Construction work of the Ram temple at Ayodhya will begin on January 15 (Makar Sankranti), five months after Prime Minister Narendra Modi laid its foundation on August 5, Shree Ram Janmabhoomi Tirath Khetra Trust general secretary Champat Rai said here on Saturday..

On November 9, 2019, the Supreme Court had given a historic judgement in favour of the Ram temple paving the way for the construction of the temple.

According to Mr Rai, the construction companies will take three years to complete the work and is likely to be ready by December 2023.

“By next week design and foundation layout will be decided by the expert team and work will commence from January 15,” Mr Rai said.

He said stones from Mirzapur would be used for foundation work for its longevity.

The temple will be constructed on 5 acres of land with the main temple structure will be 3 storied of 360 feet long, 235 feet breadth and 161 feet high.

Special cement will be used for it whose longevity will be for 400 yrs, he said.

The staircase to enter the temple will be of 22 steps while there will be escalated, ramp and lift for senior citizens, and ailing persons.

Mr Rai said, besides in the remaining around 65 acres of land, other construction work would be done simultaneously.

Meanwhile, donation collection for the Ram temple will also commence from January 15 and will continue till Magh Purnima when around 4 lakh activists will visit 11 crore houses.

There will be coupons of Rs 10,Rs 100 and Rs 1000 and people, who want to give more, then receipts would be given for it.

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By Bharati Kumari

The protesting farmers have cut power supply from 1300 out of 9000 Jio Mobile Towers in Punjab.

After it was found that the only way to get Modi to directly talk to them is through troubling Ambani feel. Farmers’ boycott call was the first serious challenge to Ambani and Adani.

The chief logic that has caught on with the farmers is that the Narendra Modi government has passed the new farm laws only to benefit Mukesh Ambani and Gautam Adani’s businesses.

It is relevant to mention here that a wall-sized poster calling for the boycott of Reliance and Adani products have been put up near the main stage at Singhu border.

Baljeet Singh, the vice president of Majha Kisan Sangharsh committee, says that individuals under different groups have been putting up posters themselves.

“There are many such hand-written posters, placards and banners put up on tractors and trolleys demanding a boycott of Reliance and Adani products. People are protesting through various mediums,” Baljeet said.

It is apt to mention that last week Reliance Jio had reportedly complained to Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) against rivals Airtel and Vodafone Idea alleging that the duo was spreading rumours that Reliance will gain from the three farm laws passed by the Narendra Modi government.

“And, the government says that we are misled. Mukesh Ambani’s reaction to our campaign against Jio has proved that we have hit them hard,” says a group of elderly farmers.

A video message of Dr. Darshan Pal, the president of Krantikari Kisan Union, was released on Kisan Ekta Manch Facebook page on December 24, appealing people to boycott all Reliance products in daily use.

“Reliance towers would automatically become redundant when its SIMs would not be in use,” he appeals in the video. The anger against corporate experts Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance and Gautam Adani’s Adani Group has been building up since the day the protests against the Central agriculture laws.

While firms belonging to billionaires Mukesh Ambani and Gautam Adani do not get hold of the foodgrains from farmers, the narrative that new farm laws are to benefit them has made them easy targets, with protesting farmers in different places in Punjab having vandalised and damaged Reliance Jio towers, cutting off connectivity.

The telecom towers damaged belonged to the Jio and common access infrastructure of the telecom industry.

The attacks have impacted telecom services and operators are struggling to maintain services in absence of action by law enforcement agencies.

Mukesh Ambani becomes fifth-richest in the world as net worth swells past $75 billion

He has a rapid shift towards the global rich list, and is now the fifth-richest in the world, climbing two ranks from barely a couple of weeks ago.

Ambani, 63, has seen his net worth reaches to $75.1 billion, from 69.9 billion on July 12, when he had become the world’s seventh-richest and surpassed Warren Buffet, according to the Forbes Real-Time Billionaires List.

Being a billionaire Ambani shouldn’t profit from the new farm laws, Ambani is just a name, the Idea is to attack Industrial and service sector.

The food in the plate of Ambani is the hard work of farmers how come the hunger isn’t fulfilled that the new farm law attracts Ambani.

