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Mukesh Ambani, chairman of Reliance Industries which operates the world's largest single-location oil refinery at Jamnagar, today said the crisis in Iraq will lead to higher fuel prices which in turn will raise inflation.
"In an inter-connected world like the one we are living in today, what's happening around the world affects everywhere.
"The geopolitical crisis in the Middle East, especially the ongoing one in Iraq will increase crude oil prices which in turn will spike inflation in our economy," Ambani said at the 106th annual general meeting of Indian Merchants Chamber in Mumbai today.
Crude oil prices have gone up by four per cent as the civil war has engulfed Iraq and some analysts believe that if the crisis worsens it could jack up India's oil import bill by over USD 20 billion this fiscal, at close to USD 200 billion.
On the growth prospects of the domestic economy, which slipped below 5 per cent for two consecutive years, Ambani said our progress is both irrefutable and unstoppable, but there are developmental hurdles like low education and poor infrastructure.
Admitting a public interest litigation alleging charging of unauthorised deposits from consumers with domestic PNG connection, the Gujarat high court issued notices to Adani Gas Ltd and Petroleum and Natural Gas Regulatory Board in Ahmedabad today.
A two-judge bench, comprising Chief Justice Bhaskar Bhattacharya and Justice J B Pardiwala, issued a notice and posted further hearing on July 3.
The High Court acted on the PIL filed by three Ahmedabad-based social activists Dhanesh Desai, Sanjay Raval and Bharat Shah who alleged Adani Gas Ltd has been charging an additional amount of Rs 500 as "security deposit" from its customers. "Apart from all other charges for installation of pipeline and supply of gas authorised by the Petroleum and Natural Gas Regulatory Board, Adani collects additional amount of Rs 500 as so-called 'security deposit'," the PIL said.
The petition alleged the additional amount as "security deposit" is absolutely illegal and unauthorised and cannot be imposed on consumers of natural gas.
The petition also alleged the gas company charged the amount which is not even mentioned in the tariff determined by the regulatory body.
A deaf and mute minor girl was allegedly gang-raped by three youths near Alirajpur, police said on Thursday. The victim had gone to attend a marriage function in Motaumar village of the district when the three accused abducted her on a motorcycle on June 13 and took her to an isolated place and gang-raped her, Aambua police station in-charge, S K Solanki told reporters.
The girl somehow managed to escape from the place Wednesday evening and later filed an FIR at the Aambua police station. All the accused are absconding and efforts are on to nab them, he added.
For more than six months a series of tweets have detailed the alleged covert alliances and conspiratorial machinations behind the ascension of The Islamic State of Iraq and the Sham, the Islamist group taking over large parts of Iraq.
Taken together, the tweets form a slanted but valuable picture of ISIS and one of the only portraits of its leaders. Read
This will give you a idea of why the DMK chief is troubled.
Read: Modi sarkar, DMK in war of words over Hindi
Read this column to understand why this win was crucial for the JD-U
Sunni Arab insurgents had stormed the complex in Baiji, south of Iraq's militant-held second city Mosul, yesterday, setting fire to several storage tanks for refined products in a move that sent jitters through world oil markets.
Twenty-four family members of Indians abducted in Iraq met Swaraj today. She said she requested them to trust the government and pray to God. "We are in contact with every organisation possible to help us in our efforts to rescue Indians. Nurses from Kerala are safe in Iraq. Once the situation becomes peaceful we will bring them back."
"We have about 10,000 Chinese workers in Iraq. Most are in relatively safe areas," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying said. Its work force is believed to be the biggest and mostly works in oil companies.
"For those employees close to areas where the situation is relatively grave due to proximity to the conflict zones, they will evacuate to safe zones," Hua said.
Reports said that two Major Chinese oil firms have prepared evacuation plans in case the situation deteriorated and threatened their operations.
In 2011, China mounted a massive land, sea and air operation to evacuate about 35,800 of its workers from Libya during the rebellion against Muammar Gaddafi regime.
Pic: Families of the Indians abducted in Iraq outside the Gurdwara Rakab Ganj Sahib in Delhi
Sinha, in fact, carefully drafted a two-page letter to seek the transcript, as a case against the other person was also being pursued by the CBI.
However, a brief, one-line reply was sent to Sinha by a deputy secretary in the revenue department turning down his request.
After all, babudom understands its internal politics like no one else, so the present CBI directors attempt to know more about his predecessor was nipped in the bud itself.
