ranks and worked in different capacities, such as district vice-president from Najafgarh to Secretary, president of the BJP Mahila Morcha, and Delhi BJP vice-president. The west Delhi, considered a seat where Jat voters play a key role, Mahabal Mishra continues to firmly hold his ground among the rural belt. Mishra, who was once a big Poorvanchali face of Delhi Congress, has a long stint in politics for more than two decades. After entering Delhi politics in 1997 as a municipal councillor and serving as an MLA thrice and MP once on a Congress ticket, Mishra has started campaigning in his dominant areas. Meanwhile, the residents of the constituency face multiple issues, ranging from a lack of infrastructural development to an irregular water supply. However, many residents highlighted traffic congestion. THE RESERVED Since the Congress party announced Udit Rajs candidature for the North West Delhi Lok Sabha constituency, the electoral battle for the seat has entered a decisive phase. The BJP has fielded Yogendra Chandolia from this constituency, and now both candidates have been making final appeals to voters. Following the delimitation, the North West Delhi Lok Sabha constituency was constituted in 2008 and was reserved for Scheduled caste (SC) candidates. It is currently being represented by Punjabi singer Hans Raj Hans (BJP). BJP candidate Yogendra Chandolia is a former North MCD mayor, while the Congress Udit Raj had who had won the seat in 2014 on a BJP ticket. Raj joined the Congress in 2019 after being denied a ticket by the BJP. Congress fields Kanhaiya Kumar in North East Delhi against BJP's Manoj Tiwari The constituency, located in the outer parts of the city, has a sizable number of voters from the Scheduled Caste community, Jats, and Purvanchalis. In the last Lok Sabha results in 2019, Hans won by a margin of 5,53,897 votes, while AAPs Gugan Singh stood second. As per the seat-sharing formula, Congress will be contesting the seat. Chandolia, currently serving as the general secretary in the state unit, has been associated with the party since the 1990s and has been active in politics since his student days. He became mayor of the erstwhile North Delhi Municipal Corporation in 2014. He was made the state units general secretary in 2019, and this is his first Lok Sabha battle. In the 2015 and 2020 assembly polls, Chandolia unsuccessfully contested from the Karol Bagh constituency against AAPs Vishesh Ravi.As far as his profile is concerned, he was an IRS officer who resigned from his service in 2003 and formed a political party, namely, the Indian Justice Party. In 2014, he joined the BJP and in the same year he was elected to the 16th Lok Sabha after defeating Rakhi Bidlan of AAP. As an MP, he worked as a member of the Consultative Committee, Ministry of Finance and Corporate Affairs, Rules Committee Member, and Standing Committee on Social Justice and Empowerment.In the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, the BJP denied him a ticket, and he later joined the Congress party.BJPs campaign focuses on good governance, security, and economic prosperity. On the other hand, Udit Raj has been trying to get support over inclusivity and social empowerment, resonating with sections of the electorate seeking change. BJP won't cross 150 seats; INDIA bloc will foil its attempt to scrap Constitution: Rahul Gandhi THE HIGH PROFILE SEAT In 2014, Meenakshi Lekhi made history by becoming the first woman in 54 years to clinch the New Delhi Lok Sabha seat for the BJP. Lekhis resounding victory was mirrored in 2019, yet her bid for re-election in 2024 has been met with an unexpected twist. The BJP has opted to replace her with Bansuri Swaraj, daughter of the late Sushma Swaraj, a stalwart of the party. Bansuris foray into politics has raised eyebrows, not only due to her newcomer status but also because of the high-profile nature of the New Delhi constituency. Despite her political lineage, Bansuris selection underscores a departure from conventional choices by the BJP leadership. Her political journey commenced in 2023 when she was appointed co-convenor of the Delhi BJPs legal department. With 16 years of legal experience, including a stint as an additional advocate general for Haryana, Bansuri holds academic credentials from prestigious institutions like the University of Oxford and BPP Law School, London.Bansuri had said that as an MP, she will ensure that Prime Minister Narendra Modis guarantees reach every Delhiite and will work on building a new start-up hub in the New Delhi area In contrast, Somnath Bharti is the AAPs seasoned contender for the New Delhi seat. Since its inception, Bharti, a familiar face in AAP circles, has secured consecutive victories in the Malviya Nagar Assembly segment. Renowned for his proactive approach to addressing public concerns, Bhartis popularity and administrative acumen have been instrumental in his rise within the party ranks. With a background in law and an engineering degree from IIT, Bhartis tenure as a minister in the inaugural AAP government showcased his multifaceted capabilities. Bharti has said that he will expand his Mohalla WhatsApp groups, currently active in Malviya Nagar, to all of New Delhi. I will remain accessible, accountable and available to everyone.The electoral clash between Bansuri and Bharti promises to inject enthusiasm into the political landscape of New Delhi. While Bansuri embodies a new chapter in the BJPs electoral strategy, Bhartis experience and grassroots appeal pose a formidable challenge. THE OLD DELHI Nestled in the bustling heart of Delhi, Chandni Chowk Lok Sabha constituency carries a rich tapestry of history and cultural diversity. Established in 1956, it stands as the smallest parliamentary constituency in terms of geographical area, encompassing the famed Chandni Chowk market renowned for its labyrinthine lanes, ancient architectural marvels, and vibrant street culture. The constituency sprawls across several assembly segments including Adarsh Nagar, Shalimar Bagh, Shakur Basti, Tri Nagar, Wazirpur, Model Town, Sadar Bazar, Chandni Chowk, Matia Mahal, and Ballimaran. Over the years, Chandni Chowk has witnessed a dynamic political landscape, with representatives from various parties holding sway. Dr Harsh Vardhan of the BJP served as a Member of Parliament from 2014 until his retirement from active politics. In the upcoming elections, the BJP has nominated Praveen Khandelwal as their candidate. A prominent businessman from North Delhi, Khandelwal has a law degree from Delhi University. His credentials extend to his role as the secretary general of the Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT). The Congress, which is contesting in Chandni Chowk, has put JP Agarwal in opposition to Khandelwal. Agarwal is a seasoned party leader who has previously clinched victories from Chandni Chowk in 1984, 1989, and 1996. Grateful for the partys nomination, he has pledged to address regional concerns, mainly focusing on GST, unemployment, and inflation. With both candidates bringing their unique perspectives and promises to the fore, the electoral battle in Chandni Chowk promises to be a compelling contest. MIGRANT DOMINATED On April 14, the Congress announced Kanhaiyya Kumars candidature from the North East Delhi constituency against BJP MP Manoj Tiwari. People may know Kumar as a once upon a time student leader who rose to national prominence after being accused of allegedly raising anti-national slogans when he was the president of Jawaharlal Nehru University Students Union. Kumar has a doctorate from JNU. Despite the negative publicity, he garnered support from those opposed to BJPs rise to power in 2014. Besides being a leader of the All India Students Federation (AISF), he served as a National Executive Council member of the Communist Party of India. He contested from Begusarai on CPI ticket in the 2019 general election but lost. He joined Congress in September 2021. The 37-year-old leader, who is now in the fray from North East Delhi on a Congress ticket, doesnt belong to this region as he hails from Bihar. The constituency has a significant migrant population from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. Going by the experts, Kumars candidature is more like an effort by Congress to consolidate the migrant and Muslim vote base. On the opposition is Manoj Kumar Tiwari, who, besides being an MP and BJP member, is also a singer, actor and producer. Tiwari, a two-time MP, is the only sitting parliamentarian of the seven BJP MPs in Delhi, who has been awarded a ticket to contest in the Lok Sabha elections.Tiwari was a Member of the Uttarakhand Legislative Assembly for the Almora Assembly, and this is how he was counted as a popular figure who could attract Purvanchali voters. One of the most vulnerable areas communally since the riots in 2020, North East Delhi is home to an approximate 21 per cent Muslim population. Despite such statistics, the constituency appears carefully divided along communal lines in region including Mustafabad, Seelampur, Karawal Nagar and Ghonda, predominantly Muslim populated. In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, the BJP grew stronger, with Manoj Tiwari fetching 53.86 per cent of the votes. Former Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit managed to bring the Congress back to some fight with 28.83 per cent, while AAP had a considerable dip with only 13.05 per cent. Hemant Soren sent to jail for refusing to part ways with INDIA bloc, says Kharge in 'Ulgulan Nyay' rally THE EASTERN PERIPHERY AAP MLA from Kondli, Kuldeep Kumar, has been fielded from East Delhi, where he will contest against Harsh Malhotra of the BJP. A dropout of Delhi University, Kumar led the Ambedkar Andolan in East Delhi at the age of 18. The movement focused on raising awareness about education among Scheduled Castes youth. Kumar came in contact with Kejriwal during the India Against Corruption movement led by social activist Anna Hazare and joined the AAP after its formation in 2012. He volunteered in the partys early days, working closely with the founding members. The AAP fielded him in the 2017 municipal election in Delhi from Kalyanpuri ward in East Delhi. He was elected the youngest corporator in the MCD at the age of 27. He was then appointed leader of the Opposition of the erstwhile East Delhi Municipal Corporation and vice-president of AAPs Delhi Unit. In 2020, he was again given an AAP ticket from the Kondli (East) reserved seat and defeated BJPs Raj Kumar by nearly 18,000 votes.Meanwhile, Harsh Malhotra, one of the three general secretaries of the BJPs Delhi unit, became a councillor from the Welcome ward in 2012. In 2015, he was elected mayor of the erstwhile East Delhi Municipal Corporation (EDMC). During his time as mayor, Malhotra was also appointed Chairman of the Education Committee of EDMC, a post he served for three years. He is one of the six candidates replacing incumbent BJP MPs in Delhi. Malhotra has replaced cricketer Gautam Gambhir, who quit the party and active politics last month.The 58-year-old hails from the Punjabi community, which has a significant presence in the constituency. In the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, BJP won the seat by over 3.9 lakh votes. In the 2019 polls, the AAP had fielded Atishi, currently the education minister, from East Delhi against the BJPs Gautam Gambhir, who defeated her. Gurjar vs Gurjar An interesting poll fight could be witnessed in the South Delhi constituency. The contest is between BJPs Ranveer Singh Bidhuriand AAPs Sahiram Pehelwan. Both are sitting MLAs and belong to the same communityGurjar. The two-time Member of Parliament, Ramesh Bidhuri was dropped by the BJP. Ramveer, a Political Science graduate from Deshbandhu College, joined the RSS-affiliated Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad in 1970 and was an active worker of Jan Sangh. In 1993, he became MLA, and in 2008 was awarded the best MLA award by the then Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee. In 2013, Ramveer was elected member of the national executive branch of the BJP and is presently representing the Badarpur seat in the Delhi assembly alongside the leader of the opposition. Sahiram, an MLA from Tughlakabad, has been with AAP since 2014. In his younger days, he wrestled and served in the CISF. In 1997, he left his job and contested the councilor election, which he won. From 1999 to 2002, he was the president of the MCDs zonal committee from central Delhi. He was elected as municipal councilor consecutively in 2007 and 2013 and became Deputy Mayor in 2013. In 2015, he contested the assembly elections for the first time on the AAP ticket and turned victorious. In the constituency, the water problem is the biggest issue. More than half of the segments, which are full of unauthorized colonies, have been witnessing water scarcity.
Naveen To Blow Poll Bugle From Gunupur, Amit Shah from Sonepur on April 25
Bhubaneswar: Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik and Union Home Minister Amit Shah are going to start campaigning for their partys candidates in Odisha next Thursday, 25th of April. The BJD Supremo will blow the poll bugle from Gunupur in Rayagada district while BJP stalwart Amit Shah from Sonepur. This will be the first public gathering of [] The post Naveen To Blow Poll Bugle From Gunupur, Amit Shah from Sonepur on April 25 appeared first on Pragativadi | Odisha News, Breaking News Odisha, Latest Odisha News .
Amit Shah to launch BJP poll campaign in Odisha on April 25
Bhubaneswar: Senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader and Union home minister Amit Shah will visit Odisha on April 25 to canvas for his partys Lok Sabha and assembly candidates. He will address a public rally in Sonepur in Western Odisha, informed Odisha state BJP vice president Golak Mohapatra on Saturday. The home ministers proposed visit assumes much significance as it comes following the collapse of a tie-up talk between Odishas ruling Biju Janata Dal (BJD) and the BJP. The saffron partys cadres and workers expect that Shah would make a categorical statement on their partys Odisha mission and roll out strategies on how to defeat the Naveen Patnaik-led BJD that has been ruling the state since 2000. Though the Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited the state twice in the recent past and addressed two separate rallies at Sambalpur and Chandikhole in Jajpur district, he made no mention about the BJPs Odisha mission. In 2019, the BJP which had won 8 of the 21 Lok Sabha seats, had set a target to bag at least 120 of the 147 assembly seats. However, the party could win only 23 assembly seats. After addressing the rally, Shah will hold a key meeting with BJP leaders and workers at the party office in Bhubaneswar and discuss the electoral strategies. Besides, the BJP stalwart will review the poll preparedness and activities of the party in the state. The Union home minister will blow the poll bugle from Sonepur. The BJP has started its fight for Odisha Asmita (pride), Maa (women), Mati (soil) and Matrubhoomi (motherland) and on the issues of distress migration of Odia youths to other states in search of work. Mohapatra alleged that Odia people had been neglected and deceived in the rule by non-Odias while the wealth of Odisha was being carried away to other states. Odia youths are migrating to other states in search of jobs. In such a situation, the visit of Amit Shah assumes much importance. Shah will address the people of Odisha from Sonepur in the afternoon, the BJP VP added. Training his gun at the BJD, Mohapatra alleged that programmes and schemes of the Central government do not reach the eligible people and the BJD is hijacking the Central schemes for its credit. He asserted that a massive rally will be held in Sonepur where more than one lakh people will congregate. Since the BJD has become weak, the BJP will come to power after the upcoming election. This meeting will set a milestone for the BJP's electoral goal. His stay for one and a half days will be inspiring for all BJP leaders and workers in Odisha, he observed. There was, however, no reaction from the BJD side.
