NEWS

New Delhi: The Bharatiya Janata Party’s income has gone up to 81% at Rs 1,034 crore in 2016-17 from Rs 570 crore in 2015-16. As per BJP’s annual audit report submitted on Febuary 8, its total receipts for 2016-17 matched the receipts (Rs 1,033 crore) of all seven national parties, including BJP, put together in 2015-16. BJP’s income constituted roughly two-thirds of the combined income of Rs 1,559 crore for all national parties in 2016-17. So, BJP alone earned double of the other six national parties (Congress, BSP, Trinamool, CPM, CPI and NCP) put together in 2016-17.

Aaccording to updated annual audit reports filed with the Election Commission, this is much higher than the Congress share during the tenure of UPA between 2004-05 and 2013-14. The Congress share touched a high of 58% in the first year of UPA-I. By the last year of UPA-II, 2013-14, it was down to 39%, below BJP’s share of 44% for the same year.

Of BJP’s income, Rs 997 crore came from voluntary contributions. Of this, Rs 533 crore was received in contributions exceeding Rs 20,000 each. BJP’s total expenditure was Rs 710 crore, leaving it with unspent income of Rs 324 crore, almost Rs 100 crore more than Congress’s income of Rs 225 crore in 2016-17.

For Congress, this represented a fall from Rs 261 crore declared in 2015-16. A good chunk of Congress' income, according to an analysis by the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), came from issuance of coupons (Rs 115.6 crore). The party’s expenditure exceeded its income by almost Rs 96 crore, as per the annual audit report filed by the party on March 19, 2018.

New Delhi: The Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance government at the Centre could base the “scheme” it has to come up with to distribute Cauvery waters on the Bhakra Beas Management Board. It will take the form of an “authority with a mix of both administrators as well as technocrats”, said the official quoted above, as opposed to the recommendations by the Cauvery Water Dispute Tribunal which had proposed a board run by technocrats.

The decision, according to the official, was taken a day after the Supreme Court granted the ministry of water resources the “flexibility” to formulate the scheme in “consonance with the law’’ (section 6A of the Inter-State Water Disputes Act, 1956).

“We have been granted flexibility by the court to formulate the scheme,” said the senior ministry of water resources official cited above who asked not to be named.

“We had asked for two clarifications — whether the ministry had flexibility to form the scheme for distribution of the waters, and whether the board was to be set up according to the tribunal’s recommendations or we could change its administrative composition,’’ the official added.

The distribution of Cauvery waters is a festering one between Karnataka and Tamil Nadu.

On February 16, the Supreme Court ruled on the case, based on appeals by the states to the 2007 order of the Cauvery Water Dispute Tribunal, which also recommended the board. The SC order reduced the quantity of water Karnataka was asked to supply to Tamil Nadu by 14.75 tmc and was largely seen as fair. However, Karnataka, where elections are due on May 12 and which suffered a severe drought in 2017, isn’t keen on it. Tamil Nadu wants the order to be implemented.

New Delhi: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) moved both the Supreme Court and the Calcutta High Court on Tuesday challenging a U-turn by the State Election Commission (SEC). The West Bengal unit of the BJP complained against the SEC decision of overturning its own order to extend the deadline for filing of nominations for rural polls in the state by a day.

The matter will be heard by the apex court on Wednesday. Responding to the BJP petition, a Calcutta high court single bench of justice Subrata Talukdar issued an interim stay on the SEC’s order on Tuesday morning that withdrew Monday’s decision to extend the deadline for the filing of nominations.

The deadline was to lapse on Monday and had been extended until Tuesday before the SEC’s vote face.

In Delhi, advocate Aishwarya Bhati mentioned the application before chief justice Dipak Misra in the afternoon and said an urgent hearing was required. The state BJP unit said the poll watchdog’s last minute decision is a “colourable exercise of power” at the behest of the Mamata Banerjee government.

The apex court allowed the early hearing plea and said the case would be heard by the same bench that had on Monday declined to entertain a petition by the BJP seeking judicial interference to ensure that party candidates are able to file their nomination papers.

In Kolkata, Bengal BJP leaders claimed moral victory after the Calcutta high court’s interim order. “The high court interim order proved that our contention was right,” said BJP state president Dilip Ghosh.

Tuesday was marked by a raft of developments turning on the SEC’s unprecedented decision to go back on its own order issued on Monday. The BJP moved both the Calcutta high court and the Supreme Court, seeking the quashing of the SEC’s order.

New Delhi: A meeting of the NITI Forum for North East organized in Manipur on Tuesday outlined five development missions for promoting sectors like horticulture, tourism and food processing in the region. Other missions will cover bamboo-based handicrafts and medium scale industries with focus on ‘Make in North-East’.

NITI Aayog vice-chairman Rajiv Kumar said that it was Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s vision to establish a regional NITI Aayog forum for the north eastern states, adding that a regional forum for Himalayan and Coastal states will be set up soon.

“These regional forums will bring synergy among states and help them solve their problems which cannot be solved by one state,” he noted.

There has been outflow of resources of North East to other parts of India, he said adding that states in the region “must bring back not only its resources but also additional resources. For this, we will have to create more employment opportunities.”

There is a challenge to bring North East region into mainstream and the central government is working to connect it to the rest of India, Kumar insisted.

“To make North East more familiar in the rest of India, one emporium should be set up in all the districts of the country so that people can know about the products of the region,” he suggested.

The focus of development projects in the region will be based on the concept of “HIRA”, as spelt out by the Prime Minister, he said.

The acronym HIRA stands for Highways, Internet ways, Railways and Airways, he said, adding that the emphasis will also be on education, health and skill development in the region.