Imphal, July 30 (IANS) The 13-day-long Manipur Assembly session will start on Wednesday and it might witness heated debate over the ongoing strife, specially the recent violence in Jiribam District by Opposition Congress.

Officials on Tuesday said that the session would continue till August 12.

Congress sources said that they will raise the recent Jiribam District violence and other vital issues affecting the people for the last several months.

Jiribam witnessed a wave of violence after the killing of 59-year-old farmer Soibam Saratkumar Singh on June 6, leading to 900 tribals belonging to the Kuki and Hmar communities taking shelter at the homes of relatives and friends in two villages in Cachar District of southern Assam, while around 1,000 people, mostly belonging to the Meitei community, are now sheltered in seven relief camps in Jiribam.

Manipur has had two Assembly sessions since the ethnic violence broke out on May 3, 2023.

Earlier on two occasions, 10 tribal MLAs belonging to the Kuki-Zo community boycotted the Assembly sessions demanding a separate administration or a Union Territory for tribals in Manipur.

Manipur Chief Minister, N Biren Singh last week said that he would request the 10 MLAs to attend the Assembly session.

One of the 10 MLAs, the BJP’s Paolienlal Haokip, who was elected from Saikot Assembly constituency in tribal-dominated Churachandpur District said that they would not attend the session this time too.

“When my people can’t set foot in Imphal, how can I attend an Assembly held in the state capital,” Haokip remarked.

Of the 10 tribal MLAs, seven are from the ruling BJP, two belong to the Kuki People’s Alliance and one is an Independent.

Since May 3 last year, Manipur has been hit by unprecedented ethnic violence between the Chin-Kuki-Zos and the Meiteis, that has claimed the lives of at least 220 people, left over a 1000 injured and displaced over 60,000 people of both communities.

–IANS

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Srinagar, July 30 (IANS) Four soldiers were injured in a road accident in J&K’s Kulgam district on Tuesday, police said.

Police said that a vehicle of 9 Rashtriya Rifles was coming from Devsar to Pahloo in Kulgam when it met with an accident.

“The vehicle went out of the driver’s control and overturned in the Pahloo area near the petrol pump. It skidded off the road and rolled over to the lawn of a local identified as Muhammad Amin Padder,” a police official said.

The injured soldiers were shifted to the nearby camp of 9 Rashtriya Rifles for medical attention, police said.

–IANS

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Mumbai, July 30 (IANS) Highlighting the success of ‘Mukhya Mantri Majhi Ladki Bahin Yojana’, Shiv Sena Deputy Leader Sanjay Nirupam on Tuesday said that the scheme is on track and will soon reach two crore applications.

“The Mukhyamantri Majhi Ladki Bahin Yojana launched by the MahaYuti government for women in the state has received an overwhelming response. In just 25 days since the registration began, over 1.8 crore applications have been submitted,” he said.

Nirupam said that the Nari Shakti Dut app has significantly streamlined the online application process, with 7 to 8 lakh applications being submitted daily.

“Additionally, the app has been downloaded 88 lakh times, averaging 800 downloads per minute. Currently, the Nari Shakti Dut app ranks as the 27th most downloaded app in the country, with 650 applications submitted every minute through it,” he added.

Nirupam noted that no previous scheme has ever received such an extensive response.

He emphasised that the massive turnout is a testament to the trust that the mothers of the state place in Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde.

“To date, the government has received 1.3 crore applications online and 50 lakh applications through offline modes. The government aims to benefit at least 2 to 2.5 crore women through this scheme. Applications will be accepted until August 31, 2024. The Shiv Sena party will initiate a campaign starting August 2, 2024, to promote registration in Mumbai and its surrounding areas,” Nirupam said.

Pune district has reported the highest number of registrations, with 8.63 lakh women submitting their forms, he added.

Addressing critics who questioned the financial viability of the scheme, Nirupam assured that the state government has not sought any financial assistance from the central government.

“This scheme is entirely funded by the state government, and there is no parallel to the Congress’s schemes. The Maharashtra Chief Minister remains committed to his promise,” he said.

Nirupam expressed confidence that by August 17, 2024, women who have completed their KYC process will receive Rs 3,000 in their bank accounts.

–IANS

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New Delhi, July (IANS) Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Tuesday took the opposition to task for claiming that agriculture had been ignored in the Union Budget 2024-25, pointing out that the allocation for the sector was five times more than what the erstwhile UPA government had earmarked in the Budget for 2013-14.

In her reply to the debate on the Union Budget in the Lok Sabha, the Finance Minister said the allocation for the agriculture sector made by the Congress-led government in 2013-14 was a mere Rs 21,934 crore, which has gone up more than five-fold to Rs 1.23 lakh crore in the Budget for 2024-25.

While the Congress was merely paying lip service to farmers during its tenure, the government led by PM Narendra Modi has extended more than Rs 3.24 lakh crore under the direct benefit transfer scheme to 11 crore farmers who have received the money directly in their accounts, FM Sitharaman said.

She also said that institutional credit to farmers has gone up more than 2.4 times and 76 per cent of small farmers are now availing loans compared to only 57 per cent in 2013-14 when the Congress was in power.

The Congress was merely shedding crocodile tears for the farmers while it did not do anything for them when it was in power, she added.

Stating that the Congress-led UPA had rejected the Swaminathan Commission’s recommendation on fixing MSP for crops at above 50 per cent of the cost of production, the Finance Minister read out the minutes of an official meeting dating back to 2007 to drive home her point in the Lok Sabha.

It is the Modi government that has raised the MSP for farmers across all crops, she added.

The Finance Minister also lashed out at the Congress for the irregularities in the implementation of loan waivers for the farmers, citing the CAG report on the issue.

–IANS

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New Delhi, July 30 (IANS) Days after the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) sealed multiple coaching centres running from the basement, including one by Drishti IAS, the institute’s chief Vikas Divyakirti said on Tuesday that the safety of students is paramount.

“Extensive action by the MCD in the last few days is a welcome step,” Divyakirti wrote on X.

Drishti IAS, one of the leading coaching centres for IAS exam preparations, has come under fire for violating safety norms. It is one of the centres sealed by the MCD recently.

The crackdown on coaching centres in Delhi came on the back of a tragedy in Rajinder Nagar, in which three civil service aspirants died due to flooding in the basement of Rau’s IAS Study Circle.

The Drishti IAS head on Tuesday took to social media to express condolences over the demise of three UPSC aspirants.

He said the anger among the students over the incident was justified, adding that they are cooperating with the government in this regard.

However, he added that the “problem wasn’t as simple as it appears”.

Notably, Divyakirti, an educator and former civil servant, has been at the receiving end after his coaching centre was found to be flouting safety norms.

In the social media post, the Drishti IAS head claimed that the institute is extremely cautious about the safety of the students, and its ‘fire and safety officer’ regularly conducts safety audits of each building.

He also sought to offer a solution to deal with the problem caused by the mushrooming of coaching centres running from basements.

“The permanent solution to this problem is that the government should select three-four areas in Delhi and designate them for coaching institutes. If the government itself prepares classrooms, libraries, hostels, there will be no problem of high rent or security of the provisions relating thereto,” he said.

–IANS

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