Shobha Karandlaje under pressure to win in her party stronghold
Shobha Karandlaje under pressure to win in her party stronghold After she was shifted to Bangalore North segment for the coming Lok Sabha elections, Union Minister Shobha Karandlaje is determined to prove a point or two and wants to ensure that BJP continues its winning streak here. Bangalore North has remained a BJP stronghold since 2004 and the 57-year-old is banking on the ''Modi factor''. She is facing Congress candidate and former Rajya Sabha member M V Rajeev Gowda, who is putting up a spirited fight. Both belong to the Vokkaliga community. Karandlaje is a two-time MP from Udupi-Chikmagalur but was moved out after she faced a ''Go back Shobha'' campaign there from a section of her party. Karandlaje has been telling people how India is on the development path in the past 10 years under Prime Minister Narendra Modi's leadership. ''This is an election to save India's culture and 'Sanatana' traditions,'' the Union Minister of State for Agriculture and Farmers Welfare, who hails from coastal Karnataka, said. According to BJP sources, she has a strong backing of former Chief Minister and BJP stalwart B S Yediyurappa. Since 2004, BJP is holding this seat, which was a Congress fortress from 1952 to 2004 barring the 1996-1998 period when the then Janata Dal's C Narayanaswamy was the MP. Former Railway Minister late C K Jaffer Sharief was the longest serving MP of this constituency who represented it seven times, including for five terms uninterruptedly from 1977 to 1996. Since 2004, BJP had three MPs from here-- former Karnataka Director General of Police H T Sangliana, late D B Chandre Gowda and former Union Minister D V Sadananda Gowda, who were all considered ''outsiders''. Of the eight Assembly segments under Bangalore North, five are represented by the BJP and the rest by the Congress. Karandlaje is known for indulging in ''communally divisive'' speech and polarisation which people don't want here, alleges Rajeev Gowda, who is making his debut in the Lok Sabha elections. People want to enjoy a good quality of life and grow and prosper, and don't want this area to become communally charged and divided, says the former Professor of Indian Institute of Management Bangalore where he taught economics and policy. The Chairman of the AICC Research Department appeared upbeat about his electoral prospects. There is no Modi wave in Karnataka in this Lok Sabha election, the 60-year-old claimed. It's the five guarantee schemes of the Siddaramaiah-led Congress government delivered within 10 months of coming to power that are helping people who are in trouble, he said. Also, the ''sense of injustice'' to Karnataka (in terms of devolution of funds by Centre) and the (dismal) record of the previous BJP government here are what will work in favour of the Congress, he added. ''We did not get proper candidates'', a voter said referring to BJP fielding ''outsiders'' here in the last few elections. ''People who were rejected elsewhere have been dumped here on us. We are not happy,'' the voter added. Nearly 12,000 voters opted for 'None Of The Above' in the 2014 and 2019 Lok Sabha polls here.
Chennai: Thousand Lights registers lowest voter turnout at 52.4 per cent
CHENNAI: According to rough estimates on assembly-wise voter turnout, eight assembly segments in the city including Anna Nagar, Thiyagarayanagar and Mylapore have put up a poor show. Villivakkam, Anna Nagar, Saidapet, Thiyagarayanagar, Mylapore, Harbour, Thousand Lights and Virugambakkam registered the least number of votes. Thousand Lights had the least turnout at 52.4%, while the remaining seven constituencies registered around 53% turnout. Dr Radhakrishnan Nagar under Chennai North parliamentary constituency registered the highest turnout with 66.75%. In Chennai Central, Egmore recorded the highest turnout with 56.9% and in Chennai South it was Sholinganallur with 55.33%. Saidapet, considered a DMK bastion, also saw a low turnout of 53.25%, the least in Chennai South. Former chief minister M Karunanidhi won twice from here in 1967 and 1971 assembly elections. It is now Health Minister Ma Subramanians turf, having won in 2016 and 2021. While it largely remains a DMK stronghold, it has swung towards the AIADMK in five of the 13 assembly elections since 1971. According to official sources, the final numbers will be officially released by Saturday midnight. Officials said that although the numbers were low, this could not have been achieved without 47 different SVEEP activities undertaken. District election officer J Radhakrishnan said that a detailed analysis was being carried out to look at possible factors that could have contributed to low turnout. Following the completion of the Lok Sabha elections in the state on Friday, the electronic voting machines (EVMs) from the polling booths in Chennai Central constituency were brought to the strong room at Loyola College. The room was sealed in the presence of the district election officer and corporation commissioner J Radhakrishnan and general election observer D Suresh, Chennai Central returning officer and regional deputy commissioner KJ Praveen Kumar and representatives of political parties. Radhakrishnan also inspected the efforts taken to monitor the strong room with CCTV cameras and precautionary measures by the police and fire departments. Speaking to the press, Radhakrishnan thanked the voters for the peaceful and successful conduct of Lok Sabha elections on Friday. He also expressed gratitude to more than 40,000 poll workers including employees of Chennai corporation, the revenue department, central and state police, and other departments and volunteers who worked for the elections day and night. Tamilisai alleges booth capturing by DMK Tamilisai Soundararajan, BJP candidate for Chennai South parliamentary constituency, on Saturday sought a repoll in booth no. 13 in division 122 in Austin Nagar (Teynampet). She alleged that DMK sympathisers had polled bogus votes with the help of rowdy elements since morning on polling day and they also tried to capture booths 14, 15 and 16 in St Francis Xavier Girls School, Alwarpet. She has submitted a petition to this effect to the returning officer of Chennai South Constituency (Zone-13). In the representation, she alleged that BJPs booth-level agent was attacked by DMK men. Talking to reporters, Tamilisai said low voter turnout in many constituencies was a common concern that has to be addressed by the Election Commission. She also recalled her request to the ECI not to fix Mondays and Fridays as polling days since people treat these days as extended holidays.
Pawar & Uddhav face spin attack in a battle to regain the 'lost glory'
MUMBAI: They say nothing lasts forever. This is as true of politics as anything else. Yesterdays political stalwarts like Sharad Pawar and Uddhav Thackeray today seem to be mere shadows of their earlier selves, navigating a sea of uncertainty. This Lok Sabha election is a real test between three election managers Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde and his two deputies --Ajit Pawar and Devendra Fadnavis -- against two decimated mass leaders, Sharad Pawar and Uddhav Thackeray, who are determined to fight the polls to regain their lost glory. The battleground is ready for the high-voltage elections that will elect 48 Lok Sabha MPs the highest after Uttar Pradesh. On the one side are skilled poll managers like Chief Minister Shinde and two deputies, while on the other, two mass leaders -- the 84-year-old Maratha strongman Sharad Pawar and Uddhav Thackeray are fighting the survival battle after witnessing a major vertical split in their parties. MVA seals poll pact in Maharashtra: Sena (UBT) gets 21 LS seats, Congress 17, NCP (SP) 10 Though Sharad Pawar was the face of the NCP, the groundwork from identifying the local candidates, providing them resources and oiling the party machinery was carried out by one of the most reliable partymen and nephew Ajit Pawar. While senior Pawar used to handle only the key issues, his nephew was one main contact for the lower rung of the party leaders and workers, said a person close to the Pawar family. It is said that Sharad Pawar had so much faith in Ajit that he trusted his managerial skills much more than his daughter, Supriya Sule, when choosing candidates. Therefore, ignoring his major blunders and gaffes, sr Pawar continued to elevate his position in the party and the government. The proverbial phrase that blood is extra thick in the Pawar family has changed. The nephew has not only highjacked the party but is trying to end the politics of his 84-year-old uncle by fielding his spouse, Sunetra Pawar, against his cousin sister, Supriya Sule, and fiercely fighting this legacy and political battle with the help of BJP, particularly Devendra Fadnavis in Baramati, said a political observer. Sharad Pawar, who understands politics like the back of his hand, anticipated the danger to his daughter Supriya Sules future, and started the corner meetings of villagers in Baramati Lok Sabha to protect his bastion that he developed in the 1970s. Supriya Sule is also scouting in scorching summer, meeting the locals and seeking support for her father and herself in this prestigious battle against her cousin. Several middle-aged people in Baramati benefited from the decisions of Ajit Pawar directly, even though Sharad Pawar empowered him. Ajit Pawar was just a facilitator but now takes credit for many things in Baramati. But the elderlies and the youth are extending support to senior Pawar vowing to remain loyal in times of crisis, said a senior journalist from Baramati. Interestingly, DCM Fadnavis, with his statesmanship, is doing the fire-fighting and bolstering job for his friend Ajit Pawar and his spouse Sunetra Pawar in this final political battle against Sharad Pawar. Keeping the 2014 Lok Sabhas close elections in mind, where Supriya Sule won the polls by a slender margin against Rashtriya Samaj Paksha candidate Mahadev Jankar, Sharad Pawar is ensuring that his daughter doesnt not face a similar situation. Congress MLA Sanjay Jagtap from Purandhar said that this time, the public perception favours MVA. He said the people are upset with the manner Uddhav Thackeray was forced to step down as chief minister despite the Shiv Sena being founded by his father, the late Balasaheb Thackeray. Similarly, Sharad Pawar founded NCP has also been snatched by his nephew Ajit Pawar. The people who are with the RSS-BJP are not happy with the inductions of NCP Ajit Pawar and Congress leader Ashok Chavan. PM Narendra Modi raised the corruption of the Pawars ~70,000 crore irrigations scam and Chavans Adarsh housing scam ahead of the Lok Sabha elections, he said. Interestingly, BJP, in the 2014 and 2019 Lok Sabha and state assembly elections, hammered its election campaign around these two leaders only. Pawar and Chavan were portrayed as the epitome of corruption in Maharashtra, and they are with the BJP now. So, hard-core workers of the RSS and BJP are finding it hard to defend these corrupt leaders. MVA Lok Sabha seat sharing Shiv Sena (UBT): 21 Congress: 17 NCP (SP): 10 Mahayuti probable tie-up BJP: 30 NCP: 4 Shiv Sena: 13 RSP: 1 State in numbers Lok sabha seats: 48 Total voters: 9.24 crore Male: 4.80 crore Female: 4.43 crore Third-gender: 5,610 Overseas voters: 5,710 Service voters: 1.17 lakh First time: 12.57 lakh Uddhav releases Sena(UBT) symbol, says 'flaming torch' will reduce autocratic regime to ashes
Edge-of-the-seat thriller in the offing as Dilip Tirkey tries to dribble past Jual Oram
ROURKELA : A rerun of an epic fight is in the offing in Odishas reserved Sundargarh Lok Sabha constituency where BJP stalwart and sitting MP Jual Oram (63) has locked horns with Indian hockey legend Dilip Tirkey (46) of the BJD. The former Union tribal affairs minister and the present Hockey India president have been old rivals with Jual edging past Dilip in a triangular contest that also featured former chief minister Hemanand Biswal of the Congress in 2014. Dilip was surprisingly dropped in 2019 and the BJD fielded Biswals daughter Sunita against Jual but failed to gain any traction. This time, BJD supremo Naveen Patnaik has fallen back on Dilip to unseat Jual who is seeking his sixth victory to end his electoral politics on a high note. The sitting MP, one of the most prominent tribal leaders in the BJP, has already made his last election an emotional campaign pitch along with the overriding Modi factor. It is my last election. After 35 years in electoral politics, I intend to make way for the new generation, Jual says. In Dilip, a Catholic Christian and inarguably the greatest sports icon of Odisha, the BJD has sought to address multiple sections of the voters even though the previous attempt had failed. Sundargarh district has been considered the cradle of hockey in India. For the majority tribal population, hockey is a way of life, especially the tribal Christians. Rising from the interiors of the district to make way into the Indian national team and become the captain, bringing laurels to the country in many international tournaments, Dilip has been a matter of pride for the people of the region. But that, somehow, has not translated into the electoral backing for him. This year, however, has the potential for an edge-of-the-seat thriller. In a well-thought strategy to register its first-ever win from Sundargarh, the BJD government had laid out the stage five years ago to cash in on the peoples craze for hockey. The government had constructed the worlds largest Birsa Munda international hockey stadium at Rourkela and successfully co-hosted the FIH Mens Hockey World Cup (HWC) last year. Simultaneously, astro-turf hockey training centres were constructed in all 17 blocks of Sundargarh. The BJDs strategy appears to be to pull maximum hockey-loving and Christian voters through Dilip. It has targeted other segments of voters on Naveen Patnaiks popularity, the plank of development works and politics of doling out goodies to all. Dilip also never forgets to remind voters about Naveens contribution to hockey and development of sports, including infrastructure and facilities in the district. Under his leadership Odisha has been witnessing rapid all-round development, economic growth and welfare of the people. The peoples overwhelming love for our CM is all pervasive. The BJD will win the LS and all seven Assembly seats under it, he asserts. Dilip Rays return to BJP a boon for Jual Oram The BJD draws confidence from the fact that in 2022, it won 33 of 35 Zilla Parishad seats and two urban local bodies (ULB). Still, it is too much of an ask for the BJD, especially when Assembly and LS voting patterns are altogether different from local polls. However, the regional outfits bid to penetrate the BJPs traditional bastion is fraught with tough challenges as the former Union minister is firmly holding his ground. The tribals have been with the BJP since the 1990s, hence Juals record of winning five of six elections with two tenures as Cabinet minister. When the BJP was a non-entity in Odisha in 1990, Jual was one of the only two MLAs in the state winning from Bonai segment under the LS constituency. He repeated the victory in 1995. In 1998, he won the LS seat with a lead of over 1.26 lakh votes, and in 1999, he returned to Parliament with a more emphatic victory. Jual became the first tribal affairs minister in the country, as a separate ministry was created by the Vajpayee government. He won the 2004 LS election but suffered a shock defeat to Hemanand in 2009. He bounced back in 2014 and returned as the tribal affairs minister in the Modi government. Though not been made a minister in 2019, Jual has been one of the seniormost leaders of the BJP with a formidable following. There are multiple factors in his favour. First and foremost is the popularity of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Droupadi Murmu, a tribal woman from Odisha, becoming the President of India has as fuelled positive sentiments among the tribals here while the various welfare programmes of the Modi government has created a committed labharthi base as seen in other parts of the country. Moreover, there is a perceptible undercurrent for the BJP over the Ram temple issue, thanks to the deep inroads made by the RSS and its affiliates in the region. Expressing confidence in his victory, Jual summed up his challenger saying, Dilip is like my younger brother and a former star international hockey player. But, he lacks experience and is relatively novice in electoral politics. On the political front, the return of former Union minister of coal Dilip Ray to the BJP and contest from Rourkela has come as a boon for Jual. The LS seat has about 15.67 lakh registered voters and about 7.99 lakh are tribal voters, including Christians. Christian and Muslim voters account for about around 2.85 lakh and 75,000, respectively. They have been traditionally wooed by the Congress and BJD. Dilip is likely to corner a majority of the non-Hindu votes and the rest would go to the Congress candidate Janardan Dehury. Dehury, ex-MLA of Bonai and president of the Sundargarh District Congress Committee, is far behind in the race. There are about 3 lakh voters of Bhuiya tribe, which had been a mainstay vote bank of the Congress, but since last 15 years they have drifted to the BJP and BJD. The BJP, however, has relied on Hindu and non-convert tribal voters. Undercurrent for the BJP over Ram temple There is a perceptible undercurrent for the BJP over the Ram temple issue, thanks to the deep inroads made by the RSS and its affiliates in the region. Other factors in favour of BJP are popularity of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Droupadi Murmu, a tribal woman from Odisha, becoming the President of India and various welfare programmes.
