Seven more ministers to be inducted in Jharkhand CM Hemant Soren cabinet.

Source – newindianexpress.com

RANCHI: Seven Ministers will be inducted in the cabinet when the Chief Minister Hemant Soren expands his cabinet for the first time on Tuesday.

The cabinet expansion will take place in Raj Bhavan here on Tuesday at 4 p.m.

Five MLAs from the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) and two from the Congress will take oath as the cabinet Ministers.

Hemant Soren took oath as Chief Minister on December 29 along with two Congress and one Rashtriya Janata Dal Legislators as the Ministers.

The two Congress Legislators who will take oath on Tuesday include Banna Gupta and Sri Badal.

The five JMM Legislators to take oath are Champai Soren, Haji Hussain Ansari, Jaggarntah Mahto, Jobha Manjhi and Mithilesh Thakur.

The JMM, Congress and RJD alliance had won 30, 16 and one seats in 81-member Assembly respectively.

Amid coronavirus, Bihar Girl admitted to Patna Medical College and Hospital with fever.

Source – newindianexpress.com

PATNA/KOLKATA: A 29-year-girl from Bihar’s Chapra district was referred to Patna Medical College and Hospital on Monday with flu-like symptoms. 

Ekta Kumari, who returned from China on January 22, is a student at China’s Tianjin University and had left the country after the coronavirus outbreak.

“She is coherent and not panicking. She wanted to get proper medical care,” said a doctor from Chapra, who did not want to be named.

According to principal health secretary Sanjay Kumar, Ekta reported a mild fever and is suspected to be suffering from the virus, but it hasn’t been confirmed. 

Meanwhile, a researcher from Bengal’s Birbhum district is stranded at a hotel at Wuhan City in Hubei province for four days because of the outbreak. He went to Hubei University on January 21.

“I have been in my hotel room since Friday. I am not allowed to leave. Doctors are visiting me thrice and the hotel authorities are providing food,” said Kazi Arif Islam.

In north Bengal, the state government has set up three checkpoints to scan those who are coming from Nepal.

One more held for Jharkhand massacre, 16 arrested so far.

Source – thehindu.com

One more person has been arrested in connection with the killing of seven people allegedly by ‘Pathalgarhi’ movement supporters at Burugulikera village in Jharkhand’s West Singhbhum district last week, taking the total number of arrests to 16, police said on Tuesday.

Martin Logma, 27, was arrested on Monday and produced before a local court in Chakradharpur, which sent him to 14-days judicial custody, an official release said.

The other 15 accused, aged between 19 and 60 years, were arrested on Sunday and charged with murder and rioting, among others, it said.

They were produced before the court of sub-divisional judicial magistrate, Chakradharpur on Monday which sent them to 14-days judicial custody, the release said.

Supporters of ‘Pathalgarhi’ movement had allegedly kidnapped the seven villagers of Burugulikera in Guddi block on January 21 and killed them for allegedly opposing their stir. Their mutilated bodies were recovered from a forest, around 4 kilometres from the village the next day.

Proponents of ‘Pathalgarhi’, a tribal movement, want that no laws of the land should apply to the tribal people.

They write tenets on large stones and erect them in their areas of influence.

The killings that took place days after the JMM- Congress-RJD coalition government assumed power in the state on December 29, triggered widespread outrage and Chief Minister Hemant Soren ordered an investigation by a special investigation team (SIT).

Jharkhand CM Hemant Soren expands Cabinet, inducts 7 ministers.

Source – tribuneindia.com

Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren on Tuesday expanded his one-month-old Cabinet, inducting seven ministers in the Council of Ministers.

Governor Droupadi Murmu administered the oath of office and secrecy to the newly inducted ministers in a simple ceremony at Raj Bhavan here.

Five of the new ministers are from the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha and two belong to the Congress.

The JMM-Congress-RJD coalition government assumed power in the state on December 29 last year, ousting the BJP-led regime.

Soren inducted Champai Soren, Haji Hussain Ansari, Jagarnath Mahato, Joba Manjhi, Mithilesh Kumar Thakur (all from the JMM), Banna Gupta and Badal Patralekh (both from the Congress).

Mahato and Thakur are first-time ministers and Manjhi had been a minister in previous NDA governments before she joined the JMM. The other four had been ministers in the previous UPA governments.

With five newly inducted ministers belonging to the JMM, the senior ruling party has six members in the council of ministers, including the chief minister, while the Congress has four and the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) one.

Now the council of ministers has 11 members, leaving the scope to induct one more minister.

As per the constitutional provisions, Jharkhand can have a maximum of 12 ministers including the chief minister.

The previous Raghubar Das government had run the dispensation with only 11 ministers all through its five-year term.

