After departure of young leaders, Cong looks at Kanhaiya Kumar, Jignesh Mevani

Agencies
September 26, 2021

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Independent Gujarat MLA Jignesh Mevani announced Saturday that he will join the Congress on September 28 along with former JNU student leader Kanhaiya Kumar — a move that has been in the making, and was confirmed by party leaders in Delhi.

They will join in the Capital, in the presence of Rahul Gandhi and Gujarat Congress working president Hardik Patel. The date has a symbolic value as it is Bhagat Singh’s birth anniversary. 

A Dalit leader, Mevani, 41, first emerged along with Hardik and Alpesh Thakore as the youth face challenging the BJP dominance in Gujarat during the 2017 Assembly elections. Kanhaiya, 34, is the firebrand former JNU student union president who caught national attention with speeches against the Modi government, and then went on to unsuccessfully try his hand at electoral politics as a CPI candidate.

However, since then, much water has flowed under the bridge for both leaders — even as the Congress is in rockier waters than before. So, what do the two bring to the party table? The opinion in the grand old party, as usual, is divided. Some leaders dismayingly see in it the Gandhi siblings’ proclivity to lurch towards the Left.

In a brief statement, Mevani, who had won from the reserved Vadgam Assembly seat in north Gujarat in 2017, with the backing of the Congress, said: “On September 28, I will be joining the Indian National Congress along with Kanhaiya Kumar. I have nothing more to say till then.”

Welcoming “all revolutionary leaders willing to work for the country and strengthen the Congress” Saturday, Hardik said they should do so “without worrying about their personal ambitions and challenges”. Calling Mevani “an old friend” while speaking to PTI, he said Mevani’s entry would strengthen the Congress in the state and at the national level.

Hardik’s reference to “personal ambitions” is interesting given his own frustration within the Congress, which he joined in 2019 after leading a successful Patidar agitation against the BJP. In an interview, he had said the state leadership did not give him any work and was trying to “pull me down”.

During the debate for the JNU student union president’s post in 2015, Kanhaiya, the candidate of the CPI student wing AISF, had shown his oratorical skills with paraphrasing of a couplet to famously attack both the BJP and Congress: “Barbaad Hindustan karne ko ek hi Congress kafi tha… Har rajya main BJP baitha hai, barbaad e gulistan kya hoga.”

Apart from the fact that both Kumar and Mevani are fiery speakers, the Congress also has state-specific calculations.

While Mevani was in talks with the Congress much before the BJP changed its entire ministry in Gujarat, the revamp has made his choice even more significant for the party given the new caste dynamics. The BJP’s new chief minister is a Patel, while AAP too is focusing on the community in its foray into the state that goes to polls next year. The Congress strategy seems to be to woo the OBCs and Dalits. Mevani had emerged as the face of the Dalit protests in Gujarat in the wake of the Una flogging incident.

Hardik, who has been trying for the Congress to make him the state chief, is said to have worked behind the scenes for Mevani’s induction.

Many Congress leaders in Gujarat see the move as timely, given the long stasis in the state unit. The party has not been able to appoint an AICC in-charge for Gujarat since Rajiv Satav’s death in May. Party leaders have been pushing for a clear signal to the OBC and Dalit community.

Apart from this, the Congress hopes the entry of Kanhaiya and Mevani will be good optics given the fact that several young leaders — Jyotiraditya Scindia, Sushmita Dev, Jitin Prasada, Priyanka Chaturvedi and Laliteshpati Tripathi – have left the party in the last two years. The first battleground where the party may use the two is Uttar Pradesh.

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News Network
January 13,2025

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The director general of the Ministry of Health in Gaza has described as “hell” the situation in the north of the strip which has been under an Israeli ground offensive and siege for “100 days”.

“The situation is literally like hell,” Munir al-Barsh said on Sunday, referring to daily Israeli attacks and the regime’s ban on food delivery to medical staff trapped in the north’s hospitals.

He added that “hospitals in northern Gaza have turned into mass graves.”

Al-Barsh noted that the offensive and the destruction of hospitals and infrastructure and any sign of life in the north are aimed to empty the region of its residents.

“The Israeli occupation has been deliberately destroying the health system since the very first moment,” he said, adding that “the destruction of hospitals was the greatest evidence of the [Israeli] genocide.”

According to his statements, 5,000 people have been killed or gone missing, while 9,500 others have been injured since the start of Israel’s offensive on the north of Gaza in early October 2024. The regime’s forces have also abducted about 2,300 people, including 65 medical staff, during the ongoing offensive.