Northern gumption could make the BJP go South
In the late 1940s, Sardar Patel, Indias first Deputy Prime Minister in Jawaharlal Nehrus Cabinet, embarked on the strenuous task of uniting India. The country was then a patchwork quilt of British India and the monarchs who ran their own show. While the 17 British Indian provinces accepted without a murmur, the 560 Princely States that made up around two-fifths of Indias land mass refused to accede. One of the fiercest opponents of United India was Sir CP Ramaswami Iyer, the aristocratic Dewan of Travancore, a separate kingdom in Kerala. Sir CP as he was called, was also Patels friend, but only had contempt for Nehru and Gandhi: Gandhi was a sex maniac who could not keep his hands off young girls, and Jawaharlal Nehru was unstable. The Dewans vision included himself as a stable uniter of sovereign nations, who would persuade other southern rulers to form a loose federation of independent countries, with perhaps himself as the Prime Ministera South India with its own military, economic, domestic and foreign policy. On June 18, Travancores king Chithira Thirunal Balarama Varma announced, On and from 15th August, 1947, Travancore will reassume its independence and sovereignty in full measure. Nehru hated Sir CP. He threatened to bomb Travancore if it didnt accede to India. He even told Patel that he would get the Dewan shot if he entered Delhi. Patel, deadpan, replied, Hes presently staying in my house, and is not to be disturbed. Sir CPs fall was his anti-Communism. October 1946 saw Keralas own Chauri ChauraCommunists burned down Punnapra Police Station killing many people, including cops. The Travancore Army retaliated by machine-gunning a mob of armed Communists that had gathered to fight the government. On July 25, 1947, a Socialist activist attacked the Dewan at a concert. Sir CP was gravely wounded and rushed to hospital. The Raja, warned of a civil war, did not have the stomach for a fight. Travancore acceded. Narendra Modis implacable mission to capture the South and go down in posterity as Indias Total Unifier is facing a psychological brick wall; the unforgiving barrier of history. North India, where the BJP reigns supreme, is amalgamated by ultra-conservative Hinduism, Hindi, and a massive populace that lives off welfare. South Indians identity comes from the Dakshin ethos, the antipode of the Uttar. The BJPs vote percentage is rising in parts of the South (especially in Tamil Nadu, thanks to the redoubtable Annamalais exertions) mainly due to popular disgust with regional dynastic corruption. Yet BJPs rhetoric hasnt translated into a significant number of Lok Sabha seats. Polarisation, enforcement agencies and brute state force isnt likely to help it win the South. Word of unsolicited advice: let the South be, because it is fiercely proud of its own culture, tradition, languages and the arts, and rejects any linguistic colonisation. Pluralistic by nature, Bollywood films and music, even Punjabi music, tandoori chicken and the salwar kameez are ubiquitous across the South. Todays BJP is not a gentle giant of the Atal-Advani era, but an aggressive monolith that ruthlessly imposes its will by hook or by crook. For millennia, the South has internalised arrivals and invasions by absorbing their impact into its pluralistic culture: Arabic, Greek, Roman, Islamic, Mughal and Maratha. Unity is not monogynous; its a homogenous entity with different living parts like a human body. Unless Modi plugs into the biology of the Southern gestalt, the only direction his partys fortunes could go is south.
Dont blur lines in the name of respecting religious sentiment
Baba Ramdev has shown an uncanny and amazing ability to remain in the headlines, nor is he a stranger to controversies, harsh criticism and vile abuse. Some years back a leading English news magazine had published him on its cover with a picture in crass taste. He was also accused by Brinda Karat of exploiting his workforce and mixing animal products in his ayurvedic potions. It didnt take the Baba long to bounce back and land an almost knock-out punch displaying his nationalist credentials. But this time it seems he has overreached and slipped while skating on thin ice. The Supreme Court has refused to accept his ingeniously worded unqualified apology submitted only after the bench threatened to rip apart, brick by brick his claims of bonafide statements made in public interest, etc. Lets make it clear at the outset that what happens to Ramdev and Patanjali shouldnt distract us from the serious issues that this case highlights. Yoga and Ayurveda are without doubt an integral part of our priceless cultural heritage. However, treating these in a half-baked manner with religious bigotry can only create an explosive mixture. Yoga, as masters like Swami Vivekananda have expounded, is a complex system with many branches to suit the requirements of different individuals. Hath Yoga focuses on the physical, but has aspects that draw on the spiritual and psychological insights. Jnana, Bhakti and Karm Yoga prioritise knowledge, unquestioning devotion and discharging ones duty dispassionately. Raj Yoga is arguably the most esoteric and is for the select few who risk physical and psychologic wellbeing in pursuit of illumination that liberates. Yoga of course is also a system of Indian philosophy. What is of relevance here and now is that can mastery in Yoga be used (or misused) to claim expertise in another specialised domain like Ayurveda? Can a Yoga instructor claim for one self the status of a guru? Guru in India is ranked higher than godhe is sakshat parabrahm. Those who follow their chosen master and mentor are welcome to do so, but shouldnt the government departments and the laws of the land apply equally to gurus, godmen and their lay followers? Quite a few of these worldly-wise bhakts use guru kripa to negotiate the choppy waters of bhavsagar (dangerous waves of the ocean that the material world represents). Baba Ramdev should be given his due for popularising Ayurveda among urban middle classes and creating a unique business model that seamlessly blends desi jugaad and modern technology. There have been other gurus who have followed the trail blazed by him to set up units to produce proprietorial products based on ancient ayurvedic prescriptions. The trouble started when Ramdev and Co. took on allopathic medicine to push its products with wild claims during the Covid pandemic. Its one thing to launch toothpaste with jadi booti traditionally associated with dental care and tonic restoratives like chyavanprash without looking before the leap, the challenge is far more hazardous when cure-all panaceas or sure-cure remedies are created or rediscovered hastily without any trials or peer reviews when millions of lives are at risk. In the past also this swadeshi entrepreneur with miraculous yogic touch has fallen on his face. Public memory may be notoriously short but his attempt to escape the police dragnet clad in salwar kameez and dupatta dont make for a glorious chapter in his biography. He refusedmuch to his creditthe Padma awards that the government was bestowing on sadhus and sants who showered their blessings on the Saffron party led by the Hindu Hriday Smarat, appearing to draw a line between the spiritual and the political. Events as they have unfolded since have forced us to rethink that he isnt above temptations of power and patriotic glory. Before we conclude we must address the most critical issue. The public discourse is dominated by the narrative that Indians in the Amrit Kaal shouldnt continue to suffer from the burden of colonial deadwood. We must revive and restore and celebrate the sanatan ancient Indian science and technology that were maligned by the white masters. This has created a dangerous climate where anyone daring to expose chicanery or charlatans can be branded a blasphemous traitor, a foreign agent, etc. and punished by a kangaroo court. We are living through bewildering times. Policemen deployed on security duty at the Vishwanath temple are dressed in orange attire of the priests, sporting the tribune mark on their forehead. The logic is that constables in khaki wardi were hurting the religious sentiments of the darshan-seeking bhakts who were reluctant to follow their crowd-control measures. Soon the month of shravan and kanwariyas will be with us. Will we witness policemen in suitably changed holy attire? How will the drivers on the highway separate the two? Blurring lines not to hurt sentiments can be perilous. Pushpesh Pant Former professor, Jawaharlal Nehru University pushpeshpant@gmail.com
SRH''s power play took the game away from us: Rishabh Pant
SRH''s power play took the game away from us: Rishabh Pant Delhi Capitals skipper Rishabh Pant conceded his side was literally doing catchup all through the match after Sunrisers Hyderabad made a huge 'power play' statement smashing 125 runs to create an IPL record here on Saturday. SRH's Travis Head (89, 32 balls) and Abhishek Sharma (46, 12 balls) took power play to a different level, erasing the previous record of 105/0 by KKR against RCB in 2017. SRH went on to score 266/7 and then dismissed the home side for 199 in 19.1 overs for a 67-run win and go second on the table. ''I think power play was the difference. We were just catching up throughout the match. That was the massive difference. Hopefully, we will come back with more thought process and clear mindset,'' said Pant, whose 'homecoming' was spoilt by Head and Sharma's 131-run partnership. The DC skipper also said he probably misjudged the dew factor at the Arun Jaitley Stadium and decided to bowl first after winning the toss. ''The only thought process behind that (deciding to bowl first) was we thought there would be some dew but it didn't come. I thought if we could restrict them to 220-230, we would be in with a chance.'' SRH bowler Bhuvneshwar Kumar got just one wicket but his restrictive spell in the high-scoring match -- 33 runs in 4 overs -- played a vital role in the easy win. ''Feeling good. Not among the wickets but the way I want to execute it is happening. Just a matter of time,'' said the pace-bowling stalwart. ''When defending those many runs, you either go for plenty or you get wickets. We accepted that we'll go for plenty of runs when defending those many runs, but the plan was to keep executing,'' he added. Bhuvneshwar praised his fellow pacer T Natarajan's bowling, who was twice on a hat-trick in a single over and ended up with superb figures of 4/19 in four overs ''Amazing. We know how good he is at yorkers. He keeps working hard, silent guy, goes unnoticed a lot. We know how important he is for Sunrisers,'' said Bhuvneshwar, adding that he is happy that SRH batting is finally clicking after several years. ''For so many years, this is the first time our batting is clicking so much. As a bowling unit, happy to take the back seat. They (batters) are ruining us... when we defend 180 or so, it'll feel like less,'' he said. Bhuvneshwar added both Head and Abhishek bat in the same manner at nets. ''Yes, same, especially Head and Abhishek, playing the same way. Batters sometimes play opposite (manner) in the nets, but they play the same way.'' The pacer indicated that bowlers don't get their due despite all the hard work but, in the end, they win championships for teams. ''Bowling is something... somebody says batting wins your sponsorship, but bowling wins you championship. The way we are bowling right now looks bad on the scorecard but it is pretty good for us,'' he said. Player of the Match, Head said he was in good space following the match-winning knock. ''On a bit of a roll there. Enjoyable, boys are on a roll. When you're in good form, just trying to keep it simple. Reacted to the ball.'' He praised opening partner Abhishek for going all out against spinners. ''First time we saw spin in the powerplay last game, and seeing how aggressive he is against spin, we try to let him do his thing against spin. He did it today too,'' said Head.
NTK candidate of Chennai Central constituency held for protesting inside booth
CHENNAI: The Naam Tamilar Katchi (NTK) candidate of Chennai Central constituency was detained and released with a warning after he staged a protest inside one of the polling booths in Pallavan House claiming the light sensor in the EVM did not work when the button the corresponds to the NTK candidate was pressed. The candidate Karthikeyan along with the party cadre staged a protest inside the booth. Following this, the police detained him. Then the election observer intervened and rectified the issue. Later, Karthikeyan was released with a warning. In a similar incident, a history-sheeter and a secretary of the Hindu Munnani Katchi was detained and later released after he created a ruckus at a polling booth in Pulianthope in a drunken state on Friday morning. The man, CD Amudhan, had cast his vote and then started asking the people inside the polling booth to vote for BJP. Upon information, the Pulianthope police came to the spot and detained him and took to the station. Since he was in an inebriated state, his wife was called to the station. Amudhan was sent home with a warning after getting a letter from him. At Alwarpet, a tussle broke out between DMK and BJP men as the two parties claimed one of them was trying to cast bogus votes in one of the polling booths there. The police intervened and pacified the situation. However, both AIADMK and BJP parties lodged a complaint against DMK for casting bogus votes. Earlier in the day, the Chennai City Police Commissioner Sandeep Rai Rathore visited three polling booths in Shenoy Nagar, Perambur and Mylapore during polling to monitor the security arrangements. Speaking to the media, he said 400 mobile police teams were monitoring the city. He claimed more than 1,000 police vehicles were on patrol. A total of 20,000 police officers were deployed for the election-related security arrangements. Talking about security arrangements for the counting, he said the Tamil Nadu Special Police (TSP) and Armed Reserve Police would be deployed outside of the counting centres, and the Central Armed Police Force (CAPF) would be deployed on the inside. The counting centres premises will be guarded by the local police and a four-layer security setup will remain in effect for 45 days, until the counting day.
Broken roads, choked sewers, poor law & order leave Seelampur in a fix
NEW DELHI: In the intricate tapestry of Delhis political landscape, Seelampur emerges as a poignant testament to resilience. Situated within the North East Delhi Lok Sabha constituency, it arose from the upheaval of displacement during the Emergency era. Abdul Rehman, a stalwart of the Aam Aadmi Party, succeeded the esteemed Mohammad Ishraque, who clinched victory in 2015 with an impressive 51% of the vote. Since its inception in 1993, Seelampur has remained a bastion of electoral dominance. The demographics of Seelampur are characterized by a Muslim majority, interwoven with a significant Hindu population. In the 2020 electoral fray, the resonance of democratic fervour was palpable as 1,79, 672 voices resonated through the ballot boxes. The gender ratio, standing at 867 females per 1000 males, paints a vivid picture of participation, while the enrolment of 2,786 new voters heralds a dawn of civic engagement. However, amidst the triumphs lie the shadows of adversity. The reverberations of violent protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act still echo, casting a pall over the communitys aspirations. Challenges such as water logging, inadequate infrastructure, and the perennial menace of crime punctuate the narrative of everyday life. Voices rise from the heart of Seelampur, echoing tales of neglect and resilience. Mohammad Aarizs lamentations about the absence of policing resonate. According to Mohammad Aariz, one of the residents, there are numerous concerns including crime, harassment, theft, bikers performing stunts at odd hours, and womens safety in our area. Broken roads, choked sewers, womens safety, and the lack of adequate CCTV cameras are some of the things we always complain about, but our issues are hardly heard, said another resident,Talat Parveen. The constituency will go to polls on May 25 and the results will be announced on June 4.
From Cong to BJP to Cong in 19 days: Chhindwara mayor's flip-flops
In this Lok Sabha election, if there's one seat heating up in Madhya Pradesh, it's Chhindwara. The focus of the voting day chatter shifted dramatically with the unexpected move of local mayor Vikram Ahake, a stalwart Congressman who recently switched sides to the BJP on April 1st. Ahake made waves by urging the people of Chhindwara to support the Congress candidate Nakul Nath.
As Congress focuses on party plan in its manifesto BJP tries to sell Modi ki guarantee vision
As the nation gears up for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections, the release of manifestos by major political parties offers a glimpse into their visions and promises for the future. The Congress and the BJP, two stalwarts of Indian politics, have unveiled their manifestos, each presenting a distinct approach to governance and development. The Congress Get the latest updates in Hyderabad City News , Technology , Entertainment , Sports , Politics and Top Stories on WhatsApp & Telegram by subscribing to our channels. You can also download our app for Android and iOS .
