10-cr LPG connections including 4-cr free to poor women given in 4 yrs, claims PM Modi

News Network
May 28, 2018

New Delhi, MAY 28: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday said 10 crore LPG connections including 4 crore free to poor women, were given in last four years, compared to 13 crore in six decades since independence, as his government stepped up efforts to shield women and children from kitchen smoke.

Interacting through video-conference with some of the women beneficiaries who received free cooking gas connection under the Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana, Modi recounted his own childhood when his mother struggled with smoke emitting from cooking on firewood or cow dung, to say his government will increase coverage of clean fuel to 100 percent households in the near future.

"Till 2014, only 13 crore LPG connections were given. These were mostly to rich and affluent class. In the past four years, we have given 10 crore new LPG connections, mostly to poor," he said. "Ujjwala Yojana has strengthened the lives of the poor, marginalised, Dalits, tribal communities. This initiative is playing a central role in social empowerment."

Launched in May 2016, the scheme aims to provide in next three years as many as 5 crore free cooking gas connections to women from extremely poor households, aimed at reducing the use of polluting fuels such as wood and dried cow dung that, according to the World Health Organization, cause 1.3 million premature deaths in India every year.

The target was raised to 8 crore this year by adding two additional years.

India aims to increase liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) usage to cover 80 percent of its households by March 2019, against 72.8 percent in 2017. The Prime Minister did not give a date for achieving 100 percent coverage.

Modi said LPG is the cleanest and easily available source of energy that is giving women a healthier lifestyle, saving them time, helping them financially and saving the environment.

As many as 45 percent of the four crore free LPG connections given under Ujwalla are to Dalits, he said.

Stating that his government stood for empowerment of the Dalits, the Prime Minister said more than 1,200 petrol pumps have been given to Dalit families since 2014 as compared to 445 retail outlets given to such families during 2010-2014 period of the previous UPA regime.

Similarly, 1,300 families got LPG distributorship as compared to 900 in the previous years.

The government, he said, is very serious in eliminating middlemen and so the beneficiary list has been made transparent.

Apart from those included under socio-economic caste census (SECC) to avail the scheme, the extended Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana would now cover all SC/ST households, most backward classes, beneficiaries of Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (Gramin), Antyoday Anna Yojana, forest dwellers, people residing in river and river islands.

Modi said the government is targeting one lakh LPG Panchayats (peer learning platforms to support behaviour change in Ujjwala beneficiaries) this year to boost the LPG refill consumption and provide a window for the benefits of cleaner fuel to become visible.

Under the Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana, the government provides a subsidy of Rs 1,600 to state-owned fuel retailers for every free LPG gas connection that they install in poor rural households without one.

This subsidy is intended to cover the security fee for the cylinder and the fitting charges. The beneficiary has to buy her own cooking stove and refills.
To reduce the burden, the scheme allows beneficiaries to pay for the stove and the first refill in monthly instalments. However, the cost of all subsequent refills has to be borne by the beneficiary household.

He said 70 percent of the villages are 100 percent covered by LPG and 81 percent village are covered up to 75 percent.

In his interaction with women beneficiaries from different states, he asked them if they were getting LPG refills on time and if any middlemen were asking for money.
 
He asked them about their experience of using LPG and how it saved them time, which they can utilise for supporting the family financially by starting schemes like tiffin service.

He asked women to give healthy and nutritious food to their kids and not just rely on junk food.

Modi said he will never forget one of Premchand's stories, Idgah. "The story is about young Hamid, who does not buy sweets or gifts during Id but buys a 'Chimta' so that his grandmother does not burn her hands while cooking. This story is extremely emotional."

"Ujjwala Yojana is leading to better health for India's Nari Shakti," he said. 

Comments

Wellwisher
 - 
Monday, 28 May 2018

A new trend trying to fool the citizens. After a massive Rs 15lakhs controversy; 2 crores job;Note Bund, Aadhar card fraud  mr.modi statred to make publisity about his achievement. All the projects so far inagurated  by him are the program of previous Government he trying to tkae the credit and trying to divert the citizens mind from raising oil price to some other corner.

Wah this what his desh bhakt  move.

 

 

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News Network
November 18,2024

Advisors to US President-elect Donald Trump have instructed his allies and associates to refrain from using the inflammatory language they previously employed when discussing issues related to migrants and the deportation of asylum seekers, in a bid to avoid “looking like Nazis.”

US media reports said that Trump’s associates had been asked to stop using the word “camps” to describe potential facilities that would be used to accommodate migrants rounded up in deportation operations across the country.

The reports said the US president-elect’s allies had been ordered to stave off such charged terms as they would bring to mind “Nazis,” and be used against Trump.

“I have received some guidance to avoid terms, like ‘camps,’ that can be twisted and used against the president, yes,” one Trump ally told American monthly magazine Rolling Stone.

“Apparently, some people think it makes us look like Nazis.”

The presidential advisers also cautioned surrogates and allies to keep racist terms, which have dogged Trump’s campaign, out of their remarks.

They said with Trump’s heated rhetoric that used to compare undocumented immigrants to “animals” and his slight that they are “poisoning the blood of our country,” detractors did not need to reach too far to find parallels to Nazi Germany.

Stephen Miller, who Trump tapped to be his deputy chief of staff of policy, specifically used the word “camps” to describe holding facilities that he hoped the military could put together for immigrants.