Al-Barsh slammed the “disgraceful” silence of the international community on Israel’s atrocities, which he said, has “deepened the suffering of innocent civilians.”

Israel launched a genocidal war on Gaza on October 7, 2023 after the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas waged the surprise Operation Al-Aqsa Flood against the occupying entity in response to the Israeli regime's decades-long campaign of bloodletting and devastation against Palestinians.

The regime’s bloody onslaught on Gaza has so far killed at least 46,565 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and injured more than 109,660 others. Thousands more are also missing and presumed dead under rubble.

However, the UK’s Lancet medical journal estimates the actual number of deaths in the war is much higher than the official toll.

According to the study, figures reported by the Palestinian health ministry likely undercounted the death toll by 41 percent in the first nine months of the war as the Gaza Strip’s healthcare infrastructure unraveled.

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News Network
January 13,2025

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Los Angeles wildfires have continued their trail of devastation, razing death tolls to 24 and destroying thousands of structures, while intensifying winds are worsening the situation for both civilians and firefighters.

In an update on Sunday evening, the County of Los Angeles Department of Medical Examiner said a total of 24 people have died due to the wildfires.

According to the examiner, this number is only an estimate as hundreds of people in various parts of the county are still missing.

Weather forecasters in California are also warning fierce winds which fuelled the infernos around Los Angeles are expected to pick up again this week.

The notoriously dry Santa Ana winds would pick up again from Sunday night until Wednesday, reaching speeds of up to 96km/h, they said.

The most dangerous day will be Tuesday, said weather service meteorologist Rich Thompson. “You are going to have really strong gusty Santa Ana winds, a very dry atmosphere and still very dry brush, so we still have some very critical fire weather conditions out there,” he added.

On Saturday, the flames spread east, creeping closer to Interstate 405 and a busy mountain pass. This is a “significant development,” said L.A. County spokesman Jesus Ruiz.

With the fire rapidly growing and moving in the direction of “a heavily populated area … we are definitely concerned,” he continued.

Gavin Newsom, governor of California said that he believes that in terms of costs associated with the wildfire, it will be the worst natural disaster in terms scale and scope in the history of the US, and the fatalities is likely to increase significantly as well.

On Sunday, private forecaster Accuweather increased its preliminary estimate of financial losses from the blazes to between $250 billion to $275 billion. The wildfires are on track to be among the costliest in US history.

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News Network
January 15,2025

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In a no-holds-barred attack on RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat for his remark that India got "true independence" after the Ram Temple in Ayodhya was consecrated, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi today said the comment amounted to "treason" and that Mr Bhagwat would be arrested and tried if he was in any other country.

Mr Gandhi was addressing an event to mark the inauguration of the new Congress headquarters in Delhi. "We are getting a new headquarters at a very particular time. I think it's quite symbolic that yesterday, the chief of the RSS said that India never achieved Independence in 1947. He said true Independence in India was achieved when the Ram Mandir was built. He says that the Constitution was not the symbol of our freedom."

"Mohan Bhagwat has the audacity to inform the nation every two or three days what he thinks about the Independence movement, what he thinks about the Constitution. What he has said yesterday is treason because it is stating that the Constitution is invalid, it is stating that everything (done) to fight against the British was invalid and he has the audacity to say this publicly," Mr Gandhi said, adding, "in any other country, he would be arrested and tried".

"To say that India did not get Independence in 1947 is an insult to every single Indian and it's about time we stop listening to this nonsense that these people think they can just keep parroting out and shouting and screaming," the Leader of the Opposition in Lok Sabha said.

Mr Bhagwat was in Indore on Monday to present the National Devi Ahilya award to Champat Rai, general secretary of Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra Trust. Addressing a gathering there, he said the day of the consecration of Ram Temple in Ayodhya should be celebrated as "Pratishtha Dwadashi" as it marks the "true independence" of Bharat. 

"India, which faced enemy attacks for centuries, witnessed its true independence that day. We had independence, but it had not been established. India got political independence on August 15, 1947, we also brought a Constitution but the country did not run in its spirit. How can we accept that dreams have been fulfilled and pain alleviated? Our swa (self) is Ram, Krishna and Shiva. Do they belong only to those who worship them? No. Ram connects people from north to south, Krishna from east to west and Shiva is in every particle of Bharat," he said.

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