It was the first expansion after Soren took oath as the 11th chief minister of Jharkhand on December 29, 2019 along with Congress leaders Alamgir Alam and Rameshwar Oraon and Satyanand Bhokta of the RJD.

The expansion of ministry was earlier scheduled to be held on January 24. It was postponed at the request of the chief minister in the wake of the killings of seven villagers in West Singhbhum district.

Bihar Deputy CM Sushil Modi wants states to spend, borrow more to battle economic slowdown.

Source – theprint.in

New Delhi: States need to borrow more to step up capital expenditure to counter the economic slowdown at a time when revenues are slowing down, Bihar Deputy Chief Minister Sushil Kumar Modi has said.

In an interview to ThePrint, Modi said, “During an economic slowdown, we require to spend more to boost consumption.”

He added, “However, states will get less money from the Centre and their own sources of revenue are also growing at a lower rate. So states will need to borrow more to ensure capital expenditure is not affected.”

The deputy CM said a relaxation in the target set in the Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management Act as well as faster permission for borrowing from the market have been sought from the Narendra Modi government.

“A relaxation in the fiscal deficit target as set by the FRBM Act has been sought. Many states have asked the limits to be relaxed to 3.5 per cent of gross state domestic product (GSDP) from 3 per cent of GSDP,” he said.

Bihar is likely to get Rs 10,000 crore less this year as devolution from central taxes, said Sushil Modi, who also holds the finance portfolio.

The FRBM Act mandates states to keep their fiscal deficit targets under the prescribed limits. However, a slowdown in direct tax and indirect tax collections by the Centre means the amount of money states get from the pool of total central taxes as devolution is likely to come down.

In addition, the pace of growth of state GST revenues has also been lower than anticipated. This has forced states to cut down on capital expenditure at a time when the economy is expected to fall to an 11-year low of 5 per cent.

The Modi government is also expected to reset the FRBM targets as achieving a 3 per cent fiscal deficit by 2021-22 looks near impossible at a time growth is falling sharply.

In a report last month, India Ratings and Research pointed out that a decline in tax revenues, a lower nominal GDP and higher expenditure will see aggregate fiscal deficit of states touch 3 per cent of GDP in 2019-20 as against the budgeted 2.6 per cent.

Besides the lower devolution and GST revenues, the report said states will also see lower tax collections from value added tax on petroleum products.

“Growth of consumption of petroleum products at 2.2% in FY20 so far (April-November) is the lowest in the last seven years,” the report said. In 2013-14, the growth was 0.6 per cent.

‘States should be allowed to swap debt liability’

Speaking to ThePrint, Sushil Modi said there is a need to allow states to repay their high-interest older loans taken from the National Small Savings Fund (NSSF) ahead of schedule to lower the interest burden.

“The rate of interest on NSSF loans is very high and this places a heavy interest burden. States should be allowed to swap our debt liability and repay the higher interest loans.” he said.

Bihar is also demanding faster approvals from the central government to make open market borrowings.

Modi pointed out that while states get permission from the Centre to borrow up to 75 per cent of their debt limit without any issue, it has become difficult to get permission for the remaining 25 per cent.

The Bihar leader also favoured the central government transferring funds to the state consolidated fund for any centrally sponsored schemes rather than sending it directly to the implementing authorities.

“In many of the centrally sponsored schemes, the Government of India is (right) now directly sending the money to the implementing agencies rather than to the consolidated state fund,” he said.

Sharjeel Imam arrested in Bihar over ‘cut off Assam’ remark at anti-CAA protest in AMU.

Source – indiatoday.in

Former JNU student and one of the key organisers of the Shaheen Bagh protest, Sharjeel Imam, who landed in a major controversy over a controversial remark, has been arrested from Bihar’s Jehanabad.

Sedition cases were lodged against Sharjeel Imam in five states across the country. Now, Delhi Police has arrested Sharjeel Imam from Bihar after he was on the run for 4-5 days since his speech video went viral.

Sharjeel Imam was arrested from Tako area in Jehanabad after several police teams conducted raids across Jehanabad and other areas of Bihar. He will now be flown down to New Delhi for further questioning.

In the controversial remark, Sharjeel Imam had suggested Assam be cut off from mainland India.

Earlier on Tuesday, Sharjeel Imam’s brother was also picked up by the police over the anti-CAA protesters alleged inflammatory speeches at the AMU protest.

Asked about Sharjeel Imam’s arrest from Bihar, CM Nitish Kumar said, “Nobody should do anything that is not in the interest of the nation. The accusations and the arrest, court will decide on the matter.”

Sharjeel Imam had been involved in organizing the protests at Shaheen Bagh but came into limelight after a video clip went viral wherein he could be heard making some controversial comments while addressing a gathering at Aligarh Muslim University (AMU), following which he was booked under sedition charges.

