NEWS

BJP Chief J P Nadda on Wednesday convened a two-day meeting of party MPs from poll-bound Uttar Pradesh in Delhi, in what is being seen as efforts to remove any communication gap and ensure that the elected representatives and the government remain on the same page.

The meeting was also attended by Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and state party chief Swatantra Dev Singh among other senior leaders.

According to party sources, the purpose of the meeting is to provide a common ground to the MPs, some of whom have been critical of the state’s alleged lack of preparedness for the second wave of Covid-19, and the CM as well as top state leaders to list the key takeaways of the government.

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Tuesday said she has urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to supply coronavirus vaccines to the state before the onset of the third wave. She said this after her meeting with the PM at 4pm, which lasted for around 30 minutes.

It was a courtesy meeting with the PM after the recently held Assembly Polls in Bengal. I came to Delhi after two years….tomorrow I will have ‘chai pe charcha’ (discussion over a cup of tea) with Sonia ji. I also got an appointment to meet the President but the problem is they want the latest RT-PCR report of myself…though I completed by double vaccination but they (President’s office) are asking for the latest RT-PCR report… Delhi is like my home but I am an outsider here… from where I will get the RT-PCR report now. I think double vaccinated people or based on the latest RT-PCR report should allow one to meet him (President),” she said.

Members of Parliament from the BJP boycotted the meeting called by the Chairman of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Information Technology (IT) on Tuesday. They cited the ongoing Monsoon session of Parliament as their reason for the same.

On Tuesday, the Parliamentary Standing Committee on IT was supposed to discuss the Cinematography (Amendment) Bill, 2021. Before the meeting could even begin, ruckus ensued between BJP leaders and members from opposition parties. The BJP MPs then walked out of the meeting, which was being chaired by Congress leade Shashi Tharoor.

Actor-politician Kamal Haasan, who was representing the film industry, also left the meeting before it started because of the fracas.

The Supreme Court on Tuesday frowned at the long pendency of trial in cases investigated by the CBI and said the central agency has not been able to complete prosecution evidence despite lapse of years in many cases.

A bench of Justices Sanjay K Kaul and Hrishikesh Roy said the track record of the CBI in expeditious completion of prosecution evidence is not so good. "There is a value to personal liberty. We cannot keep everyone behind bars for all the time that the CBI would take to complete a trial," it said.

Releasing an accused in the 2011 abduction and murder of a nurse in the Rajasthan health department, Bhanwari Devi — allegedly at the behest of then state minister Mahipal Maderna — the bench said, "The matter is no doubt serious. But the accused Paras Ram Bishnoi is in jail as an undertrial for the last eight and a half years. What will happen if he gets discharged at the end of the trial? Will the prosecution be able to compensate him?"