Tom Homan, who served as the acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement and is chosen by Trump to be in charge of the US borders, was no stranger to such language.

“It’s not gonna be a mass sweep of neighborhoods,” he said in an interview earlier this week. “It’s not gonna be building concentration camps. I’ve read it all. It’s ridiculous.”

Becoming a little more forthright about the new government’s aggressive deportation plans, Homan likened the early days of the Trump administration to the initial invasion of Iraq in 2003.

“I got three words for them – shock and awe,” he said. “You’re going to see us take this country back.”

Trump made immigration a central element of his 2024 presidential campaign but unlike his first run, which was mainly focused on building a border wall, he has shifted his attention to interior enforcement and the removal of undocumented immigrants already in the United States.

People close to the US president and his aides are laying the groundwork for expanding detention facilities to fulfill his mass deportation campaign promise.

The businessman-turned-politician deported more than 1.5 million people during his first term.

The figure do not include the millions of people turned away at the border under a Covid-era policy enacted by Trump and used during most of Biden’s term.

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News Network
November 17,2024

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An Israeli airstrike on the office of Syria’s Baath party in Lebanon’s capital Beirut has killed the Lebanese resistance movement Hezbollah's Media Relations Officer, Mohammad Afif, reports say.

Lebanon's National News Agency (NNA) reported that the Israeli raid struck the Ba'ath party’s building in central Beirut district of Ras Al-Naba'a on Sunday, adding that the strike was an attempt to assassinate the leader of the resistance media front.

According to Baath Secretary-General Ali Hijazi, Afif was having a meeting in the Baath Party headquarters when Israel carried out the attack.

"Afif did not fight with weapons and did not lead a military unit in Hezbollah. Rather, he led a media unit," he said.

Reuters, Sky News, Al Jazeera and a number of Henrew-language media reported that Afif was killed in the Israeli strike.

However, Hezbollah has not yet confirmed Afif’s death or whether he was present at the site or not.

Earlier, the Lebanese Health Ministry said at least one person was killed and three others injured after an Israeli strike targeted a central district in Beirut.

Lebanon's al-Mayadeen television network reported that five people were killed in the attack.

The latest development came after Afif said Hezbollah was behind the Caesarea operation and targeting Netanyahu’s home during a speech at the Ghobeiry area in the southern suburbs of Beirut on October 22.

This was the second assassination attempt on Afif in the last two months, after he survived an attack on the Hezbollah media relations office several weeks ago.

Israel launched a ground assault and massive air campaign against Lebanon in late September after a year of exchanging fire across the Lebanese border in parallel with the Gaza war.

At least 3,287 people have been killed in Israeli strikes in Lebanon over the past year, with the vast majority in the past seven weeks. Another 14,222 have been wounded, mostly women and children.

In response to the ongoing aggression, the Lebanese resistance movement Hezbollah has been staging hundreds of retaliatory strikes against the occupied Palestinian territories and the Israeli forces trying to advance on southern Lebanese areas.

The movement has vowed to sustain its strikes until the regime ends the escalation.

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News Network
November 14,2024

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The UN special rapporteur for Palestine has slammed Israel’s parliament for passing a law authorizing the detention of Palestinian children, who are “tormented often beyond the breaking point” in Israeli custody.

Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur on the rights situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, in a Thursday post on X, characterized the experiences of Palestinian minors in Israeli detention as extreme and often inhumane.

The UN expert highlighted the grave impact of this policy, noting that up to 700 Palestinian minors are taken into custody each year, a practice she described as part of an unlawful occupation that views these children as potential threats.

Albanese said Palestinian minors in Israeli custody are “tormented often beyond the breaking point” and that “generations of Palestinians will carry the scars and trauma from the Israeli mass incarceration system.”

She further criticized the international community for its inaction, suggesting that ongoing diplomatic efforts, which often rely on the idea of resuming negotiations for peace, have contributed to normalizing such human rights violations against Palestinian children and the broader population.

The comments by Albanese came in response to Israel’s parliament (Knesset) passing a law on November 7 that authorizes the detention of Palestinian children under the age of 14 for “terrorism or terrorist activities.”

Under the legislation, a temporary five-year measure, once the individuals turn 14, they will be transferred to adult prison to continue serving their sentences.

Additionally, the law allows for a three-year clause that enables courts to incarcerate minors in adult prisons for up to 10 days if they are considered dangerous. Courts have the authority to extend this duration if necessary, according to the Knesset.

The legislation underscores a shift in the treatment of minors and raises alarms among human rights advocates regarding the legal and ethical ramifications of detaining children and the conditions under which they may be held.

Thousands of Palestinians, including hundreds of children and women, are currently in Israeli jails—around one-third without charge or trial. Also, an unknown number are arbitrarily held following a wave of arrests in the wake of the regime's genocidal war on Gaza.

Since the onset of the Gaza war, the Israeli regime, under the supervision of extremist minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, has turned prisons and detention centers into “death chambers,” the ministry of detainees and ex-detainees’ affairs in Gaza says.

Violence, extreme hunger, humiliation, and other forms of abuse of Palestinian prisoners have been normalized across Israel’s jail system, reports indicate.

Over 270 Palestinian minors are being detained by Israeli authorities, in violation of UN resolutions and international treaties that forbid the incarceration of children, as reported by Palestinian rights organizations.

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