Shiv Sena Chief, Uddhav Thackeray, holds forth on it's ally, the BJP:

Rafale deal: A company which had no experience was given a contract.  Soldiers of our country need a pay hike which you don't give, but you do scams in purchase of arms and ammunition.


Ram temple: It's been 30 years and still you say that matter is in court. Hindus are innocent, but not fools. Let there be a discussion in Parliament on the Ram temple issue, who are in your favour on this issue among NDA will be clear.

Manipur CM M N Biren Singh on the detention of Manipur journalist under the National Security Act: "Justified or not, that will be work of court. NSA, which detained him is re-examined by an independent board. It's a democratic country, we've right to criticize but we shouldn't forget there are also some restrictions. In this case I can tolerate criticism but not humiliation of my leaders, he was abusing as well as humiliating the national heroes like Rani of Jhansi and PM Modi, which is totally beyond freedom of expression."


Manipur journalist Kishorchandra Wangkhem has been detained under the National Security Act (NSA), 1980, for a year, for posting a video criticising chief minister N. Biren Singh for organising a function on Rani of Jhansi.

Kishorchandra was brought to the Jawaharlal Nehru Institute of Medical Sciences in Imphal East on Saturday for a medical check-up. He was arrested on November 20 and has been detained at Sajiwa Central Jail in Imphal East.

Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis Monday sought Chinese investment in infrastructure and tourism development to strengthen cultural exchanges and boost tourism between India and China. Fadnavis was speaking at a meeting held in Mumbai with a Chinese delegation led by visiting Foreign Minister of that country, Wang Yi. The chief minister discussed tourism, cultural partnership and industries with the Chinese team, a statement from the CMO said.

Former Pakistan PM Nawaz Sharif has been sentenced to 7 years in jail in the NAB reference case, but has been acquitted in the Flagship Reference case.


Pakistan's Accountability Court on Monday convicted the former prime minister and sentenced him to seven years in prison in Al Azizia case. The accountability court Judge, Muhammad Arshad Malik announced the verdict reserved after completion of hearing in Al-Azizia Steel Mills and the Flagship Investment cases against the deposed PM last week.

The court also imposed a fine of $25 million in the  Al Azizia case.


The accountability court had indicted Sharif for holding assets beyond his known sources of income in August 2017. Last week, the judge rejected an application by Sharif's lawyer Khawaja Harris to provide one week time to submit more documents but allowed him to provide any document by Friday last.


The judge also observed that the court was bound to follow the December 24 final deadline set by the Supreme Court.


Three cases - Avenfield properties case, Flagship Investment case and Al-Azizia steel mills case - were launched by the National Accountability Bureau on September 8, 2017 following a judgment by the top court that disqualified Sharif as prime minister.


Image: Former Pak PM Nawaz Sharif with his daughter Maryam at Abu Dhabi airport in July.

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley Monday hinted at further rationalisation of GST by merging the 12 and 18 per cent slabs, while criticising Congress for oppressing the country with a high indirect tax rate of 31 per cent. With an increase in revenue, India will eventually have a standard GST rate between 12-18 per cent for commonly used goods. This would be in addition to 0 per cent and 5 per cent for essential items and a higher rate for luxury, sin and demerit goods.


In a Facebook post titled 'Eighteen Months of GST', Jaitley said, of the 1,216 commodities which are used at present, broadly 183 are taxed at zero rate, 308 at 5 per cent, 178 at 12 per cent and 517 at 18 per cent. "The 28 per cent slab is now a dying slab,' he said. Currently, 28 items, including luxury and sin goods, auto parts, dishwashers, air conditioners (ACs) and cement remain in the highest slab of 28 per cent.


"With the GST transformation completed, we are close to completing the first set of rates of rationalisation i.e. phasing out the 28 per cent slab except in luxury and sin goods,' he said.


