- Monday, March 10, 2025
By: Shubham Ghosh
Here are some news in brief related to Indian politics for Tuesday, September 20, 2022:
Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) convener Arvind Kejriwal on Tuesday promised to implement the old pension scheme for government employees in the western state of Gujarat if his party is voted to power in the year-end assembly polls and called for an indigenous system of education in the country in the place of the one inherited from the British, Press Trust of India reported. In his latest visit to Gujarat, where the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is in power for nearly three decades, the Delhi Chief Minister sought to woo government employees after offering a raft of “guarantees” to various sections of the society and also spoke about his pet subject of education and called for its overhauling at a town-hall meeting here. “Government employees in Gujarat have taken to the streets in large numbers. Their main demand is the implementation of the old pension scheme. I guarantee them that when the AAP forms a government, we will implement the OPS in Gujarat,” Kejriwal told reporters.
Indian prime minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday asked mayors of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-ruled urban bodies to plan a holistic development of cities and said the elected representatives should not think just in terms of winning polls as cities cannot be developed with an election-centric approach, PTI reported. He also urged the mayors to focus on urban planning, creation of satellite towns and development of Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities to ease the burden on large cities. Modi was speaking after virtually inaugurating an all India conference of mayors of BJP-ruled cities held in Gujarat capital Gandhinagar. As many 118 mayors and deputy mayors of BJP-ruled urban local bodies from 18 states and Union Territories are participating in the two-day event. The PM also urged mayors and other local elected representatives to spend time with the poor beneficiaries (of government schemes) to understand their issues and also work on the beautification of their respective cities.
The Bombay High Court on Tuesday directed the Mumbai civic body to demolish the unauthorised construction at central minister Narayan Rane’s bungalow in Juhu area in the city, noting it had violated the Floor Space Index (FSI) and Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) rules, PTI reported. Floor space index (FSI) is the maximum permissible floor area that can be built on a particular plot or /piece of land. A division bench of Justices R D Dhanuka and Kamal Khata said the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) cannot be permitted to consider and allow the second application filed by a company run by the Rane family seeking regularisation of the unauthorised construction as it would “encourage wholesale construction of unauthorised structures”. The court directed the BMC to demolish the unauthorised parts of the bungalow within a period of two weeks and submit a compliance report to the court one week thereafter.
Amid a row over a Vedanta-Foxconn multi-billion project going to Gujarat, the Maharashtra government has after a review cleared 181 plots sanctioned by the previous Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government for industrial projects. The Eknath Shinde-led state government had asked the industry department to review 191 plots of the Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation (MIDC) which were sanctioned by the previous Uddhav Thackeray-led MVA government after June 1 this year. Out of these, 181 plots have been cleared and the remaining 10 are under review and a decision will be taken soon, a senior official said on Tuesday.
Andhra Pradesh chief minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy on Tuesday said that the state government is bringing major changes in the education sector to make youth competent and market-ready, Asian News International reported. He said drastic changes in the medical and health sector are being brought in to bring quality medicare within the reach of the needy. Speaking at the state assembly, the chief minister said the state government has been striving not just for right to education but for right to English medium and the right to higher education with incentives from pre-primary to college education while the previous dispensation had tried to push back government schools into oblivion to benefit corporate schools with a vested interest.
The Chhattisgarh High Court has set aside the state government’s 2012 decision to raise the quota to 58 per cent in government jobs and admissions in educational institutions and held that reservation exceeding the 50 per cent ceiling is unconstitutional, PTI reported. A division bench of Chief Justice Arup Kumar Goswami and Justice P P Sahu delivered the verdict on Monday on petitions challenging the state government’s decision to amend the reservation rules in 2012 when the BJP was in power, said Mateen Siddiqui, the counsel for one of the petitioners. According to the 2012 amendment, the quota for Scheduled Castes (SCs) was slashed by four per cent to 12 per cent, while reservation for Scheduled Tribes (STs) was increased by 12 per cent — from 20 per cent to 32 per cent. The reservation for Other Backward Classes (OBCs) was kept unchanged at 14 per cent, he said.
Anybody can contest the Indian National Congress president’s poll which will be free and fair as well as transparent, Congress general secretary K C Venugopal said on Tuesday after meeting party chief Sonia Gandhi in New Delhi, PTI reported. Speaking with reporters outside Sonia Gandhi’s 10 Janpath residence, the party’s general secretary in-charge organisation said it was a “routine meeting” with the party chief on pending organisational issues. Asked if the AICC chief’s poll was also discussed during his meeting with Gandhi, Venugopal said, “Polls have been announced, what is the need of a discussion. On September 22 notification will come and nomination will start on September 24.”
