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Acharya Balkrishna, the CEO of Patanjali Ayurved, recently debuted as a billionaire, worth ₹25,6000 crore. But reports say that the 43-year old CEO allegedly furnished a fake graduate degree in Sanskrit as well as a forged high school degree in order to acquire a passport. According to reports, Balkrishna's 'Purv Madhyma' high school degree and 'Shastri', a Sanskrit degree from Sampurna Nand Sanskrit University do not exist on the university records, and that he was charged with cheating and criminal conspiracy for producing fake documents in 2012.
This festive season, a specially designed Election Ganpati is occupying pride of place in Washim district of eastern Maharashtra. District collector Rahul Dwivedi hopes that it will encourage people to vote in the upcoming council elections scheduled for December. Dressed in white kurta, pajama and Gandhi topi, the Ganpati is seen with a ballot in his hand, dropping it in the collection box. Dwivedi tweeted saying that that this was an "interactive way" to "sensitise people about voting in the upcoming council elections."
The Mamata Banerjee government in Bengal has offered the Tatas 1,000 acres of land in Goaltore in West Midnapore and a month to "think a little" about building an automobile plant there. The proposal was ironic on several counts. The announcement was made on a day, earmarked as Singur Divas, to celebrate the return of nearly the same amount of land that had been acquired by the earlier Left Front government from farmers in Singur ten years ago. In fact, it was made from a spot very close to the abandoned small-car factory in Singur, from where Mamata Banerjee and TMC, had asked Tata Motors to leave West Bengal in 2008 and set up operations in other states.
Tamil Nadu is bracing today for a dawn-to-dusk bandh called by several farmers and traders bodies over the raging Cauvery dispute. The bandh, which is will be followed across the state amid tight security is being supported by the opposition parties, including the DMK. Groups that have called for the band have planned a series of protests, including 'road and rail roko', and thus thousands of police personnel have been deployed across the state to maintain law and order. Police said tight vigil was being maintained and no attempts to mar public peace or disruption of free movement of transportation would be allowed.
Legendary athlete Milkha Singh feels that the paralympics deserve the highest recognition and awards that the country can bestow upon them as they are the perfect examples of what can be achieved against all odds. Singh's comment came a day after Sports Minister Vijay Goel refused to commit if medallists of the ongoing Rio Paralympics will be conferred with the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna award.
On 23 September, Gujarat chief minister Vijay Rupani will take a leaf out of the campaigning book of US President Barack Obama and participate in a 'townhall' on Twitter by interacting with the electorate. CM Rupani will participate in discussions on the popular social media platform with the hashtag: #AskVijayRupani.
Public Broadcaster Prasar Bharati will launch a website and mobile app today for All India Radio's Balochi service to reach out to the people who speak the language across the globe. According to officials, the Balochi website and mobile app will be launched by Prasar Bharati chairperson A Surya Prakash. The move to start an AIR web service comes in the backdrop of PM Narendra Modi's Independence Day speech in which he had brought up the issue of Pakistani atrocities on people of Balochistan and PoK.
500 nuns from the Buddhist sect known as the Drukpa Order on Saturday will complete a 4,000-km bicycle trek from Nepal's Kathmandu to the northern city of Leh in India to raise awareness about human trafficking in the remote region. This is the fourth such journey they have made, meeting local people, government officials and religious leaders to spread messages of gender equality, peaceful co-existence and respect for the environment. They also deliver food to the poor, help villagers get medical care and are dubbed the "Kung Fu nuns" due to their training in martial arts.
Prediction of "very heavy rainfall" over the next 48 hours in parts of Mumbai and certain areas in central Maharashtra was made by the MeT department late on Thursday evening. Reportedly, a low pressure area which has developed, is moving towards the Western side and will cause very heavy rainfall in Mumbai, along with parts of Central Maharashtra, the Konkan region, Marathwada, as well as Goa.
It's pointless to blame the rioters and vandals who destructed both public and private properties worth hundreds of crores of rupees in Bengaluru, because universally they are faceless groups that revel in violence, often under political or communal/ethnic patronage, says G Pramod Kumar in HuffPost India. "What people across the world saw was not an investment magnet, or India's 'Silicon Valley', but a lawless city that could be taken over by goons at the drop of a hat. It was almost as if the state was on the verge of a civil war. No other tech city in the world would have brooked such anarchy. Trade body Assocham reportedly estimated a loss of ₹25,000 crore, which is a lot of money in an overcrowded and underdeveloped country that aspires big," he writes.
Will the changes to India's foreign policy being introduced by Narendra Modi be embraced by the successive governments led by parties other than the BJP, asks Kunal Singh in his column in Mint. "If a future prime minister of Congress or any other party discards Modi's foreign policy shifts, should Modi be blamed for not creating a consensus around his policies? Or will the future leader be blamed for not recognising the changed world which Modi did? The answer, unless Modi by that date is discredited to the extent Manmohan Singh was by the end of his tenure, will depend on one's political inclinations," he writes.
Attributing atrocities against Dalits and other marginalised groups to anti-social elements will not help, since, that will take the focus away from the religious and social roots of violence. The 2.5 lakh cases of atrocities against Dalits since 1995 is a reflection of the upper caste response to the Dalit assertion for equal rights. Political parties will have to counter the anti-equity discourse that is behind such violence against Dalits, writes Sukhadeo Thorat in The Indian Express. "But reservations combined with economic opportunities and social empowerment of Dalits could stem these incidents," he says.
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