'Proud to contest from seat held by Vajpayee, Advani': Amit Shah files nomination in Gandhinagar
AHMEDABAD: Union Home Minister Amit Shah formally entered the electoral arena by filing his nomination papers for the Gandhinagar Lok Sabha constituency on Friday, representing the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). He expressed his pride in contesting from a seat previously held by BJP stalwarts such as LK Advani and Atal Bihari Vajpayee. He emphasized his journey from a grassroots party worker to a member of Parliament. Today, I have officially filed my nomination from the Gandhinagar constituency. It fills me with immense pride to contest from a seat previously held by luminaries like LK Advani and Atal Bihari Vajpayee, with Narendra Modi himself being a voter here, said Shah, speaking to the media after submitting his nomination. I've had the privilege to serve from this constituency for three decades, both as an MLA and MP, dedicating myself to public welfare. The unwavering support and affection from the people of Gandhinagar have been my driving force. From a humble booth worker, I have ascended to the halls of Parliament, he said. BJP will never allow reservations to end, will implement UCC in Modi's third term: Amit Shah Under the leadership of Modi, first as Chief Minister and later as Prime Minister, the BJP government has undertaken extensive development initiatives. Over five years, projects exceeding Rs 22,000 crores have been implemented in the Gandhinagar region. I'm immensely gratified by the unwavering support and overwhelming blessings of the people every time I've sought their votes. Their resounding endorsement has consistently led to my victory with significant margins, he added. Meanwhile, Chandrakant Raghunath Patil, popularly referred to as CR Patil, the BJP candidate for the Navsari Lok Sabha constituency, submitted his nomination papers on Friday. It's worth mentioning that Patil could not file his nomination on April 18 at an auspicious time due to the overwhelming turnout of supporters during his morning roadshow.
Modi government has failed in all aspects: Congress leader Jitendra Singh
Modi government has failed in all aspects: Congress leader Jitendra Singh Congress leader Jitendra Singh said on Friday that the Modi government has failed in all aspects and people are in the mood to change the government this time. I request all the people to cast their vote. Your vote will decide the direction of the country. The Modi government has failed in all aspects. This government has been exposed. I have gone to several states and people are in the mood to change the government. They have given a ticket to an outsider in Alwar once again. People here are disappointed, he said. The 25 parliamentary constituencies in Rajasthan will vote in two phases. In Phase 1 of polling in the state on April 19, which is also the opening phase of the seven-phased elections, voting is underway for 12 seats. The remaining 13 seats in the state will be contested in the second phase on April 26. Alwar constituency, known for its substantial Yadav population, sees a keen contest among different political parties. It has witnessed victory of the Bharatiya Janata party in the past two general elections, in 2014 and 2019. Notably, in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, the BJP has fielded Union Minister Bhupender Yadav against Congress MLA Lalit Yadav. Earlier today, Rajasthan Chief Minister Bhajan Lal Sharma exercised his franchise at a polling booth in Jaipur during the ongoing Lok Sabha elections on Friday and said that the state is going to repeat the history of 2014 and 2019 Lok Sabha elections by ensuring the win of Bharatiya Janata Party candidates on all its 25 Parliamentary constituencies. State Minister Rajyavardhan Rathore who also cast his franchise said that this was a huge election for the country. The last general elections in 2019 were also held in seven phases. Vote counting will be done on June 4. (ANI)
Lok Sabha Elections: Actor Dhanush casts vote in Chennai
Lok Sabha Elections: Actor Dhanush casts vote in Chennai Amidst the fervour of electoral democracy, actor Dhanush exercised his franchise at a polling booth in Alwarpet, Chennai, during the ongoing Lok Sabha elections on Friday. Clad in a white shirt and black pants, the 'Raanjhanaa' star made his way to the polling booth in central Chennai.began During the first phase of Lok Sabha elections 2024, voting for all 39 parliamentary seats in Tamil Nadu began today at 7:00 am on Friday, along with 102 parliamentary constituencies spread over 21 states and Union Territories. Voting will end at 6 pm. Superstars Rajinikanth, Ajith Kumar, Kamal Haasan have also cast their votes in Chennai. As they cast their votes, these actors greeted fans and paparazzi, displaying their inked fingers so that photographers and videographers could capture the moment. Prime Minister Narendra Modi is vying for his third consecutive term, while the opposition formed a coalition, known as INDIA, to challenge the BJP in these general elections. The INDIA bloc aims to unseat PM Modi from power. PM Modi, recognising the significance of these elections, urged citizens across the nation to exercise their franchise in record numbers. In a social media post on X, he emphasised the importance of every vote and called upon young and first-time voters to participate actively in shaping the future of the nation. In the previous 2019 general elections, the DMK-led Secular Progressive Alliance clinched victory in Tamil Nadu, securing 38 out of 39 seats. As the electoral process unfolds, subsequent phases are scheduled, with the second phase set for April 26, followed by May 7, May 13, May 20, May 25, and June 1. The counting of votes will take place on June 4. (ANI)
Fear In Alwar: 'BJP Will Change Constitution'
In India elections are never fought in a straight line. It's fought on many issues, at many levels, with multiple emotions and with a bit of good luck, too. Sheela Bhatt reports from Rajasthan.
Assassinations, Malware Attacks: Timeline Of Iran And Israel's Shadow War
Israel launched a strike on Iranian soil on Friday, sources said, in the latest of the tit-for-tat exchanges between the regional arch foes whose long-running shadow war has broken into the open.
Strong foundation of 'Viksit Bharat' will be laid today: Union Minister Arjun Ram Meghwal on 1st phase voting As the voting for the first phase of the 2024 general elections began on Friday, Union Minister and BJP candidate from Bikaner Lok Sabha seat Arjun Ram Meghwal said a strong foundation of 'Viksit Bharat' will be laid today. Rajasthan has 25 parliamentary constituencies and in Phase 1 of polling today, voting is being conducted for 12 seats. The remaining 13 seats in the state will be polled in the second phase on April 26. 114 candidates are in the fray in the first phase of the elections. It is the festival of democracy today. Voting will be done today on a total of 102 seats in the country and 12 seats in Rajasthan, including the Bikaner Lok Sabha seat. Today, a strong foundation of 'Viksit Bharat' will be laid. 'Viksit Bharat' is an overarching theme of the BJP under which the party is seeking votes in the election, Meghwa told ANI. The constituencies in the first phase include Churu, Nagaurm, Ganganagar, Jhunjhunu, Bikaner, Sikar, Jaipur Rural, Jaipur, Alwar, Bharatpur, Karauli-Dholpur and Dausa. Meghwal, a Dalit leader who has been representing the Bikaner Lok Sabha seat since 2009, is contesting the Lok Sabha elections for the fourth time. He is contesting against Congress candidate and former state minister Govind Ram Meghwal. Bikaner has remained a BJP bastion since 2004, when the seat was won by actor Dharmendra. In the 2009 Lok Sabha elections, the seat was won by Meghwal, who went on to become a minister in the Narendra Modi cabinet. While the Congress struggled to secure victories in the general elections post-1999, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has consistently dominated this constituency from 2004 to 2019. A Meghwal, the current Member of Parliament from Bikaner, clinched victories in 2009, 2014, and 2019, solidifying Bikaner as a fortress for the BJP. In the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, he secured 62.84 per cent of the votes, defeating his Congress rival Shankar Pannu. In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, he won for the third consecutive time with a margin of 2,64,081 votes, defeating the Congress candidate and his cousin, Madan Gopal Meghwal. Voting for the first phase of Lok Sabha elections 2024 began at 7:00 am on Friday across 102 parliamentary constituencies spread over 21 states and Union Territories. Voting will end at 6 pm. A total of 16.63 crore voters are going to vote in the first phase of Lok Sabha polls, deciding the fate of 1625 candidates, with Nitin Gadkari, Kiren Rijiju, Bhupendra Yadav, and Arjun Ram Meghwal among several Union ministers in the fray. The counting of votes will be held on June 4. (ANI)
Solve Water Crisis First: Voters Spell Out Election Issues In Alwar
Water shortage has emerged as one of the top election issues this year in Rajasthan's Alwar. The political parties just come for votes, but don't work towards solving water shortage and other issues, allege a voter standing in a queue at a polling station.
Trotters slip up, Alwarpet earn final last-four berth
Trotters slip up, Alwarpet earn final last-four berth - The Times of India
Trotters slip up, Alwarpet earn final last-four berth The Times of India
Live: Gadkari, Rijiju, Kanimozhi among star candidates whose fate will be decided in Phase-I
The world's biggest election -- with a whopping 970 million eligible voters -- kicks off in a few hours and will take a long and winding path across 44 days before culminating in the seventh phase on June 1. The first phase of the Lok Sabha polls will see 102 constituencies across 21 states and Union territories go to the polls on Friday. The biggest chunk of seats in the first phase is from Tamil Nadu where all 39 seats go to the polls. The other states which will see all of their seats going to the polls in Phase-I are Uttarakhand (all five seats), Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur and Meghalaya (two seats each) and the sole seat in Mizoram, Nagaland and Sikkim. Apart from these, 12 out of 25 seats in Rajasthan, eight out of 80 seats in Uttar Pradesh, six out of 29 seats in Madhya Pradesh, five out of 48 seats in Maharashtra, five out of 14 seats in Assam, four out of 40 seats in Bihar, three out of 42 seats in West Bengal, one out of 11 seats in Chhattisgarh and one out of two seats in Tripura will vote on Friday. In the Union territories, one out of five seats in Jammu and Kashmir, as well as the sole seats in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Lakshadweep, and Puducherry will be up for grabs. Separately, voting will also be held for 92 assembly seats in the state elections in Arunachal Pradesh and Sikkim on Friday. Among the prominent leaders trying their luck in phase one are Union ministers Nitin Gadkari from Nagpur, Kiren Rijiju from Arunachal Pradesh (West), Arjun Ram Meghwal from Bikaner, Sarbanada Sonowal from Dibrugarh in Assam, Sanjeev Baliyan from Muzaffarnagar in western UP, Jitendra Singh from Udhampur in Jammu and Kashmir and Bhupendra Yadav from Alwar in Rajasthan. Top leaders from Tamil Nadu whose fortunes will be decided on Friday include the DMK's Kanimozhi (Thoothukudi), Dayanidhi Maran (Chennai Central), TR Baalu (Sriperumbudur) and A Raja (Nilgiris) and the BJP's K Annamalai (Coimbatore) and Tamilisai Soundararajan (Chennai South). Rs 700 per vote: Inside India's record-breaking election! India's 969 million-odd voters have assumed a near-royalty status for a brief period. Political parties have been devoting significant energies and expense to make them feel special, even if it involves wheelbarrows full of cash worth some Rs 1 lakh crore, as per preliminary estimates. The projected expenditure far outstrips the 2019 poll spending, which itself topped out at Rs 55,000-60,000 crore, according to the Centre for Media Studies (CMS), which tracks election expenses. It almost equals the spending on the 2020 US elections that stood at $14.4 billion , or Rs 1.2 lakh crore, according to OpenSecrets.org, which too tracks election spending. In other words, the world's biggest elections happening in India will also be the most expensive ever. What it also confirms is that, power often costs too much.( Read more )
Lok Sabha Elections 2024: In Arunachal West Constituency, Union Minister Kiren Rijiju Eyes 4th Term
Lok Sabha elections 2024: Union Minister Kiren Rijiju, a stalwart in Arunachal Pradesh politics, has been representing Arunachal West constituency since 2014.
Lok Sabha Elections 2024 First Phase: 5 Talking Points
Hyderabad: Voting for the seven-phased 18th Lok Sabha election begins on Friday. Campaigning ended on Wednesday (April 17) evening for the 102 LS seats in the first phase. Nominations for this phase were completed on March 27. Vote counting will be done on June 4 after voting in all phases are over. Here are the top five talking points on the first phase of voting: 1. VITAL STATISTICS The first phase is the largest of the seven phases of voting. Over 1,600 candidates are in the fray in this phase, which will cover 102 parliamentary constituencies across 21 states and Union territories. This phase will cover 16.63 crore voters, including 8.23 crore women, 8.4 crore men, and 11,371 from the third gender. There are 35.67 lakh first time voters, besides 3.51 crore voters in the age group of 20 to 29 years. 2. BIG NAMES The first phase will see eight Union ministers, two former chief ministers and an ex-governor test their electoral fortunes. The Union ministers include Nitin Gadkari (Nagpur, Maharashtra), Kiren Rijiju (Arunachal Pradesh-West), Arjun Ram Meghwal (Bikaner, Rajasthan), Sarbanada Sonowal (Dibrugarh, Assam), Sanjeev Baliyan (Muzaffarnagar, western UP), Jitendra Singh (Udhampur, Jammu and Kashmir) and Bhupendra Yadav (Alwar, Rajasthan). Former Tripura chief minister Biplab Kumar Deb will slug it out against state Congress president Ashish Kumar Saha in the West Tripura seat. Tamilisai Soundararajan, the former Governor of Telangana and Lt Governor of Puducherry is contesting from the Chennai South constituency. Former Madhya Pradesh chief minister Kamal Nath's son, Nakul is seeking reelection from the Chhindwara seat (Madhya Pradesh). Another key figure in the first phase is Tamil Nadu BJP chief K. Annamalai, vying for the Coimbatore seat in Tamil Nadu. 3. ARRANGEMENTS Over 18 lakh polling personnel have been deployed across 1.87 lakh polling booths. They were sent to their respective polling stations via 41 helicopters, 84 special trains and nearly one lakh vehicles. 4. FAIRNESS Arrangements have been made for webcasting (live video broadcasting over the internet) in over 50 per cent of the polling stations. On top of that micro observers have been deployed in all polling stations. As many as 361 observers (127 generals, 67 police officials and 167 expenditure observers) had already reached their constituencies several days before the polls. 5. POLLING TIME Voting will start at 7 am and end at 6 pm. However, the closure of poll timing differs in some seats. Following is the list of states voting in the first phase: Tamil Nadu (All 39 seats) Rajasthan (12 of 25 seats) Uttar Pradesh (8 out of 80 seats) Madhya Pradesh (6 out of 29 seats) Maharashtra (5 out of 48 seats) Uttarakhand (All 5 seats) Assam (5 of 14 seats) Bihar (4 of 40 seats) West Bengal (3 of 42 seats) Arunachal Pradesh (Both of the 2 seats in the state) Manipur (Both of the 2 seats in the state) Meghalaya (Both of the 2 seats in the state) Chhattisgarh (1 out of 11 seats) Mizoram (sole seat) Nagaland (sole seat) Sikkim (sole seat) Tripura (1 out of 2 seats) Jammu and Kashmir (1 out of 5 seats) Andaman and Nicobar Islands (sole seat) Lakshadweep (sole seat) Puducherry (sole seat) On the day, voting will also be carried out for the 92 Assembly seats in Arunachal Pradesh and Sikkim.
