New Delhi, Oct 17 (PTI) Senior bureaucrat S Kishore has been re-employed as the chairman of Staff Selection Commission (SSC) for a period of one-year beyond his retirement in January next year to January 31, 2024, a Personnel Ministry order said on Monday.

He is an Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer of West Bengal cadre belonging to 1989 batch.

The Appointments Committee of the Cabinet (ACC) has approved re-employment of Kishore as chairman, Staff Selection Commission in the rank and pay of Secretary to the government of India on contract basis for a period of one year beyond the date of his superannuation (31.01.2023) i.e. up to 31/01/2024 or until further orders, it said.

Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel and state Congress head Mohan Markam were among the party leaders who cast their votes on Monday for electing the next president of the All India Congress Committee (AICC). Senior Congress leaders Mallikarjun Kharge and Shashi Tharoor are in the fray for the post of the AICC chief. Voting was underway from 10 am at the state Congress office 'Rajiv Bhawan' in Raipur and will conclude at 4 pm.

Out of the total 307 Pradesh Congress Congress delegates eligible to cast their votes, 210 have so far exercised their franchise, Chhattisgarh party unit's communication wing head Sushil Anand Shukla said.

Besides CM Baghel, state Congress head Markam, the others who have voted so far include cabinet ministers Ravindra Choubey and Tamradhwaj Sahu, and MLAs Dhanendra Sahu and Satyanarayan Sharma, he said.

Talking to reporters after casting his vote, Baghel said there is an internal democracy in the Congress, but in the BJP, only ''two persons'' elect president of the party. The CM did not take any name.

“When J P Nadda was re-elected as the BJP president, nobody knew about it (the election process). But in the Congress, a democratic process is being followed and an election is taking place for the post of the party chief,'' Baghel added.

The ruling 'Mahagathbandhan' (grand alliance) in Bihar and the opposition BJP on Monday continued to spar over the issue of reservations in urban local body polls, which have been in limbo following a recent court order that held the state's quota system as illegal.The BJP, which has been stripped of power following Chief Minister Nitish Kumar's exit from the NDA, staged demonstrations across the state on the theme ‘Aarakshan Bachao, Nagar Nikay Chunav Karao’ (restore reservations, hold urban local body polls).

The programme was conceptualised last week in response to a similar agitation by Kumar's JD(U) which was titled ''pol khol'' (expose) and had sought to blame the stalemate on a “conspiracy” by its former ally.

“The BJP can never compromise on the issue of the welfare of the weaker sections of the society. It was the Narendra Modi government that got Ram Nath Kovind and Droupadi Murmu, a Dalit and a tribal respectively, to the highest constitutional post of the President'', said former Union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad, who addressed party workers at the state headquarters here.

However, the JD(U) and its main current ally, the RJD, came out with statements slamming the BJP for shedding “crocodile tears” on the reservation and alleged that hostility towards backward classes was in the “DNA” of the political offshoot of the RSS.

“BJP is shedding crocodile tears. Things have come to this pass because of its obstinacy on the issue of caste census. The one problem faced by all state governments defending reservations in a court is the absence of fresh data”, JD(U) parliamentary board president Upendra Kushwaha told reporters in Kaimur district.

He also expressed dismay over the Patna High Court coming out with its “adverse” judgement on October 4, less than a week before the first phase of urban local body polls was scheduled on October 10.

“Courts have been known to work till late in the night in extraordinary situations. The order, which has affected all those who had spent their resources on campaigning, should have been passed 15-20 days earlier. This could have left some scope for a course of action other than deferment of polls”, said Kushwaha.

He reiterated that the state government will contest the High Court order before the Apex Court and fresh polls will be held “only after reservations are restored”.

RJD spokesperson Shakti Singh Yadav also issued a statement attacking the BJP for having “embarked on Kamandal to thwart Mandal” in the 1990s and declared “the BJP-RSS stands exposed before the poor, labourers and farmers. They will rally behind the Mahagathbandhan led by Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and Deputy CM Tejashwi Yadav”.

Nonetheless, Ravi Shankar Prasad, who is also the local MP, told BJP workers that the law secretary of the state is understood to have told the government that it could not hold elections unless certain criteria laid down by the Supreme Court were fulfilled. “The government, however, misled the State Election Commission that it had received the law secretary's approval,” he claimed. “I am fortunate to have been the country's law minister. But you know the state. Their law minister's wicket had fallen recently”, said Prasad referring to RJD MLC Kartik Kumar who was shunted to another ministry over a controversy which was followed by his resignation.