GST was rolled out on July 1, 2017. A future road map could be to work towards a single standard rate instead of two standard rates of 12 per cent and 18 per cent, he said. "It could be a rate at some mid-point between the two. Obviously, this will take some reasonable time when the tax will rise significantly. The country should eventually have a GST which will have only slabs of zero, 5 per cent and standard rate with luxury and sin goods as an exception," Jaitley said.  -- PTI

A Delhi court Monday allowed former Air Chief S P Tyagi, accused in the VVIP chopper case lodged by the CBI, to travel abroad in March next year. Special Judge Arvind Kumar permitted Tyagi and his cousin Sanjeev Tyagi's plea to go to the United States of America.


Hearing on a similar plea filed by them them in the ED's money laundering case was adjourned to January 3. If the ED opposes the plea to travel abroad, the court may deny permission later. The CBI on September 1, 2017, had filed a charge sheet in the case in which Tyagi and British national Christian Michel were named among the accused.


Nine others were also named in the charge sheet in connection with a bribery case in the VVIP chopper deal. Tyagi (73) is the first chief of the Indian Air Force to be charge sheeted in a corruption or a criminal case by the CBI and he has denied all charges against him. -- PTI


Image: Former Air Chief S P Tyagi

Going forward, as tax revenues significantly increase, India will have GST slabs of 0 per cent, 5 per cent and a standard rate between 12-18 per cent for commonly-used items, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said Monday. Luxury and sin goods will, however, continue to be taxed in a higher bracket.


In a Facebook post titled 'Eighteen Months of GST', Jaitley said, of the 1,216 commodities which are used, broadly 183 are taxed at zero rate, 308 at 5 per cent, 178 at 12 per cent and 517 at 18 per cent. "The 28 per cent slab is now a dying slab,' he said. Currently 28 items, including luxury and sin goods, auto parts, dishwashers, AC and cement remain in the highest slab of 28 per cent.


"With the goods and services tax (GST) transformation completed, we are close to completing the first set of rates of rationalisation i.e. phasing out the 28 per cent slab except in luxury and sin goods,' he said. A future road map could be to work towards a single standard rate instead of two standard rates of 12 per cent and 18 per cent, he said. "It could be a rate at some mid-point between the two. Obviously, this will take some reasonable time when the tax will rise significantly. The country should eventually have a GST which will have only slabs of zero, 5 per cent and standard rate with luxury and sin goods as an exception,' Jaitley said.


"All other building materials have already been transferred from 28 per cent to 18 per cent and 12 per cent. The sun is setting on the 28 per cent slab,' he added. The GST Council in its last meeting on Saturday cut rates on 23 items, thereby trimming the 28 per cent slab.

The BJP Monday said the Congress and its President Rahul Gandhi are not acceptable as a pivot to many parties outside the NDA and said the so-called opposition unity against his outfit as a "bogus claim."


"That the so-called Opposition unity against the BJP is a bogus claim is evident from the multiple fronts being forged by non-NDA parties," the BJP spokesperson G V L Narasimha Rao said. He was responding to a question on Telangana Rashtra Samiti chief K Chandrasekhar Rao's stepped-up efforts to forge a non-Congress, non-BJP federal front of regional parties.


The Telangana Chief Minister yesterday met his Odisha counterpart and Biju Janata Dal chief Naveen Patnaik in Bhubaneswar to promote his idea of alignment. He is also scheduled to meet West Bengal Chief Minister and Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee, and Samajwadi Party and Bahujan Samaj Party Presidents Akhilesh Yadav and Mayawati, respectively.


"The efforts of TRS chief KCR (Chandrasekhar Rao) and the apparent interest of some regional parties shows that the Congress and its President Rahul Gandhi are not acceptable as a pivot to many parties outside the NDA," Narasimha Rao said.


"The BJP will highlight in campaigns that these ragtag coalitions are a threat to stability and development and are driven by personal agendas," he told PTI.

Seven people were killed on Monday after a car collided with a truck in Haryana's Jhajjar district, leading to a massive pileup involving several vehicles, police said.

 
Several others were injured in the pile-up of 50 vehicles, including school buses, because of dense fog on the Rohtak-Rewari highway between Delhi and Haryana this morning.


