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Mamata Banerjee won’t attend NITI Ayog meet, tells PM Modi it’s “fruitless”

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MAMATA BANERJEE

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Calling it “fruitless” to attend a meeting of “a body that has no financial powers”, West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee has refused to come for the NITI Ayog governing council meeting on June 15.

The meeting, the first under his second tenure, will be chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Mamata Banerjee had criticised Modi on several occasions accusing him of dismantling the Planning Commission during the Lok Sabha election campaign.

In a 3-page letter to PM Modi, Banerjee said, “Given the fact that the Niti Ayog has no financial powers and the power to support State Plans, it is fruitless for me to attend the meeting of a body that is bereft of any financial powers.”

She also wrote, “Unfortunately, a new body called NITI Ayog was formed on January 1, 2015, in place of Planning Commission, without assigning any financial powers to assist the States, based on their need assessment, as was being done by the erstwhile Planning Commission. Furthermore, the new body also lacks the power of supporting the Annual Plan of the States.”

She also made out a case for giving the think-tank financial powers as suggested by a former chairman of the Finance Commission.

“The experience of the last four and a half years we had, with the NITI Ayog brings me back to my earlier suggestion to you that we focus on Inter State Council constituted under Article 263 of the Constitution, with appropriate modification, to enable ISC to discharge its augmented range of functions as the nodal entity of the country. This will deepen cooperative federalism and strengthen federal polity,” Banerjee said.

Also Read: Left out of key Cabinet Committees in morning, Rajnath Singh included in four in evening

“I now find that senior officials of the NITI Aayog themselves are making public statements that should be given some powers in allocating development expenditures to state — a role that Planning Commission had played earlier,” Mamata Banerjee added in the letter.

“May I also reiterate that the National Development Council which has been given a quiet burial, may also be subsumed within the broadened constitutional body of Inter State Council,” she wrote.

Officials had earlier said the main agenda of the meet would revolve around agriculture, water management in drought-affected areas and national security. This is the governing council’s fifth meeting, the first took place in February 2015 after the think-tank replaced the Planning Commission.

Mamata Banerjee had skipped the governing council’s first meeting back in 2015. But she did turn up at the NITI Ayog’s meeting last year along with chief ministers of other opposition block — Kerala’s Pinarayi Vijayan, Karnataka’s HD Kumaraswamy and N Chandrababu Naidu, then chief minister of Andhra Pradesh.

NITI Ayog reconstituted, Bibek Debroy dropped

Prime Minister Narendra Modi yesterday (Thursday, June 6) cleared the reconstitution of National Institution for Transforming India (Niti) Aayog and retained economist Rajiv Kumar as its vice-chairman, said media reports.

The PM dropped Bibek Debroy from the reconstituted panel, reports said. Debroy, who was a member of the government think-tank when Modi set it up in 2014, was also chairman of the Economic Advisory Council to the PM. The term of the vice-chairman and full-time members is co-terminous with the council of ministers.

Former DRDO chief V K Saraswat, agriculture expert Ramesh Chand and noted paediatrician from AIIMS V K Paul have been retained as members.

Also Read: PM Modi sets up two new Cabinet Committees, reconstitutes six; Amit Shah in all of them

The Centre said defence minister Rajnath Singh, home minister Amit Shah, finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman and agriculture minister Narendra Singh Tomar will Niti’s ex-officio members. Transport and MSME minister Nitin Gadkari, social justice minister Thaawar Chand Gehlot, railway minister Piyush Goyal and planning, statistics and programme implementation minister Rao Inderjit Singh will be special invitees.

During the first five years, Niti Aayog managed to prepare a three-year strategy paper, but did not release the seven-year and 20-year vision plans.

The entity, which is bereft of fiscal powers unlike its predecessor Planning Commission, has carried out several surveys and built new indices to rank states on health and education performance besides focusing on improving the condition of those living in the 115 most backward districts of the country.

Modi has tasked Niti Aayog with providing key inputs in areas such high-speed rail corridors, privatisation of public sector companies as well as the introduction of electric vehicles on a mass scale.

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Dust storm, light rain expected in Delhi-NCR today, heatwave conditions to abate

IMD claimed in a tweet that Thunderstorm dust with light to moderate intensity rain and gusty winds with speed of 30-50 km/hr would occur over and adjoining areas of many places of Delhi, North Delhi, North East Delhi, North west Delhi, West Delhi, Central Delhi, East delhi and NCR( Loni Dehat, Hindon AF station, Ghaziabad, Indrapuram, Chapraula) Sonipat, Rohtak, Kharkhoda (Haryana) Baraut, Bagpat, Meerut, Khekra, Modinagar, Kithor , Garhmukhteshwar, Pilakhua, Hapur ,Gulaoti ,Siyana ,Sikandrabad , Bulandshahr ,  Jahangirabad (UP)

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Dust storm, light rain expected in Delhi-NCR today, heatwave conditions to abate

On Wednesday, a dust storm with light to moderate rain is expected in numerous locations in Delhi and the National Capital Region (NCR). The India Meteorogical Department (IMD) stated the city’s maximum and minimum temperatures are predicted to be in the range of 40 and 25, respectively.