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India has the potential to achieve double-digit growth through a healthy dose of digital services and manufacturing base expansion which will be driven by demand from the rural sector, youth and the aspirational middle class, Union Minister Anurag Singh Thakur said on Saturday.

The minister of state for finance said that in the past six years, the Modi government has consistently introduced reforms that have brought about significant changes.

Union Minister said, “And now all indicators, from inflation to fiscal deficit, from forex reserves to current account deficit, from GDP growth to financial inclusion– all point to a very stable and sustainable economic position.

Consequently, Talking about the recovery post unlock, he added, it has been broad-based and has not come only from the agriculture sector.

Of the 48 high-frequency indicators used by the Reserve Bank to track the economy, 30 parameters overtook the February’s level, he said addressing 48th National Convention of Company Secretaries.

“We have seen stellar recovery in passenger vehicle sales, 2-wheeler sales, oil consumption, steel production, cement production, international air cargo amongst other areas,” he said.

Due to the gradual and thoughtful unlocking of the lockdown and the resumption of the business activities in the second quarter, he said, “we are looking at a strong economic revival, based on strong fundamentals and a slew of structural reforms.”

Thakur, who was conferred the honorary membership of the Institute of Company Secretaries of India (ICSI), said india is building a conducive ecosystem for enterprises and entreprenuers to emerge as dominant global players.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s economic strategy of Aatmanirbhar Bharat is not only aimed at self-reliance but also sustainability across sectors, he added.

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On December 18, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said that the farm laws were not proposed and passed by the government overnight. These bills were long demanded by many parties and progressive farmers and insisted that the Minimum Support Price be continued.

The oppositional parties are having problems not with the laws but with him, he added. The former governments had only promised to implement these demands but the central government actually delivered those promises. He accused them of misleading the farmers on MSP and the farm laws. 

In the video conference with the farmers in Madhya Pradesh, he stated that the opposition has always been manipulating the farmers for their votes. “People should seek replies from political parties who talked about agricultural reforms in their manifestos,” he added.

Approximately, Rs 16,000 crores were provided to the 35 lakh farmers in Madhya Pradesh. Many farmers are given the Kisan Credit Card only after reviewing their condition, which earlier was not looked after. Prime Minister claimed that the central government has changed the rules to make the credit card available to all the farmers. 

Chief Minister Shivraj said that new laws are passed with the intention of multiplying the income of the farmers. He also assured that the farmer mandis will not be closed. 

The Agriculture Minister, Tomar also assured that the MSP will not be touched while the mandi system will be strengthened. He also requested the protesting farmers to not get manipulated by the third party regarding the farm laws. 

Recently the farmer unions in the Delhi border said that they will be consulting lawyers on the case in the Supreme court before they take further decisions regarding the farm laws.

The agitating farmer unions at the Delhi borders on Thursday said that they will consult lawyers on the ongoing proceedings of the Supreme Court related to their protests against three farm laws before taking any decision. 

He also said that there are many farmer unions who are in support of the farm bills while some are confused about the farm laws. He added that it is their duty to clear the misconceptions of the farmers and fail the conspiracy of the third party. He negotiated with the farmers and told them that the new laws in no way are giving control to the corporates but it is in the farmer’s interest.

The central government is organising programmes like the Kisan Kalyan event at the district level, the blocks including the panchayat levels in the state. He also stated in the events, all the Standard Operating Procedures will be followed including the social distancing and cleanliness. 

In the national campaign organised by the central government, the BJP is viewing to spread awareness about the attempts of the opposition parties of misleading and misinforming the farmers in various situations whether it is the CAA, farm bills or the Article 370. 

Nitin Patel, Chief Minister of Gujarat believes, ‘the farmer protests in Delhi border against the three farmer bills are actually in support of the anti-national and terrorists including people who pro-China. 

The Prime Minister explained that tomorrow if a group of 50,000 people come on the streets protesting and demanding the government to abolish or alter a law, people would come asking for the government to repeal CAA, some thousand anti-nationals could also organise riots asking for the article 370 to be reimplemented. Why should the government bring back the repealed law?

In a country with 3 billion people, if thousands of people come together demanding the government to give Ladakh to China and Kashmir to Pakistan, would that be considered?

