NEWS

New Delhi: Amid debate of conducting early elections, Telangana chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao said he would take a call soon on the dissolution of the state assembly for early elections in the state. The elections are due in April-May next year.

“All my party leaders, including my cabinet colleagues and MLAs, have authorised me to take a decision on the assembly dissolution, which everybody is waiting for anxiously. I will take an appropriate decision soon and come before you,” Rao told a public meeting at Kongara Kalan village near Hyderabad.

New Delhi: President of the DMK M K Stalin is all set to discuss the re-induction of estranged brother Azhagiri’s as well as the party’s preparedness for upcoming polls. In his first major party meeting as Stalin is meeting all district secretaries on September 8.

According to senior leaders of DMK, Stalin will also discuss the party’s current position on the ground.“The main agenda of the meeting is expected to be fundraising and Stalin will exhort the party office-bearers to raise funds for the party. He will also hear the grievances from the 65 district secretaries. Since Thiruvarur and Thirupparankundram bypolls are due soon because of the deaths of Karunanidhi and AIADMK’s A K Bose, Stalin would also devise strategies for these elections,” a senior district secretary from central Tamil Nadu said.

New Delhi: Defence minister Nirmala Sitharaman has visited Kashmir along with Army chief General Bipin Rawat, and has met state governor Satya Pal Malik to discuss security and governance issues. The defence minister discussed prevailing security issues and the conduct of the urban local body and panchayat elections to be held between October and December with the governor at Raj Bhawan.

“The governor and defence minister discussed several important inter-related issues concerning effective management of internal and external security, particularly in the context of increasing attempts at infiltration and the ongoing anti-terrorist operations,” a Raj Bhawan spokesperson said.

New Delhi: A Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) authority has ruled that 41 properties worth about Rs 1,210 crore that have been attached by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in the name of absconding diamond jeweller Mehul Choksi and his associated firms, are money laundering assets and ordered that their attachment should continue.

The central probe agency had provisionally attached15 flats and 17 office premises in Mumbai, a mall in Kolkata, a four-acre farm house in Alibaug and 231 acres of land at locations like Nashik, Nagpur, Panvel in Maharashtra and Villupuram in Tamil Nadu,in February this year under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) in connection with the about USD 2 billion alleged fraud at a Mumbai-based branch of the Punjab National Bank (PNB).