The IMD tweeted an advisory that thunderstorms, dust with light to moderate intensity rain and gusty winds with speed of 30-50 km/hr would occur over and adjoining areas of many places of Delhi, North Delhi, North East Delhi, North West Delhi, West Delhi, Central Delhi, East Delhi and NCR (Loni Dehat, Hindon AF station, Ghaziabad, Indirapuram, Chapraula) Sonipat, Rohtak, Kharkhoda (Haryana), Baraut, Bagpat, Meerut, Khekra, Modinagar, Kithor, Garhmukhteshwar, Pilakhua, Hapur, Gulaoti, Siyana, Sikandrabad, Bulandshahr, Jahangirabad (UP).

For the next two hours, light to moderate intermittent rain is expected over and near Adampur, Hissar, Hansi, and Meham (Haryana).

Read Also: Will ensure executive doesn’t turn blind eye: Supreme Court on Manipur violence

On Thursday, May 18, light rain is predicted for in Delhi based on the seven-day prediction for the city. The sky will mainly be cloudy, with the potential of a light  rain or drizzle, according to the weather office.

The air quality will continue to be deteriorated in the city after strong winds with dust swept across the Delhi-NCR on Tuesday. Following this, visibility had reduced to 1000 metres. Kuldeep Srivastava, the head of regional forecasting centre, said the dry atmosphere is one of the reasons for the dust storms.

Following Tuesday’s severe winds and dust storm that blasted across the Delhi-NCR, the city’s air quality had taken an alarming dip.

The monsoons, which are awaited across India, are likely to make landfall in Kerala on June 4. Usually, the monsoon arrives on May 31 or June 1 but the delay will be made up as the phenomenon progresses on its south-west to north-east arc. With extreme temperatures right from a cold sytart to May to dust-laden winds in mid-May, the weather in the country is paying the price for accelerating climate change.

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Security lapse at Navjot Singh Sidhu’s Patiala home, says it will not deter him from raising his voice against Punjab

After his release from jail, he slammed the ruling Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government for its law and order in the state.

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Navjot Singh Sidhu

Congress leader Navjot Singh Sidhu has filed a complaint with the Punjab Police after he spotted a suspicious person wrapped in a grey blanket on his terrace. He alleged a security lapse at his Patiala home. He couldn’t catch him as he fled after his servant raised an alarm.

Taking to Twitter, Sidhu said, Today on the terrace of his residence an unknown suspicious character wrapped in a grey blanket was noticed around 7:00 pm, the moment his servant went out raised the alarm, and called for help, he immediately ran and escaped.

The 59-year-old further said that he has spoken to DGP Punjab Police and has also informed SSP Patiala. He said the security lapse will not deter him from raising his voice for Punjab.

Read Also: This is Punjab, not India: Girl with tricolour painted on face denied entry into Amritsar’s Golden Temple | WATCH

Punjab Police registered a case in this matter. According to the reports, the Patiala Senior Superintendent of Police Varun Sharma visited his residence after the complaint and is currently investigating the matter. The CCTV footage of the area is also being scanned, reports state.

Cricketer-turned-politician came out of the Patiala Central Jail on April 1 after serving nearly 10 months in a 1988 road rage case. After his release from jail, he slammed the ruling Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government for its law and order in the state.

He said Democracy is in chains. Punjab is the shield of this country. When dictatorship came in this country, a revolution also came, led by Rahul Gandhi.

Sidhu also slammed the Mann government over the pruning of security of slain singer Sidhu Moosewala and also making it public.

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Air India Delhi-San Francisco flight suffers tech glitch before take-off, returns to stand

The airline has not given any official statement in this matter.

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Air India Flight

Air India flight which was en route to San Francisco from Delhi on Monday had to be returned to the stand because of a technical glitch. The San Francisco-bound flight suffered a tech issue before take off.

According to the reports, the aircraft which was carrying over 200 passengers from Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport (IGI) had to be replaced with another aircraft. Later, the passengers were accommodated in another aircraft.

The airline has not given any official statement in this matter.

Read Also: Clashes in Jharkhand’s Jamshedpur after Ram Navami flag desecrated, Section 144 imposed

Earlier today, another Air India incident occurred where a London-bound flight returned to Delhi’s IGI airport after a mid-air brawl between an unruly passenger and the flight’s cabin crew.

A brawl ensued between a passenger and the crew members shortly after it departed from the airport at around 6:35 am. The onboard ruckus forced the plane to turn around and return to Delhi again where the raucous passenger was deboarded and handed over to the police at the airport.

Air India apologized to the passengers on the affected Delhi-London flight for the delay and inconvenience caused to them due to the incident and assured them that efforts will be made to ensure such incidents do not occur in the future.

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