Nitish Kumar failed to realise that the Supreme Court's orders may have been passed over matters about Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra, but these were binding upon all states, the BJP leader said. “And what to say about his new ally (RJD president) Lalu Prasad, who did not allow urban local body polls to be held during the more than a decade-long period he was in power. “It was only after we formed a government in alliance with Nitish Kumar that fresh polls were held and reservations given to OBCs and EBCs”, Prasad pointed out.

PTI

Ahmedabad, October 17

Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and his Punjab counterpart Bhagwant Mann will address public meetings in Unjha town of Mehsana district and Deesa town in Banaskantha district of Gujarat on Monday, an Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader said.

AAP national convener Kejriwal and Mann are on a two-day visit to poll-bound Gujarat from Sunday.

The Election Commission has not yet announced the poll programme for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-ruled state.

During a rally in Bhavnagar city on Sunday, Kejriwal took a dig at the BJP-led central government, saying Gujarat does not want a "double-engine government" but a "new engine" government.

He said if the AAP comes to power in Gujarat, it will withdraw on priority all "false cases" registered against people from various communities, groups and government employees for agitating against the BJP government in the last 27 years.

Kejriwal has visited Gujarat multiple times in the recent past and made a number of promises for the welfare of people of the state if his party is voted to power.

Bengaluru/Ballari  (PTI) Voting in the Congress Presidential election is underway on Monday in Karnataka, where party leader Rahul Gandhi and one of the candidates for the top post Mallikarjun Kharge, will be casting their votes.

Kharge, a Member of Rajya Sabha from Karnataka is pitted against Thiruvananthapuram MP Shashi Tharoor in the polls to the party’s highest post.

Rahul Gandhi will cast his vote in a meeting room container converted into a polling booth at the Bharat Jodo Yatra camp site in Sanganakallu in Ballari district, while Kharge will vote at the Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee office in Bengaluru.

About 40 other Bharat Yatris, who are PCC delegates, will also be casting their votes at the camp site in Sanganakallu between 10am and 4 pm today, which as been declared as “Rest Day” for the Bharat Jodo Yatra.

 Maoists set four vehicles on fire at an iron ore mine in Chhattisgarh's Kanker district on Monday, police said.

No one was injured in the incident, they said.

A group of Maoists reached near the Chargaon iron ore mine of a private firm in Siksod police station area in the wee hours and torched two trucks and as many sports utility vehicles (SUV) which were parked there, a police official said.

Out of the four vehicles, the two trucks and an SUV were engaged in mining-related work, he said.

After torching the vehicles, Maoists fled into a forest, he said.

A police team rushed to the spot in the morning and a search operation was launched to nab the culprits, the official said.

Maoists have in the past also burnt vehicles engaged in mining-related work in the area.

The grand old party, Congress is all set to have a non-Gandhi president in more than 24 years. Senior leaders of the party Mallikarjun Kharge and Shashi Tharoor will face off against each other for the post of AICC chief today, Monday (17 October). 

The voting has started taking place at the All India Congress Committee (AICC) headquarters in which more than 9,000 Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC) delegates will be allowed to choose the party chief in a secret ballot. 

For the sixth time, the election will take place at AICC headquarters at over 65 polling booths across the country in Congress' 137-year history.

 Prime Minister Narendra Modi will on Monday attend an event to distribute Ayushman cards to beneficiaries of the Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana–Ma Amrutam (PMJAY-MA) scheme in Gujarat, officials said.

Modi will join the programme organised in Gujarat capital Gandhinagar in the presence of Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel via video conference and will also interact with three beneficiaries, an official release said on Sunday.

The Ayushman PVC cards (made of polyvinyl chloride material which can be carried easily) are to be distributed to more than 50 lakh beneficiaries under the PMJAY-MA scheme in Gujarat, the release said.

The Centre's PMJAY scheme of providing healthcare facilities to the economically weaker sections was integrated with Gujarat's Mukhyamantri Amrutam (MA) and Mukhyamantri Amrutam Vatsalya (MAV) healthcare schemes in 2019.