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Chinese threat actors, based out of Guangdong and Henan provinces, targeted millions of Indians with shopping scams during festival season sales in October and November, according to findings of Cyberpeace Foundation, a cybersecurity think tank.

The hackers created spurious links and asked users to click on them to participate in online contests and win prizes. The links were disseminated through WhatsApp messages and are believed to have been sent to millions of Indians.

Some of these scam contests used elements from actual sales campaigns used by Amazon India and Flipkart to make them look legitimate and trick users.

For instance, “Big Billion Days Spin the Lucky Wheel” and “Amazon Big Billion Day Sale” surfaced within days of Flipkart announcing its Big Billion Day Sale.

During their investigation, Cyberpeace Foundation found that domain links created for the scams were registered in China specifically in Guangdong and Henan province to an organisation called Fang Xiao Qing. These domains were registered using Alibaba’s cloud computing platform. The links used for the scams are still operational and active.

To send the scam links and make their accounts look legitimate, hackers created fake accounts using fake images and comments.

“E-commerce scams are not new but what’s more alarming is the covert cyber warfare Chinese entities are launching in India on a repeated basis,” Vineet Kumar, Founder and President, CyberPeace Foundation said in a statement.

Kumar warns, the information collected through these scams can be used to undertake more such cyber-attacks especially targeted at internet users in Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities where awareness about such scams are low.

India has been frequently targeted by Chinese and North Korean threat actors. Following the border dispute with China in May- June, such attacks have risen.

In June, cyber intelligence firm Cyfirma had warned several government agencies, media houses, pharma companies, telecom operators and a large tyre company of a possible cyberattack by Gothic Panda and Stone Panda, two well-known hacking groups with direct affiliation to the China’s PLA (People’s Liberation Army).

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The supreme court on Thursday acknowledged the right of farmers to hold non-violent protests, and suggested that the Centre put implementation of the new farm laws on hold while putting forward the idea of constituting an impartial and independent committee, which may include experts like P Sainath, to end the impasse.

The Centre said farmers would not come forward for negotiations if implementation of farm laws was put on hold.

Heading a three-judge bench hearing a clutch of petitions seeking removal of farmers protesting at the borders of Delhi, Chief Justice of India S A Bobde said it would order for serving of notices to protesting farmer unions and give them liberty to approach the vacation bench.

“A protest is constitutional till it does not destroy property or endanger life. Centre and farmers have to talk. We are thinking of an impartial and independent committee before whom both parties can give its side of story,” the CJI said.

The top court said the purpose of staging a protest can be achieved if the farmers and the government hold talks and “we wish to facilitate that”. “We will not decide the validity of law today. The only thing which we will decide is the issue of protest and the right to move freely,” the bench made clear at the outset of the hearing.

The petitioners contended that roads had been blocked by the protesters and border points closed, thereby adversely impacting vehicular traffic. This, they said, was causing hardship to people, including Covid-19 patients, from accessing emergency medical services.

The bench, also comprising Justices A S Bopanna and V Ramasubramanian, said farmers cannot instigate violence and block a city like this. The court said it would ask the Centre if the manner of protest could be slightly altered so that it doesn’t affect the citizens’ right of movement.

“Farmers have right to protest. We won’t interfere with it but the manner of protest is something we will look into. We will ask Centre what is the manner of protest going on, to slightly alter it so that it doesn’t affect the citizens’ right of movement,” the Supreme Court said.

Appearing for the government, Attorney General KK Venugopal said, “None of them (farmers) wear a face mask, they sit together in large numbers. Covid-19 is a concern, they will visit villages and spread it there. Farmers cannot violate the fundamental rights of others.”

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By Bharati Kumari

On Wednesday, the Bombay High court publicly acknowledged that it abides cede of Kanjurmarg land for Mumbai metro car shed.

The state government had applied for 102-acres of land for the shed earlier. They, through the Mumbai Suburban District Collector, had ordered the transfer of the Kanjurmarg salt pan land on October 1. It was handed over to MMRDA on October 6. Subsequently, MMRDA transferred the land to Delhi Metro Rail Corporation Limited (DMRCL) on October 8.

