Venkaiah Naidu is next Vice President of India

Agencies
August 5, 2017

NDA nominee M Venkaiah Naidu was today elected as the next Vice President of India by securing over two-thirds of votes leaving opposition candidate Gopalkrishna Gandhi far behind.

Naidu got 516 votes out of total 771 votes cast while Gandhi could only manage 244 votes. Of the total 771 votes polled, 11 were found to be invalid.

Although 785 MPs are there in both the Houses of Parliament, 14 MPs could not vote.

"Coming from an agricultural background, I never imagined I would be here. Agriculture has no proper voice in Indian polity," India's vice president-elect told PTI.

"I am very humbled. I am also thankful to the Prime Minister and all party leaders for their support. I will seek to utilize the vice presidential institution to strengthen the hands of the president and secondly uphold the dignity of the Upper House," he added.

Naidu will be the 13th person to hold the second highest Constitutional post. The strength of the electoral college comprising both elected and nominated MPs of Rajya Sabha and Lok Sabha is 790. While there are two vacancies in the LS, three seats are vacant in the RS also.

One BJP Lok Sabha MP is barred from voting following a judicial pronouncement.
In the 2007 VP poll, incumbent Hamid Ansari had polled 456 votes, Najma Heptullah 222 votes, and Rashid Masood 075 votes.

In the 2012 polls, Ansari had bagged 490 and NDA nominee Jaswant Singh 238 votes.

 

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News Network
January 27,2025

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Hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians have begun returning to the northern part of the war-wracked Gaza Strip after a deal was reached between Hamas and Israel over exchange of Israeli captives and Palestinian prisoners.

It was announced that Hamas has agreed to release female Israeli captive Arbel Yehud and two others by Friday and provided information on the conditions of those set to be freed in the first phase of the ceasefire deal.

Gazans describe the return as historic, saying this is a victorious day.

The displaced Palestinians had been stranded behind Israeli military barriers despite the ceasefire.

The ceasefire between Israel and Hamas was reached after 15 months of the regime's genocidal war on the Gaza Strip.

The implementation of the first phase of the deal began on January 19 and is expected to witness release of more than 1,890 Palestinians for 33 Zionists, who are among the 240 that Gaza’s resistance groups captured in October 2023.

The captives were ensnared during the historical Operation al-Aqsa Flood that served as an instance of retaliation against the regime’s decades-long campaign of Western-backed occupation and aggression against Palestinians.

The subsequent war claimed the lives of at least 47,306 Palestinians, mostly women and children.

The regime approved of the ceasefire after falling short of realizing any of its wartime objectives, including enabling the return of the captives, “eliminating” the Gazan resistance, and causing forced displacement of Gaza’s entire population to neighboring Egypt.

On Sunday, Hamas lambasted the regime for delaying the implementation of the ceasefire deal after Israeli forces killed and injured the Palestinians trying to return to the north.

Earlier, however, the regime said Palestinians could begin returning to the north on Monday after Gaza’s Islamic Jihad resistance movement confirmed that Israeli captive Arbel Yehud would be released before the next scheduled captive/prisoner swap.

Qatar, which had mediated ceasefire talks between Tel Aviv and Hamas alongside Egypt, had also announced that Hamas had agreed to release Yehud and two others by Friday and provided information on the conditions of those set to be freed in the first phase of implementation of the ceasefire deal.

Hamas calls it a victory

The movement, itself, issued a statement, describing the return of the displaced people as “a victory” for Palestinians and a defeat for the Israelis.

It said the scenes of the return of Palestinians to the areas from which they had been displaced, confirmed their connection to their land and once again proved “the failure of the occupation to achieve the aggressive goals of displacing people and breaking their steadfast will.”

The Islamic Jihad also described the return as a response to all those, who used to harbor the dream of enabling forced exodus of Palestinians.

“In an epic scene, hundreds of thousands of our displaced people are returning to northern Gaza, an area, which had been turned into a heap of rubble as a result of Zionists’ atrocities,” the group said.

It also described the Israeli regime’s conditioning the return of the displaced to Yehud’s release as an international move on the part of Tel Aviv to “destroy our people’s happiness in Gaza.”

“On this occasion, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad movement asserts that our people’s steadfastness would destroy whatever Zionist dream there is of stealing happiness from our hearts, and break the chains of the prison guards and occupiers.”

Former Israeli minister furious 

The Israeli regime’s former minister of so-called “national security,” Itamar Ben-Gvir, however, decried the return as a victory for Hamas.

“The opening of the Netzarim highway this morning and the entry of tens of thousands of Gazans into the northern Gaza Strip are images of Hamas’ victory and another humiliating part of the reckless deal. This is not what ‘complete victory’ looks like – this is what complete surrender looks like,” he wrote on X, former Twitter.

The Israeli soldiers did not fight and give their lives in the Gaza Strip to make these photos possible, he said, adding, “We must return to war – and destroy!”

Ben-Gvir resigned from his post earlier this month in protest at the ceasefire deal.

He has long been opposed to cessation of the brutal Israeli military onslaught and called for the regime to “occupy” Gaza.

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News Network
January 28,2025

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Mangaluru, Jan 28: The cricketing community of Mulki on the outskirts of Mangaluru, is mourning the untimely demise of 41-year-old Mansoor Mulki, a cherished member of the 7-Star cricket team. On January 26, Mansoor tragically suffered a cardiac arrest while driving in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, leaving his family, friends, and fans in shock.

Hailing from the Bappa Byari Doddamanai family, Mansoor was not just a skilled cricketer but also an active member of the Manish Youth Club. Known for his warm personality, he had a touching conversation with his mother over the phone just 15 minutes before the fatal incident, a memory that now resonates deeply with his grieving family.

His sudden passing has left a void in the lives of his mother, wife, and three daughters. Plans are in place for the funeral rites to be conducted in Saudi Arabia, where Mansoor had been working for the past 15 years.

Amid the sorrow, his employer, Siraj, a businessman from Hejamady, has taken on the responsibility of ensuring all arrangements for Mansoor’s family. Recently returning to Saudi Arabia from India, Siraj is facilitating travel and formalities for Mansoor’s mother, wife, daughters, and brother-in-law so they can bid their final goodbyes.

This tragedy has not only left a family in grief but also a community that cherished Mansoor as a friend, mentor, and cricketing icon.

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News Network
January 23,2025

Maharashtra Minister Nitesh Rane on Thursday launched into a vitriolic flow attacking Bollywood actor Saif Ali Khan, who was discharged from Mumbai's Lilavati Hospital on Tuesday -- five days after a knife attack on him at his Bandra residence.

"Look at what Bangladeshis are doing in Mumbai. They entered Saif Ali Khan's house. Earlier they used to stand at the crossings of the roads, now they have started entering houses," ANI reported Rane say.

The minister continued, "Maybe he came to take him (Saif) away. It is good, garbage should be taken away."

He also cast doubt on the veracity of the attack saying that Saif was 'dancing while walking', making him doubt if the actor had actually been stabbed, or if it was all an act.

He also managed to bring in a Hindu-Muslim angle to the situation, claiming that when actors like Shah Rukh Khan or Saif Ali Khan get hurt then everyone talks about it, but when "a Hindu actor like Sushant Singh Rajput is tortured, no one comes forward to say anything".

Rane continued his rant, saying "Mumbra's Jeetuddin (Jitendra Awhad) and Baramati's Tai (Supriya Sule) did not come forward to say anything... They are only worried about Saif Ali Khan, Shah Rukh Khan's son and Nawab Malik...," and questioned, "Have you ever seen them worrying about any Hindu artist?"

He then asked people to "pay attention" to such things.

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