The incident took place near a flyover in Haryana's Jhajjar. All seven dead are women. 10 of the injured are critical.


The victims were travelling in a jeep, officials said. "As the cruiser jeep was involved in an accident with a truck, other vehicles which were close behind also rammed into each other. The visibility was poor due to dense fog," a Jhajjar police official said.

Update:  Haryana Minister OP Dhankar says, "Compensation of Rs 2 lakhs will be given to the kin of the deceased, Rs 1 lakh to those severely injured and Rs 50,000 to those with minor injuries.

Power is like oxygen for "some people" with restlessness setting in if they are out of it for even "two or five years", Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Monday while taking a jibe at the opposition but without naming anybody or any party.


Releasing a Rs 100 commemorative coin in the memory of former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee on the eve of his 94th birth anniversary, Modi said the late premier spent most of his political life in the opposition benches but always thought of the country and its people.


"Today's political landscape is such that if someone has to stay out of power even for two or five years, they become restless," he told the gathering. Vajpayee, he added, committed every second of his life for the welfare of the people. "For some people, power is oxygen...they can't live without it. A long part of Atal-ji's career was spent in the opposition benches but he spoke about national interest and never compromised on the ideology of the party," the Prime Minister's Office added on Twitter while quoting the prime minister's speech.


Vajpayee's long-time associate and BJP veteran L K Advani, Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and BJP president Amit Shah were also present at the event. Discussing Vajpayee's political journey, Modi said he always kept the nation and democracy before himself and the party. -- PTI

Many families depend on two entitlements for survival: social security pensions and rations from the public distribution system. Jean Dreze writes for the Telegraph.

Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot expanded his council of ministers on Monday with 23 ministers, including one from Congress ally Rashtriya Lok Dal, being sworn in at the Raj Bhavan in Jaipur.


Of the 23, 13 are cabinet ministers and 10 ministers of state. Governor Kalyan Singh administrated the oath of office to the new ministers at an event attended by Deputy Chief Minister Sachin Pilot and senior Congress leaders. The ministers took oath in Hindi. -- PTI

Seven people have been killed in a 50-vehicle pileup on the Rohtak-Rewari highway in Haryana due to dense fog. 

As expected, the BJP has filed an appeal in the Supreme Court against the Calcutta High Court division bench order refusing permission for the BJP's rath yatra in the state.


The saffron party's ambitious roadshow in West Bengal had hit a roadblock again on Friday, with a division bench of the Calcutta High Court quashing a single bench order that had given a go-ahead to the event.


"We have decided to move the Supreme court. We have full faith in the judiciary, and will fight till the end. The Trinamool Congress (TMC) government is trying to ensure that our 'rath yatra' programme doesn't take place," West Bengal BJP president Dilip Ghosh said.


The TMC government is trying to stop the BJP event on the basis of only assumptions that it might create problems, Ghosh said.

According to BJP sources, the party will for now organise rallies in various parts of the state against the government's decision to disallow the yatra.

On the eve of Atal Bihari Vajpayee's 94th birth anniversary, Prime Minister Narendra Modi Monday released a Rs 100 commemorative coin in the memory of the former premier. Vajpayee's long-time associate and BJP veteran LK Advani, Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and BJP president Amit Shah were also present at the event in New Delhi.


The former prime minister died at the AIIMS in the national capital in August at the age of 93 following prolonged illness.


Addressing the gathering, Modi said he would go to Vajpayee's memorial on Tuesday to reiterate his commitment to the ideology and path shown by the statesman. "AtalJi wanted democracy to be supreme. He built the Jana Sangh. But, when the time came to rescue our democracy he and others went to Janata Party. Likewise, when the choice was between remaining in power or comprising on ideology, he left Janata Party and formed the BJP," the prime minister said.


He said while for some, power is oxygen and they cannot live without it, Vajpayee spent a long part of his career in the opposition benches raising issues of national interest. The late prime minister never compromised on the ideology of the party, Modi said. He said, the party, which "Atalji built brick by brick" has become among the largest political parties.