He said the abducted Indian nationals were kept with nationals of other nations. So far, the MEA has received 130 calls on the Iraq helpline.
He says the Indian embassy in Iraq is following up with the authorities there. The Iraq government has also confirmed that the Indians were abducted, he says.
The Patna blast had taken place on October 27, last year at Patna railway station and the Gandhi Maidan during Narendra Modi's 'Hunkar' rally in which six persons had been killed.
The NIA had brought the accused to Patna and produced him before a court here on November 12, last year. The court had sent Nyaz to 14 days' judicial remand in Beur jail on the same day.
Ramanujan is only 58 and can continue in office for two more years, but since he had given his date of birth wrongly in his school certificate, he is forced to retire now.
But unlike someone we all know, the bureaucrat does not want to fight it out since the error was made by his parents inadvertently.
The buzz is that after the Budget session of Parliament there is a possibility of the government naming Rajiv Mehrishi, presently Rajasthan chief secretary, as the next cabsec.
No wonder Mehrishi has been seen more in New Delhi than in Jaipur, comment his batch mates.
Earlier today, the government asked National Disaster Management Agency members to put in their papers. NDMA members said they will resign if the government insists.
Alva has previously been a governor in Uttarakhand.
If you've just joined us: The Narendra Modi government has asked some UPA-appointed governors to put in their papers, Uttar Pradesh Governor B L Joshi and Karnatakas H R Bhardwaj have tendered their resignations.
Here are some of the tweets ...
Mitul Dadhania: Facebook was down for a bit, productivity levels around the world went up for a brief moment there! #facebookdown
BaiSk8r: "Where were you in the Great Facebook Crash of 2014 dad?"
"On Twitter son, but I InstaGramed about it" #facebookdown
Rhiannon Irons:The Great Facebook Depression 2014 #facebookdown
@fliptongz: Facebook is like the fridge. You keep checking it but theres nothing good. #facebookdown
Vicky Newborough: Think its a sad sad day when Facebook goes down for 15 minutes and it makes a headline on the news....#facebookdown.
By Saturday there will be a spate of resignations, with as many as 12 to 14 governors submitting their resignations.
How the government handled this issue, along with the political managers of the governors, is the real story. Among those who will be resigning is K Rosaiah from Tamil Nadu who is reported to have conveyed his decision to 10, Janpath.
Rijiju says, "Hindi is our national language and we need to promote it. But it will not be promoted at the cost of regional languages. It doesnt mean we'll discourage regional languages, all languages will be given due importance."
Karunanidhi said that the PM should focus on development rather than on promoting Hindi. He was objecting to an order issued recently by the Union Home Ministry which said that government departments and bureaucrats must use Hindi on social media for their official accounts.
Karuna said that the government was treating non-Hindi speakers as second class citizens.
There are total seven members in the NDMA - Shashi Dhar Reddy, KM Singh, B Bhattacharya, JK Sinha, Muzzafar Ahmad, K Salim Ali and Major General JK Bansal. Ali, a 1978 batch IPS officer was the latest entrant in the NDMA. He was special CBI director and investigated Ishrat Jahan fake encounter case.
The Home Secretary had called all NDMA members on Wednesday to resign.
NDMA members said, "We are sending a letter to the government with our stand." Sources in the NDMA said that if the government insisted, then they will resign.
The post of the NDMA is equivalent to that of Minister of State level.
-- IBN Live
Yesterday, Facebook Inc launched a smartphone app that will allow consumers to exchange disappearing photos and videos without requiring Facebook accounts, the Internet company's latest effort to develop mobile services beyond its core social network.
A resident of Majitha village, Gurpinder Kaur said that her brother Manjinder Singh was lured by a travel agent who first sent him to Dubai but later put him in Iraq, where he has now got stuck.
Manjinder was among the youths from Punjab working with one of the Iraqi companies which were closed down after the area was captured by militants.
Kaur said that her brother had called her two days back and said that the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) militants were taking care of them and wanted to help them leave Iraq.
She said she was in touch with the Indian embassy in Baghdad and had also sent a request to External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj seeking assistance in the matter from the government. But she added that the Ministry of External Affairs was yet to provide any information about the Punjabi youths stranded in Iraq. However, the Union Government had told them that it has sent officials to Iraq for negotiations.
Singh is a former police officer who left to become a lawyer and activist in Mumbai.