The Kanjurmarg land, which is part of a large land parcel along the Eastern Express Highway, has been allotted for the construction of Metro car shed, is a glad tiding of joy for the state government.

The MMRDA prepares plans; formulates policies and programmes; implements projects and helps in directing investments in the Region. In particular, it conceives, promotes and monitors the key projects for developing new growth centres and bring about improvement in sectors like transport, housing, water supply and the environment in the Region.

The order was passed two days after the HC asked the Maharashtra government to consider whether the collector could withdraw the order transferring the land to the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority ( MMRDA).

Within the two days, the Attorney General Kumbhakoni responded to the Court’s suggestion.

The state government stood by the collector’s order and would withdraw it without MMRDA moving away from the land. The state government said it was open to suggestions from the parties in the case and the collector can hear them.

Despite the same time that acquainting the scrapping of the metro car shed project at Aarey Colony in Mumbai in October, Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray gave a voice to the shift of this project to a government-owned land in Kanjurmarg.

Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) was set up on the 26th January 1975 under the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority Act, 1974 by the Government of Maharashtra as an apex body for planning and co-ordination of development activities in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region comprising of Mumbai and its influence area. Its activities are Development planning for the region, Provision of regional infrastructure, Promotion of growth centres, Provision of development finance, Development Co-ordination.

Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) is the Nodal Agency for development of the Metro System in Greater Mumbai. It is also the Concessioning Authority for the VAG Corridor, to provide Viability Gap Funding to the SPV.

A division bench of Chief Justice Dipankar Datta and Justice Girish S Kulkarni, however, restrained DMRCL from carrying out its ongoing operations on the land till further orders. The case will be heard next in February 2021.

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Indian Railways’ Kisan Rail trains transporting fresh vegetables and fruits to different parts of the country having stoppages at smaller stations are helping small & marginal farmers to get better profit from their farm produce.

The introduction of Kisan Rail also help in reducing wastage, safe & quick delivery with cheaper transportation cost thereby truly transforming & enriching their livelihood. Not only has it transformed the livelihood of the farmers but also changed the smaller railway stations into major farm produce loading hubs.

The stations which had no loading of goods or parcel traffic earlier like Sangola, Belvandi, Kopargaon, Belapur and Modlimb in Central Railway zone of Indian Railways were provided stoppages for Sangola – Muzaffarpur Kisan Rail and smaller stations Sangola & Jeur were provided stoppage for Bengaluru – Adarsh Nagar Delhi Kisan Rail taking into consideration of the small farmers of this region.

The stoppage at these stations facilitated farmers to load their perishable farm produce like pomegranates, guava, custard apple, banana and other fruits, vegetables and fish for transportation to various parts of India.

The farmers of the region around these stations are benefitting with increased margin of profit due to the loading of their farm produce onto the Kisan Rail at these smaller stations over Solapur Division.

Sangola, a small station which is a major loading point for 3 Kisan Rails, has cumulatively loaded 8,325 tonnes of fruits until now since the start of the Kisan Rail in August 2020. The farm produce loading at other small stations since the start of Sangola – Muzaffarpur Kisan Rail are: Belvandi with 175 tonnes, Kopargaon with 336 tonnes and Belapur with 165 tonnes.

Jeur is a small station on Solapur Division of Central Railway.

Earlier, there was no parcel loading service from this station, but the start of Bengaluru – Adarsh Nagar, Delhi Kisan Rail gave great opportunity for struggling farmers situated around this station. In 6 trips of Kisan Rail, 578 tonnes of fruits were loaded from Jeur. Many farmers of this region are extremely happy and elated with the advent of Kisan Rail at Jeur.

One farmer, Vijay Labade from the village Shetpal near Jeur, Karmala taluk of Solapur says, “The fruits are transported in large quantities, fresh delivery in quick time with very low cost. I am overwhelmed and thankful to Indian Railways for Kisan Rail and request considering more trips to Adarsh Nagar Delhi of Kisan Special services”.

Another farmer and a loader of farm produce, Mr Kiran Doke said “The start of Kisan Rail is a blessing, it has immensely benefited the farmers around Jeur in a great way, as our farm produce are delivered fresh & in a quick time to the customers, moreover the low transport cost has helped us now to establish a continuous supply chain to Delhi & North India.”