Elections 2024: 21 states, UTs set for polling in phase one; 102 LS seats in fray
The first phase of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections will see 102 constituencies across 21 states and union territories go to polls on Friday. The first phase of polling will take place across all 39 seats in Tamil Nadu, all five seats in Uttarakhand, both seats in Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, and Meghalaya, and the sole seat in Mizoram, Nagaland and Sikkim, respectively. Polling will also take place for 12 out of 25 seats in Rajasthan, eight out of 80 seats in Uttar Pradesh, six out of 29 seats in Madhya Pradesh, five out of 48 seats in Maharashtra, five out of 14 seats in Assam, and four out of 40 seats in Bihar. Additionally, three out of 42 seats in West Bengal, one out of 11 seats in Chhattisgarh, and one out of two seats in Tripura will be contested. In the union territories, one out of five seats in Jammu and Kashmir, as well as the sole seats in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Lakshadweep, and Puducherry, will be up for grabs. Voting for the 543 Lok Sabha seats will take place across seven phases from April 19 to June 1, with the counting of votes slated for June 4. Separately, voting will also be held for 92 assembly seats in the state elections in Arunachal Pradesh and Sikkim on Friday. Of the 102 Lok Sabha seats, the BJP had won 39 in 2019, with the ruling alliance NDA bagging 12, five and three of them in Rajasthan, Uttarakhand and West Bengal, respectively. The BJP's existing allies hold seven of them. And in Tamil Nadu, the DMK-led alliance had swept 38 of the 39 seats in 2019 general elections. Amongst the prominent leaders trying their electoral luck in phase one are Union ministers Nitin Gadkari from Nagpur, Kiren Rijiju from Arunachal Pradesh (West), Arjun Ram Meghwal from Bikaner, Sarbanada Sonowal from Dibrugarh in Assam, Sanjeev Baliyan from Muzaffarnagar in western UP, Jitendra Singh from Udhampur in Jammu and Kashmir and Bhupendra Yadav from Alwar in Rajasthan. Tamilisai Soundararajan, who recently resigned as governor of Telangana and Lt Governor of Puducherry to return to active politics, is contesting from Chennai South Lok Sabha constituency. Nakul Nath, son of Congress leader and former Madhya Pradesh chief minister Kamal Nath, is seeking reelection from Chhindwara. Will the BJP's lotus bloom in Tamil Nadu? Tamil Nadu is gearing up for polls a mid fierce campaigning and an intense three-way political battle between the alliances led by state heavyweightsthe DMK and the AIADMKand the BJP, respectively. With elections for 39 Lok Sabha seats looming, approximately 6.23 crore voters are poised to cast their ballots across nearly 68,000 polling stations. The BJP, led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has made unprecedented efforts to gain ground in the Dravidian stronghold. Modi's exhaustive campaign across Tamil Nadu, including rallies in Chennai, Coimbatore, Vellore, and Tirunelveli, underscores the BJP's determination to break its electoral jinx in the state. From raking up alleged corruption and 'parivarvad' politics of the DMK-Congress alliance to the Katchatheevu issue, Modi left no stone unturned in his nine visit to the state Coimbatore, the hub of western Tamil Nadu, is the most keenly watched constituency in the state and the BJP's K Annamalai is slogging to emerge victorious, battling against Dravidian giants the DMK and AIADMK. Meanwhile, the DMK, led by Chief Minister Stalin, has campaigned on platforms of social justice and welfare measures, portraying the elections as a battle against the BJP's divisive politics. Throughout the campaign, Stalin has repeatedly emphasised the importance of these elections, likening them to a second independence movement aimed at freeing the nation from the BJP's influence. In contrast, the AIADMK, under the leadership of Edappadi K Palaniswami, has staunchly defended its record in governance and taken a strong stance against the DMK's campaign. Palaniswami has vigorously addressed various issues, including law and order, and has accused the BJP of discrimination based on caste and religion. Despite facing challenges from both the DMK and BJP, the AIADMK remains confident in its ability to weather the storm, with Palaniswami asserting that the party will emerge victorious with the support of the electorate. UP: Eight seats up for grabs in India's largest state The first phase of the seven-phase parliamentary election in western Uttar Pradesh sees voters in eight Lok Sabha constituencies exercising their constitutional right. These constituencies, falling in the Jat and sugarcane belt, include Saharanpur, Bijnor, Kairana, Muzaffarnagar, Nagina, Moradabad, Rampur, and Pilibhit, spread across nine districts. The contest is three-cornered, primarily between the ruling BJP-led NDA, the Samajwadi Party (SP), and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP). The BJP has allied with the Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD), while the SP has partnered with INDIA bloc ally Congress. The BSP, however, decided to go solo. Key issues for voters include employment, education, and development. A total of 80 candidates, including seven women, are in the fray. The eligible voter count stands at 1.43 crore, with a significant Muslim voter presence ranging from 35 to 50 percent. Notable candidates include Jitin Prasada from Pilibhit, who got the ticket over sitting BJP MP Varun Gandhi , Union Minister Sanjeev Balyan from Muzaffarnagar, and Azad Samaj Party chief Chandra Shekhar Azad from Nagina. In the previous 2019 polls, the BJP secured victories in Muzaffarnagar, Kairana, and Pilibhit, the BSP won in Saharanpur, Nagina and Bijnor, while the SP won in Moradabad and Rampur, the stronghold of its jailed leader Azam Khan. However, the party later lost Rampur to BJP in a bypoll. Cracking the Jat code: BJP's strategic courting of RLD and what it means in western Uttar Pradesh Maharashtra: Polls in 5 LS seats; Gadkari among 97 nominees in fray More than 95 lakh voters are eligible to exercise their franchise on Friday in the first phase of Lok Sabha polls in Maharashtra , covering five of the 48 constituencies, where 97 candidates, including Union Minister Nitin Gadkari of the BJP, are in fray. Polling will be held in the constituencies of Nagpur, Ramtek (SC), Bhandara-Gondia, Chandrapur and Naxal-hit Gadchiroli-Chimur (ST), all located in the easternmost parts of the state. There are 95,54,667 voters in the five Lok Sabha constituencies in the Vidarbha region where voting will take place on Friday. Of these, 48,28,142 are male, 47,26,178 are female and 347 are transgender voters, according to a statement from the state electoral office. In Nagpur, which houses the RSS headquarters, a direct fight is on cards between Gadkari, who is seeking a third term, and Congress candidate Vikas Thakre. First phase of LS polls in Maharashtra: It's Congress party's 'caste calculations' vs BJP's 'Modi charisma' In Chandrapur, BJP candidate and Maharashtra minister Sudhir Mungantiwar is facing Congress nominee Pratibha Dhanorkar, wife of late parliamentarian Suresh Dhanorkar, who was the lone MP from the grand old party to be elected from Maharashtra in 2019 from the seat. In Bhandara-Gondia, the BJP has fielded sitting MP Sunil Mendhe, who is pitted against Congress candidate Dr Prashant Patole. Two-time Lok Sabha MP of BJP, Ashok Nete, is contesting against Congress nominee Dr Namdev Kirsan in Gadchiroli-Chimur (ST), where some areas are affected Naxal insurgency. In the 2019 elections, Nete had defeated Congress candidate Dr Namdev Usendi. In Ramtek (SC), the fight is between Shyamkumar Barwe of the Congress and Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena's candidate Raju Parwe. Maharashtra, which has 48 Lok Sabha seats, the second highest after Uttar Pradesh, will vote in five phases between April 19 and May 20. Rajasthan: 12 seats in fray; will BJP's dominance continue? In the first phase of Lok Sabha elections in Rajasthan, 12 out of 25 seats will be contested. Polling will be held in Churu, Nagaurm, Ganganagar, Jhunjhunu, Bikaner, Sikar, Jaipur Rural, Jaipur, Alwar, Bharatpur, Karauli-Dholpur and Dausa. According to chief electoral officer Praveen Gupta, a total of 2.54 crore voters are set to vote in the first phase on Friday. Notably, a Union minister is among the 114 candidates in the fray. Law Minister Arjun Ram Meghwal is contesting from Bikaner against Congress candidate Govind Ram Meghwal. The Bharatiya Janata Party won all 25 seats in Rajasthan on its own in 2014, and in 2019, the NDA won 25 seats, the saffron party won 24 seats and the Rashtriya Loktantrik Party (RLP) won one seat. Key constituencies include Nagaur, witnessing a contest between the RLP, now in alliance with Congress, and the BJP, and Churu, with former BJP MP Rahul Kaswan contesting as a Congress candidate. In Sikar, the CPI(M) is challenging the BJP's incumbent MP. The ruling BJP focused its campaign on PM Modi's popularity and its infrastructure work, while the Congress raised issues of central agency misuse and unemployment. Notable campaigners include PM Modi, Amit Shah, and Congress leaders Rahul and Priyanka Gandhi. The second phase of the elections in Rajasthan will be held on April 26. In the second phase, polls will be held in 13 Lok Sabha constituencies: Tonk, Ajmer, Pali, Jodhpur, Barmer, Jalore, Udaipur, Banswara, Chittorgarh, Rajsamand, Bhilwara, Kota and Jhalawar. MP: Six LS seats in action, including Kamal Nath's bastion Six constituents will be in action during the first phase of the four phases for the Lok Sabha elections in Madhya Pradesh. The constituencies include Shahdol, Mandla, Jabalpur, Balaghat, Chhindwara, and Sidhi, covering 13 districts and 27 assembly segments. A total of 88 candidates are in the fray, with Jabalpur having the highest number at 19 and Shahdol the lowest at 10. The total number of registered voters across the six constituencies is 1,13,09,636, with arrangements made for shelter, water, and medical assistance at polling booths due to the hot weather. In the 2019 elections, the BJP secured 28 out of 29 Lok Sabha seats, while the Congress won only one seat in Chhindwara, held by Nakul Nath, the son of former Chief Minister Kamal Nath. The second, third and fourth phases of the elections will take place on April 26, May 7 and May 13. Kamal Nath fighting lone battle to help son win Chhindwara and protect home turf Over 75 lakh voters to decide four seats in Bihar In Bihar, the stage is set for the first phase more than 75 lakh voters will decide the fate of 38 candidates standing in four constituencies: Nawada, Aurangabad, Gaya and Jamui. Tight security arrangements are in place at Nawada and Aurangabad, besides reserved seats in Gaya and Jamui, where a majority of nearly 5,000 polling booths have been marked as sensitive, given these districts' long history of naxal violence. Nawada, with 20.06 lakh voters, sees a tough battle primarily between the BJP's Vivek Thakur and the RJD's Shravan Kushwaha, with Independent candidate Binod Yadav adding complexity. Gaya, with 18.18 lakh voters, witnesses 14 candidates, including former CM Jitan Ram Manjhi, an NDA ally, and RJD's Kumar Sarvajeet. Jamui, with 19.07 lakh voters, features a showdown between Arun Bharti from Chirag Paswan's LJP (Ram Vilas) and RJD's Archana Ravidas. The party's president Chirag Paswan, whose sister is married to Bharti, has shifted base to Hajipur after having represented the seat for two consecutive terms. Aurangabad, with over 18 lakh voters, sees BJP's Sushil Kumar Singh facing RJD's Abhay Kushwaha. 76.01 lakh voters, including 36.38 lakh females and 255 belonging to the third gender, are expected to cast their votes. Uttarakhand: Can BJP 'three-peat' clean sweep? Uttarakhand's all five Lok Sabha seats go into polling in phase one, with the BJP aiming to retain the seats for the third time and the Congress looking to regain lost ground in the state. The five seats going to polls on Friday are Haridwar, Pauri Garhwal, Tehri Garhwal, Nainital-Udham Singh Nagar and the lone reserved seat of Almora. The BJP won all five seats in Uttarakhand in the 2014 and 2019 general elections. More than 83 lakh voters will decide the fate of 55 candidates in the fray. Sitting BJP MPs Ajay Bhatt, Mala Rajya Laxmi Shah and Ajay Tamta have been fielded by the party from Nainital-Udham Singh Nagar, Tehri Garhwal and Almora, respectively. The BJP has replaced its candidates in Haridwar and Pauri Garhwal. Former chief minister Trivendra Singh Rawat is contesting in place of Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank from Haridwar and Anil Baluni in place of Tirath Singh Rawat from Pauri Garhwal. The Congress has fielded former PCC president Ganesh Godiyal from Pauri Garhwal, former chief minister Harish Rawat's son Virendra Rawat from Haridwar, Jot Singh Gunsola from Tehri Garhwal, Prakash Joshi from Nainital-Udham Singh Nagar and Pradeep Tamta from Almora. Candidates from the Bahujan Samaj Party, Uttarakhand Kranti Dal and relatively smaller outfits and independents are also in the fray, but straight contests are likely between traditional rivalsthe BJP and Congressin all the seats. Experts say that Haridwar's demography, which has substantial minority and Dalit votes, may also not be a cakewalk for the BJP's Trivendra Rawat, despite his advantage over his rival in terms of experience, as Congress veteran Harish Rawat, who had won the seat in 2009, is leaving no stone unturned to ensure his son's victory from the seat. If the Modi factor works again as it did in 2014 and 2019, overriding all other factors, the BJP will obviously reap the benefits but if unemployment, inflation, continued migration from the hills and performance of BJP MPs over the past 10 years outweigh the national issues, the Congress will gain, political analyst Jaisingh Rawat said. Bengal: Triangular tussle between TMC, BJP and Cong-Left In the first phase of Lok Sabha elections in West Bengal, all attention is on Coochbehar, Jalpaiguri, and Alipurduars constituencies in north Bengal. A total of 56,26,108 voters are eligible to vote in 5,814 booths in this phase. Coochbehar, where Union Minister Nisith Pramanik faces TMC's Jagadish Chandra Barma Basunia, remains significant due to past violence and political rivalries. The deployment of central forces is higher in Coochbehar compared to the other two constituencies. Both BJP and TMC have intensified their campaigns, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee addressing rallies. Key issues include corruption allegations against ruling party leaders, denial of central funds, and the 2021 Sitalkuchi firing incident. The BJP won all three constituencies in the 2019 general elections and maintained its grip in Coochbehar and Alipurduars in the 2021 assembly polls. But, the TMC had the upper hand in Jalpaiguri in the 2021 assembly polls, winning five and the saffron party managed to win two. The Left Front and Congress are contesting together, having secured only single-digit vote shares in 2019. The BJP has renominated Jayanta Roy in Jalpaiguri and Pramanik in Cooch Behar, but replaced last time's winner John Barla with the party's Madarihat MLA Manoj Tigga in Alipurduars. The TMC has, however, changed candidates in all three seats, fielding Prakash Chik Baraik in Alipurduars, Nirmal Chandra Roy in Jalpaiguri and Sitai MLA Basunia in Coochbehar. Direct, triangular contests in Assam's five LS seats Assam gears up for the