Delhi Police claimed he had given an “inflammatory” speech earlier on the Jamia Milia Islamia campus and lodged an FIR against him in the national capital.

Another case was lodged under the stringent anti-terror law against him in Assam, taking cognisance of Imams remark that Assam could be “severed from India, even if for a few months” as a result of the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA).

Police in Manipur and Arunachal Pradesh had also lodged FIRs against the JNU scholar, over his speech in which he threatened to “cut off” Assam and the northeast from the rest of the country.

His mother had appeared before the media and claimed that her son was “not a law-breaker and would surrender to the investigating agencies” and that he had been in favour of “calling off” the agitation at Shaheen Bagh, which has been in news for 24X7 protest, mostly by women.

Uber goes full throttle in Jamshedpur.

Source – telegraphindia.com

App-based taxi service Uber on Tuesday announced the launch of its operations in Jamshedpur, making it the 58th city in India where people can book rides by downloading the Uber app on their smartphones.

The steel city is the second city in Jharkhand, after Ranchi, where the American company has launched its services.

Jamshedpur reported one of the fastest adoptions of the Uber service in comparison to all new Uber city launches in 2019 since the soft launch — with very few cars — of operations here in December last year.

In Ranchi, Uber had launched its services in April last year.

For now, steel city users can only book UberGo, the lowest in the category of rides in terms of quality and size of cars that the company offers.

Ratul Ghosh, head of Uber, East India and Bangladesh, who was present at the launch function at a Bistupur-based hotel, said the company plans to soon launch UberPremier (bigger and better cars than UberGo) and UberIntercity service between Ranchi and Jamshedpur.

“We believe that the introduction of our service in this city will provide riders a reliable and economical travel solution to fully experience the city,” Ghosh said.

“Major areas in and around the city, including Jugsalai, Sonari, Golmuri, Gamharia, Chhota Govindpur to the serene Dimna Lake, are now accessible on UberGo.”

The launch, he added, “will help us in providing convenient mobility options to riders as well as create micro-entrepreneurship opportunities for those who sign up as driver-partners in the steel city”.

Uber has around 600 vehicles in Jharkhand and the intercity service between Jamshedpur and Ranchi is expected to be rolled out by April this year, he said.

Ghosh said that in the past one year, Uber has introduced various safety features such as pin verification for extra security, ride check for proactive help, call anonymity to protect the privacy of riders, background checks of drivers, reminders to check one’s ride before boarding, and 24/7 safety helpline for any urgent assistance during the trip.

Ranchi airport gets free pick-and-drop lane.

Source – dailypioneer.com

The Birsa Munda Airport in Ranchi on Tuesday opened a dedicated lane for pick-and-drop vehicles, which passengers can use free of cost and avoid additional parking charges, Airport Director Vinod Sharma said. Several passengers, including politicians, businessmen and social activists, had raised objection to the additional parking charge for private vehicles that pick and drop passengers at the airport.

The decision of including a free pick-and-drop lane for vehicles entering the airport was taken at a meeting of the Airport Advisory Committee (AAC) recently.

While airport officials had said that there would be an upper limit on the duration for which pick-and-drop vehicles can use the parking without being charged, Sharma on Tuesday said that there was no upper limit as such but the vehicles should not stay parked in the lane as it would disrupt the traffic.

“The idea behind the dedicated lane is to provide passengers the option to get out of the airport and hop in their car without having to pay extra money. Same is applicable for passengers who board their flights from Ranchi. They can get down and allow the vehicle to leave the airport premises,” Sharma said.

The AAC meeting, which took the decision was presided over by Ranchi MP Sanjay Seth and attended by Rajya Sabha MP Mahesh Poddar, who has been an active member of the committee. Hatia legislator Navin Jaiswal also attended the meeting.

Besides taking the decision of relieving pick-and-drop vehicles from parking charges, the AAC also decided to use funds from Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) treasury of the airport to rehabilitate the villagers who had lost land due to construction and expansion of the airport and beautify the villages surrounding the airport.

The Birsa Munda Airport is fast growing in terms of connectivity with other cities. The largest airport in Jharkhand already has 30 flights connecting Ranchi to important cities like New Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Bangalore and Hyderabad. The airport also has an international bay, but is yet to get any international flights. The increasing passenger traffic in Ranchi demands for better facilities and the Airport Authority of India (AAI) is consistently working on finding new ways to enhance the travel experience of passengers, said airport officials.   

Meanwhile, the airport authorities here have also floated tenders for restaurants and bar in the airport premises. Besides, several shops and showrooms have come up in the airport terminals in order to provide entertainment, refreshment and quality shopping experience to passengers here.