The advent of Kisan Rail and its stoppages at small stations enabling the life of the farmers and their families transformed and also transforming smaller stations into a major farm produce loading hubs.

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Amid the ongoing protest in and at the borders of the national capital against the recently enacted farm laws, farmers closed two toll plazas in Haryana’s Ambala and Karnal late last night, letting the vehicles cross without paying the duty.

Bys seeing this intense situation by the protestors Ravi Tiwari, in-charge at Shambhu Toll Plaza in Ambala said, “Vehicles are not paying the toll since midnight. Some farmers had come and forced us to close the toll plaza. We haven’t received any information yet as to how long this will continue but the farmers are saying that it will remain toll-free throughout the day till midnight.”

In addition to this as part of their agitation, In Ambala farmers have also closed Bastara Toll Plaza in Karnal late last night.

The farmers, who were mainly from Haryana and Punjab were adamant that until the government fulfills their demands to withdraw the laws, the movement would continue in a similar way.

This would lead to huge losses for the toll plaza operators. Thousands of vehicles cross the Bastara Toll Plaza on the Delhi-Chandigarh route everyday. Around Rs 200 is charged here.

Scores of farmers across the country, including Haryana, are heading towards Delhi to join the agitation amid the deadlock with the central government over the new farm laws. They also planned to block the Delhi-Jaipur, and Delhi-Agra highways on Saturday.

Apart from this, the farmers’ unions have threatened to block railway tracks if the laws are not repealed.

Meanwhile, Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar has appealed to the protesters to stop their agitation as talks are still going on. And about 2,000 police personnel are on duty in Gurgaon and 3,500 policemen have been deployed in Faridabad to stop the protesters and to protect toll booths and ensure smooth flow of traffic.

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The Delhi high court has responded to the Indian Air Force’s plea of not disclosing the details of Prime Minister’s security and flights by putting a stay on the order of revealing the information of the security personnel and flight details under the right to information act. 

On December 9, the Indian Air Force had challenged the Central Information Commission’s order that had mandated the disclosure of the information related to the Special Flight Returns (SRF)-II of the foreign visits of the Prime Minister since 2013. They stated that it was a threat to the jurisdiction and principles of the country. 

The Indian Air Force was asked to give the original and verified copies of the Special Flight Returns – Part 2 to the Central Public Information Officer of Air Headquarters by the CIC on July 8.

The high court had demanded commodore Batra reply to the notice issued by the Indian Air Force in the next four weeks and have also put a stay on the ‘impugned’ order till further notice.

The court said that in SRF-2, only the number of passengers will be revealed and not the designations or the ranks. Whoever accompanies the President or the Prime Minister will not be disclosed.

It was also found that the CIC had clearly stated about the nature of the information that was to be disclosed and Batra argued that in accordance to the private individuals and other people present in the entourage of the Prime Minister. The justice also added that only the number of associates has been asked by the authorities. 

The reason for the revelation of designations of officers from other ministries or departments was observed by the court and decided that it should be limited to the numbers. Although Batra argued that this information has been disclosed for a long time.

Earlier in 2018, Batra had demanded the information of all the foreign visits of two prime ministers, Narendra Modi and Manmohan Singh from April 2013 due to the money spent on such trips and not for the public welfares for which the tax-payers pay. 

However, he was told that the former Prime Minister had not flown in Indian Air Force planes till May 2014. He was denied access to the information of aircraft, the crew and the companions of the Prime Minister as it was ‘sensitive’ information and the security of the country would not be threatened.

In the petition of the Indian Air Force, they had mentioned the CIC has neglected the fact that the law has denied access to the information even the SPG details under the RTI act, 2005.

Keeping in mind the assassination attempts on the Prime Ministers, SPG has strong protocols regarding the protection and security of the Prime Minister including the personal information of the SPG officials are not to be disclosed in public. As it can find the source of the assistance to the PM given for security purposes which are only used for internal audits.

The details sought included the Special Protection Group (SPG) personnel and companions of the Prime Minister on his foreign tours. In case it was disclosed, it would significantly affect the interests of the country. 

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