first phase of Lok Sabha polls in five constituencies, with 35 candidates vying for victory, including Union Minister Sarbananda Sonowal . The electorate of 86,47,869, comprising 43,64,859 women and 42,82,887 male voters, will cast their votes in 10,001 polling booths under tight security with 60 companies of security forces deployed. The BJP is contesting in all five seats, the Congress in four and supporting the Assam Jatiya Parishad contestant in one, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) in two and the All India Trinamool Congress and CPI(M) in one seat each. A direct contest is on the cards between the BJP and Congress in Jorhat, Kaziranga and Lakhimpur, while in Dibrugarh and Sonitpur, there is likely to be a triangular fight among the ruling party, Congress, AJP and AAP. The prestigious Dibrugarh constituency has three candidates in fray: BJP's Sonowal, a Rajya Sabha MP, pitted against the United Opposition Forum, Assam (UOFA) candidate Lurinjyoti Gogoi of the AJP and AAP's Manoj Dhanowar. In Jorhat, four candidates are in contention, with Lok Sabha's Deputy Leader of the Opposition Gaurav Gogoi locked in a direct contest with sitting BJP MP Topon Gogoi. Gogoi had to shift his constituency to Jorhat from Kaliabor, which has been renamed Kaziranga following a delimitation exercise in the state last year. In Kaziranga, BJP's Rajya Sabha MP Kamakhya Prasad Tasa is locked in a direct contest with former Congress MLA Roselina Tirkey, with both candidates belonging to the tea workers' community. Kaziranga has the highest number of 11 candidates in the fray. In Sonitpur, also renamed from the earlier Tezpur after delimitation, there are eight nominees, with a triangular contest likely between BJP MLA Ranjit Dutta, Congress candidate Prem Lal Ganju and AAP's Rishiraj Kaundinya. Lakhimpur has nine contestants, prominent among them being sitting BJP MP Pradan Baruah and Uday Shankar Hazarika of the Congress. Two LS seats in strife-torn Manipur go to polls Manipur gears up for the first phase of Lok Sabha elections amid tight security measures, particularly in the wake of recent ethnic violence. The Inner Manipur Lok Sabha seat, which comprises 32 of the 60 assembly segments in the state, and 15 assembly segments of the Outer Manipur Lok Sabha seat will go to polls in the first phase on Friday. Six candidates, including state Education Minister Thounaojam Basanta Kumar Singh of the BJP and Angomcha Bimol Akoijam of the Congress, are in the fray for the Inner Manipur seat. Outer Manipur, which is reserved for Scheduled Tribes, will witness a four-cornered contest between Naga People's Front's K Timothy Zimik, Congress' Alfred Kanngam Arthur and independent candidates Kho John and Alyson Abonmai, with all the candidates being Nagas. A total of 9.91 lakh voters are eligible in Inner Manipur and over 10.22 lakh voters in Outer Manipur. Special arrangements have been made for people displaced due to ethnic strife, with special polling stations set up. The campaigning has been subdued due to the prevailing tensions, and security has been heightened with the deployment of central armed police forces, especially in vulnerable and critical polling stations. Polling personnel have been dispatched to their respective stations, with special provisions for internally displaced people. The election authorities have ensured gender diversity in the management of polling stations, with some stations being exclusively manned by women. Despite the challenges posed by the recent unrest, efforts are underway to conduct the elections in a free, fair, and peaceful manner. Tripura and Nagaland In Tripura, the first phase of Lok Sabha polls will see voting for the Tripura West Parliamentary constituency and a by-poll in the Ramnagar Assembly. The main contest in Tripura West is between the BJP's Biplab Kumar Deb and state Congress president Asish Kumar Saha. With 14.61 lakh eligible voters, including 7.33 lakh males and 7.28 lakh females, the constituency has 1682 polling booths. Central paramilitary forces will secure all booths, with webcasting from each. In the Ramnagar Assembly by-election, BJP's Agartala Mayor Dipak Majumer faces former CPI(M) MLA Ratan Das, with 54,669 electors deciding their fate. In Nagaland, over 13.25 lakh voters will decide the fate of three candidates. Congress nominee S Supongmeren Jamir, Nationalist Democratic Progressive Party (NDPP) and People's Democratic Alliance (PDA) candidate Chumben Murry and Independent Hayithung Tungoe Lotha are contesting the elections. BJP President J P Nadda, Nagaland Chief Minister Neiphiu Rio, and Deputy Chief Ministers T R Zeliang and Y Patton addressed several rallies in support of their candidate. Polling will run from 7 am to 4 pm, with 13,25,383 eligible voters, including 19,999 first-time voters and 6,707 people with disabilities. Female voters slightly outnumber male voters. In 2019, NDPP's Tokheho Yepthomi won against Congress's K L Chishi. J-K: Udhampur LC seat in action amid ceasefire The Udhampur seat in Jammu and Kashmir will go to polls on Friday in the first phase of the seven-phase Lok Sabha elections. In view of the ongoing ceasefire between India and Pakistan and the heavy deployment of paramilitary forces, the voting process is expected to be peaceful in 2,637 polling stations in the Udhampur Lok Sabha constituency, a senior election official said. Union Minister Jitendra Singh is eyeing a third consecutive term in the constituency after winning the seat for BJP in the 2014 and 2019 Lok Sabha elections, facing a major challenge from Congress candidate Choudhary Lal Singh, who had also won the seat twice in 2004 and 2009. Democratic Progressive Azad Party's (DPAP) candidate G M Saroori, Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) candidate Amit Kumar and six independents will also be contesting the elections from the Udhampur constituency. According to officials, there are 16,23,195 eligible voters. Among them, 845,283 are men, 777,899 are women and 13 are third-gender voters. There are a total of 84,468 potential first-time voters, aged 1819, of whom 45,825 are men, 38,641 are women and two are third genders, the officials said. Lone Puducherry segment all set for three-way fight The fate of the 26 candidates in fray for the Lok Sabha polls will be sealed on Friday when voters spread across four regions will pick the lone MP from this union territory, where the fight is largely confined between the ruling BJP and Congress. BJP leader and Home Minister A Namassivayam, fielded on behalf of the AINRC-BJP combine, will face off Congress MP and PCC president V Vaithilingam, while AIADMK's G Tamizhvendhan is also testing his luck as a debutant. The Union Territory has a total of 10,23,699 voters spread over Puducherry, Karaikal, Mahe and Yanam regions. Andaman's lone seat in action The lone seat in Andaman and Nicobar Islands will see 3.15 lakh voters get an opportunity to exercise their franchise. A total of 12 candidates, including two women and five independents, are in the fray for the polls. Of the 3.15 lakh voters, 1.64 lakh are men and 1.51 lakh are women, while there are four third-gender voters. The electorate also includes 39 voters from the Great Nicobarese tribe of the Strait Islands, 68 members of the Onge tribe at Hut Bay and 98 members of the Shompen tribe of Great Nicobar Island. Special polling stations have been established for them. This time, the saffron party has nominated Bishnu Pada Ray as its candidate, while the Congress has fielded its sitting MP, Kuldeep Rai Sharma. Ray was first elected to Lok Sabha in 1999, when he defeated Congress candidate Sharma by 2,990 votes. He was re-elected in 2009 and again in 2014. In the 2019 elections, however, Sharma secured a victory against BJP's Vishal Jolly (Ray was denied a ticket) by a narrow margin of 1,407 votes.
It's advantage NDA as 15 of Northeasts 25 seats go to polls in first phase
GUWAHATI: It will be advantage BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) when the Northeast goes to Lok Sabha elections on Friday. The region has 25 seats and 15 of them are going to polls in the first phase five in Assam, all two in Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur and Meghalaya, one of two seats in Tripura and the lone seats in Nagaland, Mizoram and Sikkim. The BJP rules Assam, Arunachal, Tripura and Manipur and is a component of the ruling coalitions in Nagaland and Meghalaya. Assam has 14 seats and the five going to polls are Jorhat, Dibrugarh, Lakhimpur, Sonitpur and Kaziranga. A straight contest is expected between the BJP and the Congress in Jorhat, Lakhimpur, Kaziranga and Sonitpur. The Dibrugarh seat is poised to witness a battle between the BJP and the Assam Jatiya Parishad (AJP), which is a Congress ally. All eyes will be particularly on the Jorhat and Dibrugarh seats. The Congress Gaurav Gogoi is up against sitting MP Topon Kumar Gogoi of the BJP in the Jorhat seat. Nehru said bye bye to Assam during China war, people can never forget: Amit Shah Sensing undercurrents of a wavering electorate and Gauravs popularity as a youth icon, the BJP had considerably reinforced its campaign. Not only Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma addressed a series of rallies, the BJP stationed a minister and some MLAs here as it had stepped up its campaign. It will be a battle between experience and exuberance in the Dibrugarh seat where Union minister and BJP stalwart Sarbananda Sonowal is facing a challenge from the AJPs Lurinjyoti Gogoi. Gogoi is among the leaders who had spearheaded the movement against Citizenship (Amendment) Act. The polls in Manipur will be held in the backdrop of the bloody ethnic violence between the Meiteis and the Kukis. The Inner Manipur seat will go to polls in one phase and the Outer Manipur seat in two phases. It will be the BJP versus the Congress in the Inner Manipur seat. The BJP fielded Thounaojam Basanta Kumar Singh, a minister and former IPS officer; while the Congress set up Angomcha Bimol Akoijam, who is a professor at the Jawaharlal Nehru University. The Outer Manipur seat braces for a triangular contest among the Naga Peoples Fronts (NPF) Kachui Timothy Zimik, the Congress Alfred KS Arthur and an independent, S Kho John. No Kuki is contesting the polls in the state. The contest in the two seats in Arunachal will also be a Congress-BJP affair. Union minister Kiren Rijiju of the BJP is up against former Chief Minister Nabam Tuki of the Congress in the Arunachal West seat. Sitting MP and BJP leader Tapir Gao will vie against former minister Bosiram Siram of the Congress in the Arunachal East seat. A deadly trek for sake of democracy in Arunachal The National Peoples Party (NPP), which heads the coalition government in Meghalaya, has an edge over others in both Shillong and Tura seats. Chief Minister Conrad K Sangmas sister and sitting MP Agatha is contesting from the Sangma familys pet Tura seat. A multi-cornered contest in expected in the Shillong seat, which is currently held by the Congress Vincent H Pala. The BJP is facing a contest from the Congress in the Tripura West seat where it fielded former Chief Minister Biplab Kumar Deb. He is up against state Congress president Asish Kumar Saha. Nagaland will witness a straight contest between the ruling Nationalist Democratic Progressive Party (NDPP) and the Congress. The contest in Mizoram will be between the Mizo National Front (MNF) and the ruling Zoram Peoples Movement. The ruling Sikkim Krantikari Morcha (SKM) and the Sikkim Democratic Front will lock horns with each other in Sikkim. The BJP is contesting the polls as NDA. The NPP, NPF, NDPP, MNF and SKM are its allies. The allies across the region are known to fight each other. This election, the BJP struck an understanding with allies in all states barring Sikkim and Mizoram. Meanwhile, Arunachal and Sikkim are also having Assembly elections. The BJP is expected to retain power in Arunachal. The SKM has an edge over other parties in Sikkim.
Android banking malware exploits weaknesses to perform info-stealing operations: Report
A new banking malware was found exploiting weaknesses in Android to steal users information which was then being shared with threat actors
Rahul Gandhi does not dare to contest from Amethi: Rajnath Singh
PATHANAMTHITTA: Senior BJP leader Rajnath Singh on Thursday took a dig at Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, alleging that after his defeat from the Amethi Lok Sabha seat in 2019, he does not dare to stand from there this time. Singh said Gandhi, following his defeat, migrated to Kerala from Uttar Pradesh. However, I have heard that the people of Wayanad have decided not to make him their MP, he claimed while speaking at an election meeting in the Pathanamthitta Lok Sabha constituency to garner support for BJP candidate Anil K Antony. Singh also said that while various space programmes and projects were being launched in the country, he launching of Congress young leader has not happened for the last 20 years. The Congress party's 'Rahulyaan' has neither been launched nor has it landed anywhere, he said taking a dig at the Congress MP from Wayanad. During his speech, Singh praised Congress stalwart A K Antony and called him a disciplined and principled person whose honesty and integrity cannot be questioned. He said he was surprised on reading Antony's statement that Anil Antony should lose in the Lok Sabha polls. I know he (A K Antony) is a principled person and I understand his compulsions. It is difficult for him to support Anil Antony. However, I would like to tell him that Anil is his son. You (A K Antony) may not vote for him (Anil) or canvass votes for him, but you are his father so I would like to request that your blessings should be with him, Singh said. The Lok Sabha elections in Kerala will be held on April 26 and the results will be declared on June 4.
Rahul doesn't have courage to contest from Amethi: Rajnath Singh
Pathanamthitta: Senior BJP leader Rajnath Singh on Thursday took a dig at Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, alleging that after his defeat from Amethi Lok Sabha seat in 2019, he does not have the courage to stand from there this time. Singh said Gandhi, following his defeat, migrated to Kerala from Uttar Pradesh. However, I have heard that the people of Wayanad have decided not to make him their MP, he claimed while speaking at an election meeting in the Pathanamathitta Lok Sabha constituency to garner support for BJP candidate Anil K Antony. Singh also said that while various space programmes and projects were being launched in the country, he launching of Congress' young leader has not happened for the last 20 years. The Congress party's 'Rahulyaan' has neither been launched nor has it landed anywhere, he said taking a dig at the Congress MP from Wayanad. During his speech, Singh praised Congress stalwart A K Antony and called him a disciplined and principled person whose honesty and integrity cannot be questioned. He said he was surprised on reading Antony's statement that Anil Antony should lose in the Lok Sabha polls. I know he (A K Antony) is a principled person and I understand his compulsions. It is difficult for him to support Anil Antony. However, I would like to tell him that Anil is your son. You (A K Antony) may not vote for him (Anil) or canvass votes for him, but you are his father so I would like to request that your blessings should be with him, Singh said. The Lok Sabha elections in Kerala will be held on April 26 and the results will be declared on June 4.