Prime Minister Modi said Vajpayee as a speaker was unparalleled. "When he spoke, the nation spoke... when he spoke the nation listened," he said. The mind is not ready to believe that Vajpayee is no longer alive. Though he was away from public glare for nearly a decade due to ill health, the way people gave him a farewell on his demise showed the mark he had created in people's minds, Modi said. -- PTI

US President Donald Trump has again pushed for a wall in its Southern border with Mexico despite a partial government shutdown in the country which may continue till 2019.


The shutdown was triggered by a lack of consensus between lawmakers and the US President on the funding for the wall which was one of Trump's electoral promises.


"The most important way to stop gangs, drugs, human trafficking and massive crime is at our Southern Border. We need Border Security, and as EVERYONE knows, you can't have Border Security without a Wall. The Drones & Technology are just bells and whistles. Safety for America!" Trump tweeted on Sunday (local time).


Meanwhile, Trump's next acting chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney told Fox News, "It is very possible that the shutdown will go beyond the 28th and into the new Congress."


The US Constitution mandates the Congress to convene in the new year on January 3, unless a different day has been designated by law by the preceding Congress. -- ANI

Where is the confusion, Naseer saab? Read the column here.

The two women devotees being brought back to the Pampa base camp following protests. They were stopped by protesters at Appachimedu, two kilometres away from the Sabarimala Temple. 

Intimidation tactics at work here. Lord Ayyappa devotees hold a protest in Perinthalmanna, Malappuram, outside the residence of Bindu, a woman devotee who began the trek to Sabarimala Temple this morning. She is being brought back to Pampa base camp now following protests against her entry to the temple. 

Pakistani troops Monday opened fire and shelled forward posts and villages along the LoC in Rajouri district of Jammu and Kashmir, police said.  The firing and shelling from across the border started in Keri, Lam, Pukharni and Peer Badaser areas of Noushera sector around 9.30 am, a police officer said.


Army personnel guarding the LoC retaliated and the cross-border firing between the two sides was going on when last reports came in.  There was no immediate report of any casualty, the officer said. PTI


Image: In 2016, incessant firing by Pakistani troops on civilian villages in Jammu left several dead and injured and around 60 cattle dead. Scores of houses and other structures along the IB in Jammu district are riddled with holes from shelling across the border.

An accused in the 2013 Muzaffarnagar riots was found dead under mysterious circumstances at Sikheda village in Muzaffarnagar, police said Monday. Sodan Singh's body was found Sunday evening hanging from the ceiling of a room, which housed a tube well, they said.


The body was sent for postmortem and the matter is being investigated, police said. Singh's son has lodged a complaint at the local police station and alleged that his 60-year-old father was murdered, they said. Based on the complaint, a case was registered against Anup, Rajesh, Sunil Kumar and Ramgopal, police said.


Communal clashes in Muzaffarnagar and adjoining areas in August and September 2013 had claimed more than 60 lives while over 40,000 people were displaced. Singh was also named as an accused in a sexual harassment case. -- PTI

Australia skipper Tim Paine said Monday he is "relishing going head-to-head" with his Indian counterpart Virat Kohli in a Test series and looked forward to "intense, hard" cricket in the Boxing Day game at Melbourne.


The pair had heated exchanges in the second Test at Perth, prompting the umpire to intervene. Australia won the game to level the four-match series at 1-1. Paine said he understands that Kohli never liked to lose.


"A lot was made of my battle with Virat in the second Test, and for the past few years when I haven't been playing international cricket, he was one guy I loved watching," he said in a column for 'Herald Sun'.


"Now to be out in the middle going head-to-head with him in a Test series is something I'm really relishing." Paine said he was not annoyed "in the slightest" by Kohli.


"Virat is someone who is prepared to wear his heart on his sleeve and like all professional athletes, hates to lose," he said. "I like the way Virat plays. I don't know him personally but I've always admired -- not only his obvious skill as a player -- but the passion and aggression he plays with. People like to see that and he gets fans through the gates."  -- PTI

Congress President Rahul Gandhi gave the party members a message stating that while hard workers will be rewarded, hardliners will be dealt with strictly.