Ministry of external affairs had announced on Wednesday that the 40 workers had been abducted in recent days in the Iraqi city of Mosul, which Sunni militants have overrun in a deadly ongoing insurgency.
The ministry said no demands for ransom had been made and the workers' whereabouts, along with who was responsible for the abductions, were not known.
But not everything is as hunky-dory as it seems or sounds. Within the party there is growing restiveness over his lack of involvement with the partys affairs. Insiders narrate one incident last week, when Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge was defending the UPA government during the debate on the Presidents address to Parliament.
At a time when he should have been thumping the desks in Kharges support, Gandhi, it is said, was busy taking out the battery from his BlackBerry, wiping it clean with his handkerchief and putting it back into the phone.
Who knows, maybe he was trying to phone a friend, remarked a senior Congress leader wryly.
Pic: The mother of Kuljeet Singh, one of the 40 construction workers abducted in Iraq, with his photograph.
Abandoned by most of the hospital's Iraqi staff, the nurses, whose homes in Kerala are worlds away from the desert city in which they now live, stayed behind because they had nowhere to go.
They have been isolated since the city was taken over by Islamist forces and are now awaiting help. Some want assurances of safe passage.
"We don't know what's going on outside,' said Tona Joseph, 24, who said her twin sister, Veena, also a nurse, was sitting beside her in a patient's ward on the second floor of the hospital. "We haven't stepped outside for the last five days." Read more
He said he had no objection to the Centre's decision to replace Governors but objected to the manner in which the government was asking him to quit the constitutional post.
"Union Home Secretary Anil Goswami called me twice last week, asking me to demit office. I didn't reply to him nor expressed my views."
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Lieutenant General Suhag is scheduled to take over as army commander on August 1, after General Bikram Singh retires. But another senior office, Lieutenant General Ravi Dastane, has said that the new army chief's selection is mired in "favouritism". Read more
Pic: Army chief Bikram Singh with Lt Gen Suhag (right)
The White House said Obama has not ruled out such strikes after a lightning eight-day offensive by Sunni fighters, led by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), that has seen them rapidly bear down on the capital.
While officials touted progress, militants seized three villages in northern Iraq. "Iraq has officially asked Washington to help... and to conduct air strikes against terrorist groups," Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari told reporters in Saudi Arabia.
However, Zebari said "a military approach will not be enough. We acknowledge the need for drastic political solutions."
In 2010, a constitutional bench of the Supreme Court interpreted these provisions and laid down some binding principles (B.P. Singhal v. Union of India). In this case, the newly elected central government had removed the Governors of Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, Haryana and Goa in July, 2004 after the 14th Lok Sabha election. When these removals were challenged, the Supreme Court held:
- The President, in effect the central government, has the power to remove a Governor at any time without giving him or her any reason, and without granting an opportunity to be heard.
- However, this power cannot be exercised in an arbitrary, capricious or unreasonable manner. The power of removing Governors should only be exercised in rare and exceptional circumstances for valid and compelling reasons.
- The mere reason that a Governor is at variance with the policies and ideologies of the central government, or that the central government has lost confidence in him or her, is not sufficient to remove a Governor. Thus, a change in central government cannot be a ground for removal of Governors, or to appoint more favourable persons to this post.
- A decision to remove a Governor can be challenged in a court of law. In such cases, first the petitioner will have to make a prima facie case of arbitrariness or bad faith on part of the central government. If a prima facie case is established, the court can require the central government to produce the materials on the basis of which the decision was made in order to verify the presence of compelling reasons.
- In summary, this means that the central government enjoys the power to remove Governors of the different states, as long as it does not act arbitrarily, without reason, or in bad faith.
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Ganguly yesterday specially flew down here to attend the proceedings as the full committee met for the first time.
"Yes, Sourav joined the investigations today. It was the first time after his appointment that we met in person. The meeting took place at my office and I would like to think that discussions were indeed very fruitful," Justice Mudgal said.
"The Governor submitted his resignation papers to President Pranab Mukherjee last night in New Delhi," Secretary to Governor, Amitabh Jain said today. Dutt had taken charge as the Governor in January 2010.
Union Home Secretary Anil Goswami had called some of the Governors appointed during UPA government's tenure to resign in the wake of change of government at the Centre. While the Uttar Pradesh Governor had resigned on Tuesday, some of his counterparts in other states, who are UPA appointees, appear to have dug their heels in.
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