MasterChef India Telugu: A new culinary chapter begins on Sony LIV
HYDERABAD: MasterChef India has emerged as a culinary sensation, enchanting audiences with its mouthwatering creations throughout numerous seasons. The Hindi rendition of this internationally acclaimed series continues to enthrall viewers, gracing both OTT platforms and television screens. Now, the time has come for the show to expand its gastronomic reach to a fresh audience with the launch of MasterChef India Telugu, exclusively on Sony LIV. CE catches up with the esteemed panel of judges, comprising celebrity chefs Sanjay Thumma, Nikitha Umesh, and Chalapathi Rao, to glean their distinct perspectives on the culinary world. Talking about the show, Nikitha says, All of us are super excited because it is something to definitely look forward to and not just for aspiring home cooks but for anyone who just loves food. There are a lot of challenges and most of them on Master Chef India Telugu are happening for the first time in the entire Master Chef India series. Adding more on what they are expecting from the contestants, Chef Chalapathi Rao says, What we are looking from the contestants is one, obviously a Telugu cuisine but how do they innovate, how do they adopt, how do they be creative in their dishes while keeping the soul or the essence or the heart of the dish the intact. So, they need to be very creative and innovative in their thinking, but when we get to taste the dish it should take us back to the original traditional and classical dish. According to the judges there were a plenty of dishes which were outstanding and close to their hearts. There are plenty of dishes which made us both emotional and proud. There are certain times we get wowed, we look at each other and I am like, What is happening? Why? How come these guys are so creative?, shares Chef Sanjay Thumma. Chefs Sanjay Thumma, Chalapathi Rao, and Nikitha Umesh Pic: Vinay Madapu Addressing the age-old dilemma of what is more important in the competition being creative or have technical knowledge, Chef Nikitha explains, I think this is kind of like walking on thin ice because without technique, there is no innovation because if you dont have your techniques right, how are you going to be able to innovate something? Its something that goes absolutely hand in hand and sometimes we keep discussing that some of the most amazing dishes are absolutely accidental. Whereas, for Chef Sanjay, it is the story behind the dishes that does wonders for him apart from being passionate about food. Elaborating about managing their schedules for filming of the show, Chef Sanjay says, I have a lot of time. So even though I am doing television shows, whenever I have a very important show like MasterChef, I keep rest of the things at bay so that my entire focus is here. For Chef Nikitha working with the stalwarts of Telugu cuisine on the show was exceptional. They are both such experienced chefs and its such an absolute honour for me to be able to share the same platform along with them because I have always looked up to both the chefs as mentors. Since it was my first time, a lot of guidance from them also helped me on the show. Further adding Chef Chalapathi shares, Both me and Sanjays chemistry goes back 30-odd years. We have been batch mates and worked together. Our chemistry has always been there. The best part is we understand each others strengths and weaknesses. For everyone the definition of food varies. For some it is an emotion, while for others its a memory. But whats food mean on the show? The food at MasterChef India Telugu is not the food you cook at home. It is not the food that you eat every day. It is the food which is an experience. At MasterChef, every dish is a masterpiece, every dish will have a memory that you carry forward, concludes Chef Sanjay.
Rahul Gandhi lacks the bravery to run in the Amethi election, claims Rajnath Singh
Rahul Gandhi lacks the bravery to run in the Amethi election, claims Rajnath Singh Senior BJP leader Rajnath Singh on Thursday took a dig at Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, alleging that after his defeat from Amethi Lok Sabha seat in 2019, he does not have the courage to stand from there this time. Singh said Gandhi, following his defeat, migrated to Kerala from Uttar Pradesh. ''However, I have heard that the people of Wayanad have decided not to make him their MP,'' he claimed while speaking at an election meeting in the Pathanamathitta Lok Sabha constituency to garner support for BJP candidate Anil K Antony. Singh also said that while various space programmes and projects were being launched in the country, ''the launching of Congress' young leader has not happened for the last 20 years''. ''The Congress party's 'Rahulyaan' has neither been launched nor has it landed anywhere,'' he said taking a dig at the Congress MP from Wayanad. During his speech, Singh praised Congress stalwart A K Antony and called him a disciplined and principled person whose honesty and integrity cannot be questioned. He said he was surprised on reading Antony's statement that Anil Antony should lose in the Lok Sabha polls. ''I know he (A K Antony) is a principled person and I understand his compulsions. It is difficult for him to support Anil Antony. However, I would like to tell him that Anil is his son. ''You (A K Antony) may not vote for him (Anil) or canvass votes for him, but you are his father so I would like to request that your blessings should be with him,'' Singh said. The Lok Sabha elections in Kerala will be held on April 26 and the results will be declared on June 4.
LS polls: BJP's ambitions for Tamil Nadu, bid to retain strongholds on test
LS polls: BJP's ambitions for Tamil Nadu, bid to retain strongholds on test The BJPs ambition to emerge as a force challenging Dravidian parties in Tamil Nadu and determination to retain its strongholds across the country will be put to a stern test on Friday when the seven-phase Lok Sabha elections kick off. If a lot is at stake for the ruling party in the 102 constituencies going to the polls as Prime Minister Narendra Modi seeks a stronger majority, the challenge is even bigger for the opposition INDIA bloc, whose several constituents are in a battle of survival and hope for a rebound after facing reverses in the 2014 and 2019 elections. Among the 21 states and Union Territories where these seats are spread, Tamil Nadu has emerged as a riveting battleground thanks to the BJP's high-octane push to open up its traditionally bipolar polity amid the main opposition AIADMK's continued struggle since J Jayalalithaa's death. Elections in all the 39 seats in the state, where the BJP drew a blank in 2019, will be held on Friday. Modi has led the saffron charge, frequenting the state for long before the polls were announced and holding several rallies and road shows since then. The BJP, which has allied with a few smaller parties, has sought to upend the state's conventional politics, which has so far been indifferent to Hindutva politics, by taking the ruling DMK head-on for its alleged insult of Sanatan Dharma besides involvement in corruption. The prime minister has visited many temples in the run-up to the elections, especially in the days ahead of the Ram temple consecration ceremony in January. He has deftly mixed this with his championing of Tamil culture and pride to counter the Dravidian criticism of the BJP as a party pushing north Indian values in the state. Chief Minister M K Stalin has dismissed all the buzz around the BJP as propaganda, while terming the fight against the national party as a battle for democracy's survival in the country. Political strategist Prashant Kishor has, however, predicted a big rise in the BJPs vote share in the state, while the party's state president K Annamalai, who quit the IPS to join politics and has energised its campaign, has claimed that its seats will be in double digits. It is also one state where the BJP has invested heavily in its regional leadership represented by Annamalai, who is himself contesting from Coimbatore. The poll outcome in the state on June 4, when the nationwide counting of all seats will be done, will have wide repercussions. If Tamil Nadu is a test of BJP's ambitions and appeal in newer territories, more conventional calculations are in play in other regions in the first phase. The BJP-led NDA had won 39 of these 102 seats in 2019, including all 12, five and three of them in Rajasthan, Uttarakhand and West Bengal respectively. Its existing allies hold seven of them. Among other major states, eight seats in Uttar Pradesh, six in Madhya Pradesh, five each in Maharashtra and Assam, and four in Bihar will face the election on Friday. Disaffection among a section of Jats in Rajasthan combined with rebellion by some leaders who were either in the BJP or its ally, have made the NDA's task of retaining the state's all 25 seats challenging, political watchers said. Among the 12 seats in the fray in Rajasthan on Friday, the saffron party is facing a tough fight in seats like Churu, where incumbent MP Rahul Kaswan is the Congress candidate after the BJP dropped him, and Nagaur, where its former ally and current MP Hanuman Beniwal has joined hands with the Congress. Union minister Bhupender Yadav is making his Lok Sabha election debut from Alwar. In Maharashtra, Union minister Nitin Gadkari's Nagpur seat goes to the polls in the first phase. The opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi's constituents Shiv Sena and Nationalist Congress Party have faced splits with the recognised official versions of the two parties now being BJP's allies, even though their main faces Uddhav Thackeray and Sharad Pawar respectively remain in the rival camp. Poll watchers will be looking at how the changed equations play out in the western state where assembly polls are due later this year. Union minister Jitendra Singh's Udhampur constituency, Kiren Rijiju's Arunachal West, and Congress leader Kamal Nath's pocket borough Chhindwara, where his son Nakul Nath in again in fray, are among the seats in the first phase. One Lok Sabha seat and some parts of another seat in the ethnic violence-hit Manipur, besides several seats across the North East states are also in the fray. Though the BJP has inflicted a crushing defeat on its rivals in Uttar Pradesh in 2019, five of its eight seats facing polls in the first phase were won by the Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samajwadi Party, who were then allies and are fighting separately now. The BJP is looking to make gains this time round in these western Uttar Pradesh seats following its alliance with the Jayant Singh-led RLD while the Samajwadi Party and the Congress have joined hands to take on them.
If other party people accept our ideology and join us, what is wrong?
In conversation with Bhupendar Yadav, Environment Minister and BJP candidate for Alwar, Rajasthan
Kamal Nath fighting lone battle to save home turf
With many of his close associates leaving his side, it is virtually a lone battle for Congress stalwart Kamal Nath to help his parliamentarian son Nakul Nath win from Chhindwara for a second time amid the Bharatiya Janata Party's aggressive push to wrest the seat.
In Rajasthan's Alwar, a man named Sabir reportedly kidnapped a Dalit minor girl, raped her, converted her to Islam, and married her.
Eight union ministers, two former CMs, one ex-governor in fray in first phase of LS polls
NEW DELHI: Eight Union ministers, two former chief ministers and one ex-governor are among those who are set to test their electoral fate in the first phase of elections on April 19 when 102 seats across 21 states and Union territories will go to polls. Union Road and Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari is seeking a hat-trick of win from the Nagpur seat. In 2014, he had defeated seven-time MP Vilas Muttemwar by a margin of 2.84 lakh votes and retained the seat in 2019 by defeating current Maharashtra Congress chief Nana Patole by 2.16 lakh votes. Union minister Kiren Rijiju is contesting from the Arunachal West seat. The 52-year-old has represented the constituency thrice since 2004. Rijiju's main rival is former chief minister and present president of Arunachal Pradesh Congress Nabam Tuki. Piyush Goyal, Anurag Thakur, Nitin Gadkari in BJP's second list of 72 candidates for Lok Sabha polls Sarbanada Sonowal, Union Minister of Ports, Shipping and Waterways, is seeking a return to Lok Sabha from Dibrugarh in Assam. Sonowal, a Rajya Sabha member, was fielded from Dibrugarh after Union Minister of State for Petroleum and Natural Gas, Rameswar Teli, was not given a ticket. Muzaffarnagar, known for its intricate caste dynamics, is witnessing a three-cornered electoral battle, with Union minister Sanjeev Baliyan locked in competition against Samajwadi Party's Harindra Malik and BSP candidate Dara Singh Prajapati. INTERVIEW| CAA won't impact Assam's indigenous people; IMDT was discriminatory: Union Minister Sonowal Jitendra Singh, a two-time parliamentarian and a junior minister in Prime Minister Narendra Modi's cabinet, is aiming for a hat-trick in Udhampur. Bhupendra Yadav, Union minister and Rajya Sabha member who replaced sitting MP Balak Nath, is in a contest with sitting Congress MLA Lalit Yadav, who belongs to Matsya region of Alwar district in Rajasthan and enjoys the support of the Yadav community. Union Law Minister Arjun Ram Meghwal is pitted against former Congress minister Govind Ram Meghwl from Bikaner parliamentary seat in Rajasthan. The Nilgiris Lok Sabha constituency in Tamil Nadu is witnessing one of the keenly watched battles between A Raja, the incumbent DMK MP, and former telecom minister, and L Murugan of the BJP, who is the Union Minister of State for Fisheries. This will be the first time that Murugan, who was elected to Rajya Sabha from Madhya Pradesh, is contesting from here. Fight in Nilgiris between Modiji and 2G, says BJPs Murugan, targets Raja Sivaganga MP Karti Chidmabaram is aiming for a re-election from a seat his father won seven times, competing against BJP's T Devanathan Yadav and AIADMK's Xavier Dass. Tamil Nadu BJP president K Annamalai is set to take the ballot test in Tamil Nadu's Coimbatore where she is pitted against DMK leader Ganapathy P Rajkumar and AIADMK's Singai Ramachandran. Tamilisai Soundararajan, who recently resigned as governor of Telangana and Lt Governor of Puducherry to return to active politics, is contesting from Chennai South Lok Sabha constituency. Daughter of veteran Congress leader Kumari Anantha, Soundararajan had contested 2019 Lok Sabha elections against DMK's Kanimozhi, but lost by a huge margin in Thoothukudi. This time, Kanimozhi is seeking a re-election from the seat. Firebrand Annamalais duel in Coimbatore is TN head-turner NDA ally Tamil Maanila Congress (Moopanar) has fielded SDR Vijayaseelan and AIADMK has fielded R Sivasami Velumani from the constituency. Nakul Nath, son of Congress leader and former Madhya Pradesh chief minister Kamal Nath, is seeking a re-election Chhindwara. The seat has remained firmly with Kamal Nath, who has won the seat nine times since 1980. In the 2019 polls, the BJP bagged 28 seats out of the state's 29, but missed out on picking Chhindwara, where Nakul beat the BJP's candidate by 37,536 votes to emerge as the lone Congress MP in the state. Of the two Lok Sabha constituencies in Tripura, the seat of West Tripura that votes in the first phase on April 19 will see a high-voltage clash between former chief minister Biplab Kumar Deb and state Congress president Ashish Kumar Saha. Having won Lok Sabha elections twice since 2014 from Kaliabor constituency in Assam, Gaurav Gogoi, Congress' deputy leader in Lok Sabha and son of former chief minister Tarun Gogoi, finds himself as the new candidate in neighbouring Jorhat, where BJP's Topon Kumar Gogoi won in 2019. Gaurav Gogoi's shift to Jorhat came after the impact of delimitation exercise in his 2019 constituency, Kaliabor. Manipur Law and Education Minister Basanta Kumar Singh is BJP's nominee for the Inner Manipur constituency and is pitted against JNU professor and Congress candidate Bimal Akoijam. Singh, who belongs to the Meiti community, is the son of Thounaojam Chaoba Singh who served as the Union Minister of State for sports, youth affairs, culture and food processing in the NDA government led by Atal Bihari Vajpayee. The BJP stronghold of Churu, in northern Rajasthan, is readying for an interesting match between BJP candidate Devendra Jhajharia, a two-time Paralympic gold medallist javelin thrower, and Rahul Kaswan from the Congress. Kaswan is a turncoat who has made the fight for Churu interesting. The two-time left the BJP only in March after he was denied a ticket by the party. Polling for the 543 seats for electing the 18th Lok Sabha will be held in seven phases.The votes will be counted on June 4.