After multiple meetings with Rajasthan leaders and observers, Rahul Gandhi gave the final nod to team Gehlot in Rajasthan. As many as 23 MLAs are going to take oath on Monday including an MLA from alliance partner Rashtriya Lokdal. However, five ministerial berths will reportedly remain vacant.


While deciding the Rajasthan cabinet, AICC general secretary in charge of Rajasthan, Avinash Pandey and Congress observer for the state on government formation, KC Venugopal was involved in the process.


"Congress President intends to focus on having a cabinet with a majority being fresh faces. The cabinet can be summarised into a blend of the old guards with new energetic leaders from the state guard this will give governance a good shape," the Congress leader said.Rahul Gandhi intends to send a message to his party men that any harm to the party will not be ignored.


Cabinet has been finalised for Rajasthan and for Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh meetings are underway with the state leaders, stated a source.


Karnataka Cabinet Expansion is a clear example of Rahul's actions, where two ministers, including Ramesh Jarkiholi, were shunned by Congress from the Cabinet. Jarkiholi was dropped for his alleged hobnobbing with opposition leaders and by missing the Cabinet meetings and party assignments.


The message from Gandhi was loud and clear that anti-party activities wouldn't be tolerated, the sources added.


The source said Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh are likely to follow Rajasthan Formula. A senior Congress leader involved in the process told ANI, "Rahul Gandhi was of the opinion that those who have tried to harm the party or have ignored the party's agenda must not be let off." -- PTI

The benchmark BSE Sensex opened on a volatile note early Monday on short-covering by investors amid weakness in Asian markets. Buying activity in pharma, technology, banking auto and FMCG stocks, influenced market sentiment.


The benchmark BSE Sensex was trading 28.05 points, 0.08 per cent, lower at 35,714.02, after swinging over 200 points between highs and lows of 35,910.67 and 35,675.02, respectively. The gauge had plunged 572.04 points on Friday. NSE Nifty was trading lower 25.25 points, or 0.23 per cent, at 10,728.75.


Top losers were Hero MotoCorp, Vedanta, Bajaj Auto, Bajaj Finance, Asian Paint and HDFC Bank fell up to 3 per cent. -- PTI

Indian-American Democratic Congressman Ro Khanna, a fierce critic of Donald Trump, has come out in support of the President's decision to pullout US troops from Syria and Afghanistan, saying his party colleagues should not pile on without offering an alternative vision.


The 42-year-old Congressman, who represents Silicon valley, has surprised many by coming out in strong support of president's decision to withdraw American troops from Syria and his reported plans to bring back nearly half of the 15,000 of his troops from war-ravaged Afghanistan.


Khanna said that he is doing so in the national interest. "A few days ago, I was with Trump as he signed one of my bills. I said Mr President, China has not been in a war since 1979. If we want to win the race against them, we should not get bogged down in war. He nodded and then observed that they have enriched themselves without firing a shot," Khanna wrote in an op-ed published in The Washington Post.


Khanna, who is on the Armed Services Committee, was re-elected for the second term in the November mid-term elections.  -- PTI


File pic: Ro Khanna with former California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.

The two women devotees, who were on their way to the Sabarimala temple were stopped by protesters at Appachimedu, just two kilometers away from the Lord Ayyappa's shrine in the early hours today.


Earlier on Sunday, a group of 11 women devotees who had arrived in Pamba to visit the Lord Ayyappa temple had to return without paying obeisance at the hill shrine after several people, including women, staged a protest opposing their entry.


The Sabarimala temple and surrounding areas witnessed a string of protests after the Supreme Court lifted the ban on entry of women of menstrual age (10-50 years) inside the temple in September this year. However, till now, no woman of the previously-forbidden age group has been able to enter the temple due to widespread protests. -- ANI


Image: The 11 women devotees who attempted to enter the Sabarimala temple on Sunday were refused permission.