As a result, all beneficiaries of the state schemes were eligible to get PMJAY-MA cards, the release said.

Since the integration of the two schemes, PMJAY-MA cards were issued to 1.58 crore beneficiaries in Gujarat, the state government said.

"From September 2021 till date, more than 50 lakh cards have been issued under the chief minister's leadership. Newly printed Ayushman PVC cards will be given to these beneficiaries," the release said.

Gujarat's Minister of Health and Family Welfare Rushikesh Patel will attend the state-level programme. Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya will join the event virtually.

Under the Ayushman Bharat-PMJAY, the world's largest health insurance scheme, health cover of up to ₹5 lakh is provided per family, as per the government website.

After the announcement of the Ayushman Bharat-PMJAY in 2019, the Gujarat government integrated the Mukhyamantri Amrutam and Mukhyamantri Amrutam Vatsalya schemes with it, and beneficiaries of these three schemes were issued co-branded cards under the PMJAY-MA.

 PTI

Bengaluru, October 15ISRO’s heaviest rocket LVM3 will launch British start-up OneWeb’s 36 broadband satellites from the spaceport in Andhra Pradesh’s Sriharikota on October 23, marking the launcher’s entry into the global commercial launch service market.

LVM3 was earlier called GSLV Mk III.

The launch of ‘LVM3 - M2/OneWeb India-1 Mission’ is scheduled at 0007 hours IST on October 23 (midnight of October 22), the Bengaluru-headquartered Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) said on Friday.

"Cryo stage, equipment bay (EB) assembly completed. Satellites are encapsulated and assembled in the vehicle. Final vehicle checks are in progress,” it said.

Earlier this month, ISRO said that NewSpace India Limited (NSIL), a central public sector enterprise (CPSE) under the Department of Space and the commercial arm of the space agency, had signed two launch service contracts with the UK-based Network Access Associates Limited (OneWeb) for launching OneWeb LEO (low earth orbit) broadband communication satellites on-board ISRO’s LVM3.
“It is the first LVM3-dedicated commercial launch on demand through NSIL,” ISRO had said.

“This contract with M/s OneWeb is a historic milestone for NSIL and ISRO, as LVM3, is making its entry into the global commercial launch service market,” it had said.

The newest rocket is capable of launching a four-tonne class of satellites into a Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit (GTO).

LVM3 is a three-stage vehicle with two solid motor strap-ons, a liquid propellant core stage and a cryogenic stage.

India’s Bharti Enterprises is a major investor and shareholder in OneWeb.

 PTI

New Delhi, October 15

Pitching for a more inclusive and accessible legal profession, Supreme Court judge Justice D Y Chandrachud on Saturday advised young law students to incorporate feminist thinking in the way they dealt with law.

Addressing the convocation of the National Law University (NLU) here, Justice Chandrachud said students must strive to make the legal profession more inclusive and accessible.

“I would particularly advise you to incorporate feminist thinking in the way you deal with the law,” he told the gathering.

Recounting his experience as a junior judge in the Bombay High Court, Justice Chandrachud said he used to sit in a criminal roster with Justice Ranjana Desai (now retired) and heard diverse criminal appeals.

“Initially, I viewed the matters where women were often subjected to the worst of crimes and violations from a straightjacketed perspective, but sitting with a colleague who had more diverse exposure to realities of gender gave me the necessary feminist perspective,” he said.

“Of course, I believe that all of us, including myself, have a lot to learn in terms of how we perceive law and apply social experiences,” Justice Chandrachud added.

He said women lawyers might find it challenging to work in a male-dominated profession, which often fails to accommodate their concerns and opinions, but the times were changing and technology had been a great enabler in liberating young women in their access to the legal profession.

“One of the great learnings of the pandemic is that when we went virtual in our hearings, the number of women lawyers who were appearing in the court dramatically increased,” he said.

He said rule of law did not merely depend on the Constitution or legislation and largely depended on the political culture and the habits of citizens, especially young legal professionals who were present before him.

“In a sense, all of you are the guardians of our constitutional and democratic traditions and to you is entrusted the responsibility of ensuring that rule of law is not substituted by rule by the law,” Justice Chandrachud said.

“You must strive to make the legal system more inclusive and accessible when you become a part of it and this is one way to further the goal of justice,” he added.