Dilip Ray returns to electoral politics, to contest from Rourkela assembly seat
BHUBANESWAR, APRIL 16: After a hiatus of five years, former Union minister and senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Dilip Ray has returned to electoral politics as he made a cut into the second list candidates that was released by the party for assembly elections in Odisha. The BJP, which had on April 2 cleared 112 names for assembly polls, released 21 names in the second list. Dillip, who was elected to Odisha Legislative Assembly in 2014 by defeating Sarada Nayak of the ruling Biju Janata Dal (BJD) in Rourkela seat, had refrained from contesting from election in 2019. Rays return to electoral politics assumes significance as the BJP hopes his participation in the polls will have positive repercussions in Sundargarh parliamentary constituency and the seven assembly segments under it. BJP stalwart and former Union tribal affairs minister Jual Oram is seeking his reelection from Sundergarh Lok Sabha seat. He is now pitted against former Hockey India captain Dilip Tirkey. The seven assembly segments that come under Sundargarh parliamentary constituency include Talsara, Sundargarh, Biramitrapur, Raghunathpali, Rourkela, Rajgangpur and Bonai. Dilip is a great asset for us. His presence in the electoral battlefield will make a huge difference. He carries the power to inspire the partys cadres and workers, said senior BJP leader Biranchi Tripathy. As many as four BJD turncoats who recently joined the BJP have found place in the second phase list. They include Jagannath Nundruka, Kailash Kulesika, Amarendra Dash and Dambaru Sisa. Kailash Kulesika, a firebrand tribal leader hailing from Rayagada district, said the BJP would do well this time in South Odisha and the BJD would be completely decimated. I was in the BJD. They had assured me that they would give me a ticket. Though I gave my blood and sweat for the party for years, they ignored my case and gave a ticket to Prabhu Jani as he protects and promotes their mining business interests in our area. They even tried to bribe me which I rejected, said Kulesika, The full list of BJP candidates for Assembly seats in Odisha Rourkela: Dilip Ray Patna (ST): Akhil Chandra Naik Saraskana (ST): Bhadav Hansdah Rairangpur (ST): Jolen Barda Bangiriposi (ST): Sanjali Murmu Karanjia (ST): Padmacharan Haibru Jharigam (ST): Narsingh Bhatra Bissam Cuttack (ST): Jagannath Nundruka Rayagada (ST): Basanta Kumar Ullaka Laximpur (ST): Kailash Kulesika Kotpad (ST): Rupa Bhatra Pottangi (ST): Chaitanya Nandibali Chitrokonda (ST): Dambaru Sisa Dabugam (ST): Somnath Pujari Rajanagar: Lalit Behera Balikuda-Ersama: Satya Sarathi Mohanty Jagatsinghpur: Amarendra Dash Kakatpur (SC): Baidhar Mallick Ranpur: Surama Padhy Sanakhemundi (ST): Uttam Kumar Panigrahi Mohana (ST): Prasanta Mallik
First phase of LS polls sees prominent figures vying for seats
First phase of LS polls sees prominent figures vying for seats Eight Union ministers, two former chief ministers and one ex-governor are among those who are set to test their electoral fate in the first phase of elections on April 19 when 102 seats across 21 states and Union territories will go to polls. Union Road and Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari is seeking a hat-trick of win from the Nagpur seat. In 2014, he had defeated seven-time MP Vilas Muttemwar by a margin of 2.84 lakh votes and retained the seat in 2019 by defeating current Maharashtra Congress chief Nana Patole by 2.16 lakh votes. Union minister Kiren Rijiju is contesting from the Arunachal West seat. The 52-year-old has represented the constituency thrice since 2004. Rijiju's main rival is former chief minister and present president of Arunachal Pradesh Congress Nabam Tuki. Sarbanada Sonowal, Union Minister of Ports, Shipping and Waterways, is seeking a return to Lok Sabha from Dibrugarh in Assam. Sonowal, a Rajya Sabha member, was fielded from Dibrugarh after Union Minister of State for Petroleum and Natural Gas, Rameswar Teli, was not given a ticket. Muzaffarnagar, known for its intricate caste dynamics, is witnessing a three-cornered electoral battle, with Union minister Sanjeev Baliyan locked in competition against Samajwadi Party's Harindra Malik and BSP candidate Dara Singh Prajapati. Jitendra Singh, a two-time parliamentarian and a junior minister in Prime Minister Narendra Modi's cabinet, is aiming for a hat-trick in Udhampur. Bhupendra Yadav, Union minister and Rajya Sabha member who replaced sitting MP Balak Nath, is in a contest with sitting Congress MLA Lalit Yadav, who belongs to Matsya region of Alwar district in Rajasthan and enjoys the support of the Yadav community. Union Law Minister Arjun Ram Meghwal is pitted against former Congress minister Govind Ram Meghwl from Bikaner parliamentary seat in Rajasthan. The Nilgiris Lok Sabha constituency in Tamil Nadu is witnessing one of the keenly watched battles between A Raja, the incumbent DMK MP, and former telecom minister, and L Murugan of the BJP, who is the Union Minister of State for Fisheries. This will be the first time that Murugan, who was elected to Rajya Sabha from Madhya Pradesh, is contesting from here. Sivaganga MP Karti Chidmabaram is aiming for a re-election from a seat his father won seven times, competing against BJP's T Devanathan Yadav and AIADMK's Xavier Dass. Tamil Nadu BJP president K Annamalai is set to take the ballot test in Tamil Nadu's Coimbatore where she is pitted against DMK leader Ganapathy P Rajkumar and AIADMK's Singai Ramachandran. Tamilisai Soundararajan, who recently resigned as governor of Telangana and Lt Governor of Puducherry to return to active politics, is contesting from Chennai South Lok Sabha constituency. Daughter of veteran Congress leader Kumari Anantha, Soundararajan had contested 2019 Lok Sabha elections against DMK's Kanimozhi, but lost by a huge margin in Thoothukudi. This time, Kanimozhi is seeking a re-election from the seat. NDA ally Tamil Maanila Congress (Moopanar) has fielded SDR Vijayaseelan and AIADMK has fielded R Sivasami Velumani from the constituency. Nakul Nath, son of Congress leader and former Madhya Pradesh chief minister Kamal Nath, is seeking a re-election Chhindwara. The seat has remained firmly with Kamal Nath, who has won the seat nine times since 1980. In the 2019 polls, the BJP bagged 28 seats out of the state's 29, but missed out on picking Chhindwara, where Nakul beat the BJP's candidate by 37,536 votes to emerge as the lone Congress MP in the state. Of the two Lok Sabha constituencies in Tripura, the seat of West Tripura that votes in the first phase on April 19 will see a high-voltage clash between former chief minister Biplab Kumar Deb and state Congress president Ashish Kumar Saha. Having won Lok Sabha elections twice since 2014 from Kaliabor constituency in Assam, Gaurav Gogoi, Congress' deputy leader in Lok Sabha and son of former chief minister Tarun Gogoi, finds himself as the new candidate in neighbouring Jorhat, where BJP's Topon Kumar Gogoi won in 2019. Gaurav Gogoi's shift to Jorhat came after the impact of delimitation exercise in his 2019 constituency, Kaliabor. Manipur Law and Education Minister Basanta Kumar Singh is BJP's nominee for the Inner Manipur constituency and is pitted against JNU professor and Congress candidate Bimal Akoijam. Singh, who belongs to the Meiti community, is the son of Thounaojam Chaoba Singh who served as the Union Minister of State for sports, youth affairs, culture and food processing in the NDA government led by Atal Bihari Vajpayee. The BJP stronghold of Churu, in northern Rajasthan, is readying for an interesting match between BJP candidate Devendra Jhajharia, a two-time Paralympic gold medallist javelin thrower, and Rahul Kaswan from the Congress. Kaswan is a turncoat who has made the fight for Churu interesting. The two-time left the BJP only in March after he was denied a ticket by the party. Polling for the 543 seats for electing the 18th Lok Sabha will be held in seven phases. The votes will be counted on June 4.
Kamal Nath Struggles to Secure Victory for Son in Chhindwara and Safeguard Political Legacy
Kamal Nath Struggles to Secure Victory for Son in Chhindwara and Safeguard Political Legacy With many of his close associates leaving his side, it is virtually a lone battle for Congress stalwart Kamal Nath to help his parliamentarian son Nakul Nath win from Chhindwara for a second time amid the BJP's aggressive push to wrest the seat. Chhindwara is the only Lok Sabha seat in MP which the BJP lost in 2019. As the polling date of April 19 nears, campaigning in Chhindwara seems like a family affair for Naths. On the other side, a number of senior BJP leaders have visited the constituency to campaign for their party candidate Vivek Bunty Sahu in this prestigious seat in Madhya Pradesh's Mahakoshal region. The BJP won from Chhindwara against the Nath family only once in the last 44 years. Last year, Sahu was defeated by Kamal Nath in the assembly poll from Chhindwara. MP Chief Minister Mohan Yadav, who has visited Chhindwara six times during the poll campaign, raised the issue of ''local vs outsider''. He termed Sahu a local, and Kamal Nath, who hails from a business family of Kanpur in Uttar Pradesh, an outsider. Former CM Kamal Nath is countering BJP's challenge by trying to strike an emotional chord with people. ''When I used to say 44 years back that I am from Chhindwara, the people would ask where it is. Today, wherever you go, you can proudly say that you have come from Chhindwara...I dedicated my youth days to Chhindwara. Whenever I come here, I recall those days,'' the 77-year-old Congress leader said at a gathering recently. Nath has also advised youngsters to ask their grandparents about the region's poor condition earlier and compare it with the development now. Notably, no prominent national Congress leader has visited Chhindwara to campaign for Nakul Nath. Senior journalist Rasheed Kidwai told PTI, ''Can the old warhorse pull off Chhindwara victory on his own? The opinion is divided but Kamal Nath, the nine-term MP and two-term MLA is confident of pulling off a miracle amid large scale desertions by his close associates in Chhindwara.'' He claimed Kamal Nath is counting heavily on the sympathy factor, which may work for him. Kamal Nath's wife Alka Nath and daughter-in-law Priya Nath are also sweating it out to campaign for Nakul Nath at a time when a number of local Congress leaders have left the party. Ahead of the Lok Sabha polls, Amarwada sitting MLA Kamlesh Shah, Chhindwara mayor Vikram Ahake, former minister Deepak Saxena, district panchayat vice president Amit Saxena, various corporators, office-bearers of municipalities, sarpanchs, and a number of Congress functionaries quit the party. Deepak Saxena, who was a close associate of Kamal Nath, had resigned from his assembly seat in 2019 to pave the way for Kamal Nath's entry to the House after the latter became the chief minister. Sate BJP spokesman Ajay Dhawle, a resident of Chhindwara, told PTI that nearly 5,000 Congress workers and leaders, including some prominent faces, joined the ruling party since the Lok Sabha polls were announced. ''The BJP is raising before the public Nakul Nath's poor track-record in the Lok Sabha. Out of the 24 lakh population (of Chhindwara Lok Sabha seat), 21 lakh have benefitted from of various schemes,'' Dhawle said. BJP president JP Nadda, Union minister Anurag Thakur, state party chief VD Sharma, minister Prahlad Patel and several other leaders have visited Chhindwara to campaign for their party nominee, Dhawle said. CM Yadav has visited this parliamentary seat six times for electioneering, he said. Union Home Minister Amit Shah held a roadshow in Chhindwara on Tuesday. Former MLAs and organisation leaders have been given social responsibilities in various areas of this constituency, Dhawle said. Senior BJP leader and state minister Kailash Vijayvargiya and Rajya Sabha member Kavita Patidar are stationed in Chhindwara to oversee the electioneering process, he said. To counter the BJP's campaign and desertions, the Congress has been relying heavily on the works done by Kamal Nath in the last four decades. The former CM's media adviser Piyush Babele told PTI, ''Nakul Nath will win by a margin of one lakh votes. The works done by him in five years and by Kamal Nath in 40 years of his political tenure will ensure the victory. The entire Chhindwara has witnessed these development works.'' He claimed that farmers have all possible amenities, and 6000-km of rural roads have been constructed in the region. ''Chhindwara is synonymous with Kamal Nath. He personally helps people towards education and health and people themselves accept this. Skill development centres of big companies have been opened, which provided employment opportunities to locals,'' he said. Farming in Chhindwara has become high-tech akin to neighbouring Maharashtra, Babele said. ''No other MP does the work like Kamal Nath did for Chhindwara. He has a personal touch with the people of the region,'' he claimed. The Chhindwara LS seat, a Congress citadel for four decades, has seven assembly segments across Chhindwara and Pandhurna districts, all won by the party. Kamal Nath had won from the Chhindwara Lok Sabha seat for nine-times and his son was the lone winner in 2019 for the Congress in the state, having 29 parliamentary constituencies. The constituency has 16.28 lakh voters, including 8.22 lakh men, 8.05 lakh women and 11 third gender persons.
Digvijaya, Scindia file nomination papers
Bhopal: Digvijaya Singh and Jyotiraditya Scindia, coincidentally selected the same day to formally enter the fray for the 2024 Lok Sabha Elections. Singh, a stalwart of the Congress party, lodged his candidacy from the Rajgarh Lok Sabha constituency, while Union Minister Scindia submitted his nomination papers from the Guna constituency on Tuesday afternoon. Prior to... The post Digvijaya, Scindia file nomination papers first appeared on Central India's Premier English Daily .
Biju Babu: Ace aviator & son of the soil
Biju Patnaik, the legendary leader and one of the chief architects of modern Odisha, has proved his worth through his unique, brave and revolutionary strides. The maverick leader, who is fondly addressed to as Biju Babu, was a great visionary, ace aviator and the tallest figure in Odishas political landscape. The stalwart was born in []
Construction sans permit: CMDA asks MGM to pay Rs 5L
CHENNAI: After the Madras High Court penalised Chennai Metropolitan Development Authority (CMDA) to pay a fine of Rs 5 lakh for failing to act against a construction by MGM Healthcare without plan approval, a notice has been sent to the hospital by the planning agency giving it a 15 day ultimatum to reimburse the fine or pay with interest at the rate of 24% per annum. The high court, while disposing of a petition filed by senior counsel G Rajagopalan on noise pollution caused by construction of a building by MGM Healthcare on St Marys Road in Alwarpet, had come down strongly on authorities for their failure to crackdown on unauthorised constructions and rampant corruption in granting plan approvals. CMDA and Chennai Corporation were penalised Rs 5 lakh each, which was to be paid to Adyar Cancer Institute. According to the legal notice sent to MGM Healthcare, CMDA said that planning permission was granted only on February 23, but MGM commenced construction before that. The planning agency also stated that when the planning permission application, which was received on November 7, 2023, was being processed, piling works and other preparation works were underway since July 2023. MGM, in a letter dated December 12, 2023, had stated it would not carry out any work at the site till the planning permission and building permission were received. It has also requested Chennai Corporation not to take further coercive action. However, MGM continued with the works. The cost (penalty) was imposed only because of your construction activities done without approval and planning permission. Therefore, MGM Healthcare should compensate and reimburse Rs 5 lakh cost imposed on CMDA within 15 days, the legal notice said.
Alwarpet bowled out for 150 by Sea Hawks
'Operation CMF': Navy seizes 940kg of drugs in Arabian Sea
Indian warship seized 940 kg drugs in Arabian Sea under Operation Crimson Barracuda. INS Talwar seized methamphetamines, hash, heroin. CTF-150 commander commended Indian Navy for disrupting criminal activities.
Congress MLA Lalit Yadav Takes On Minister Bhupender Yadav In Rajasthan's Alwar
Now in our election special, it's a Yadav versus Yadav battle in Alwar where Congress MLA Lalit Yadav is taking on Union Minster Bhupender Yadav.
