Gift for UP agriculture workers: Minimum wages hiked to ₹252 a day
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Hindustan Times
2 hours ago
- Hindustan Times
Public representatives strongest link between public and govt: UP CM
Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath on Sunday said public representatives are the strongest link between the public and the government while reviewing 1362 proposed infrastructure projects worth ₹10,914 crore in six districts of Kanpur division. UP chief minister Yogi Adityanath with MPs/MLAs of Kanpur division during a meeting in Lucknow on July 27. (Sourced) These projects are related to roads, bridges, flyovers, bypasses, inter-connectivity projects, missing links, single connectivity corridors, development of religious sites and improvements in logistics and public safety. Among these six districts, Kanpur district leads with 426 proposed projects worth ₹5,006 crore, followed by 308 projects in Farrukhabad ( ₹2,476 crore), 336 in Kanpur Dehat ( ₹1,214 crore), 98 in Kannauj ( ₹1,076 crore), 128 in Etawah ( ₹620 crore), and 66 projects in Auraiya ( ₹524 crore). Presiding over the meeting, Yogi directed officials to approve priority projects without delay, implement them transparently and ensure their timely completion through regular monitoring. He also instructed the urban development department to ensure that the names of local public representatives are inscribed on the foundation plaques of the projects undertaken in their areas. As part of the ongoing 'Mandalvaar Samvad' series initiated by the CM, representatives from six districts—Kanpur Nagar, Kanpur Dehat, Farrukhabad, Kannauj, Etawah, and Auraiya—were invited to participate in the meeting. Yogi Adityanath engaged with each MP and MLA, seeking detailed insights on the ground realities of their constituencies, local expectations, progress of developmental projects, and coordination with the administration. He underlined the pivotal role of the Kanpur division in the balanced and sustainable development of Uttar Pradesh. The division, he noted, is not only the industrial and educational hub of the state but also a centre of cultural richness, historical depth, and active public leadership. Reiterating the importance of elected representatives, the CM stated that they are the most dependable bridge between the government and the people. Their insights and suggestions should not be limited to documentation but should be integrated into the design and implementation of government schemes, he added. Yogi urged officials to treat experiences and feedback of public representatives as living inputs for policy formulation. Describing Kanpur division as a 'pioneer of development', the CM expressed confidence that it will soon emerge as a model for not just Uttar Pradesh but for the entire country.
Time of India
2 hours ago
- Time of India
'No more excuses' for UN after Gaza aid routes opened, says Benjamin Netanyahu
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told the United Nations on Sunday to stop blaming his government for the humanitarian situation in Gaza after the military opened up secure routes. "There are secure routes. There have always been, but today it's official. There will be no more excuses," the Israeli leader said during a visit to an air base. Explore courses from Top Institutes in Please select course: Select a Course Category Data Science Degree MBA healthcare Operations Management Finance Technology Digital Marketing Data Science Artificial Intelligence CXO Leadership MCA Healthcare Public Policy Data Analytics Others Project Management Design Thinking Product Management Cybersecurity others PGDM Management Skills you'll gain: Duration: 10 Months IIM Kozhikode CERT-IIMK DABS India Starts on undefined Get Details Skills you'll gain: Duration: 10 Months E&ICT Academy, Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati CERT-IITG Prof Cert in DS & BA with GenAI India Starts on undefined Get Details Skills you'll gain: Duration: 30 Weeks IIM Kozhikode SEPO - IIMK-AI for Senior Executives India Starts on undefined Get Details Skills you'll gain: Duration: 11 Months IIT Madras CERT-IITM Advanced Cert Prog in AI and ML India Starts on undefined Get Details Skills you'll gain: Duration: 11 Months E&ICT Academy, Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati CERT-IITG Postgraduate Cert in AI and ML India Starts on undefined Get Details
The Print
3 hours ago
- The Print
A year after Bangladesh's Monsoon Revolution, a parched summer looms ahead
Even as Bangladesh prepares to mark the first anniversary of the so-called Monsoon Revolution — the violent rebellion that forced former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wajed to flee the country — disquiet is mounting over the legacy of those dramatic events. The de facto Prime Minister, Chief Advisor Mohammad Yunus, has announced that elections will be held in April. But no one knows for sure if this will halt the country's descent into chaos and the disintegration of its multicultural ethos. 'The doors of hell were forced wide open,' the elderly Saraswati Sarkar recalled to a team of jurists , 'They chased women, children, men like ferocious, blind, and passionate brutes, hungry for blood and murder, and the flesh of women.' Truckloads of dead bodies were driven past Nitaiganj, Kshirodi Bala Dasi later remembered , to be tossed into the river Lakha, not far from the Isphani Jute Mills. Vultures, kites, and crows gorged themselves through the day as the bodies rotted; at night, jackals would gather to feast. There was no one left to help. The few local Hindus who had escaped the massacres had fled into the woods, leaving behind their burned-down homes. Finding drinking water was almost impossible: the river stank of death for weeks, until the end of 1964. Large-scale mob violence, journalists Arafat Rahaman and Sajjad Hossain write, has claimed 179 lives in the last ten months, often in the presence of police. The victims include politicians, members of religious minorities, women accused of dressing improperly, purported blasphemers, and, in one case, a person suffering from psychiatric illness. Women's football matches have had to be cancelled due to mob threats, Hindu shrines have been vandalised, and national monuments, like founding patriarch Sheikh Mujib-ur-Rahman's home, burned down. Islamist groups, meanwhile, are growing in power. The Jamaat-e-Islami, proscribed under Prime Minister Hasina for its role in war crimes during 1971, has cashed in on the anti-establishment, populist sentiments that drove last year's youth protests. The release of cleric Jashimuddin Rahmani, an al-Qaeda-inspired ideologue who preached violence online, has given renewed space to jihadist groups such as Ansarullah Bangla Team, Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh, and Hizb ut-Tahrir. To end the chaos, a political outcome is needed, one that is inclusive and empowers the institutions of governance. But former Prime Minister Hasina's Awami League has been banned, leaving a substantial section of Bangladesh's voters without representation in the April elections. The party had previously been proscribed three times — by Field Marshal Ayub Khan in 1958, General Yahya Khan in 1971, and General Ziaur Rahman in 1975. Little imagination is needed to see that the fascist impulses that overpowered Bangladesh in 1964—just seven years before the Liberation War, which cast it as a hero of secular-democratic politics—could be unleashed, should a genuine restoration of democracy prove illusory. A million and a half refugees came to India in 1950; more than 6,00,000 in 1951-52; another 1.6 million between 1953 and 1956. Largely landless Muslims also streamed into the east, but didn't leave behind properties that could be used for rehabilitation. India considered using its military to seize territory in Khulna and Jessore, historian Pallavi Raghavan has written, but concluded that war would mean even more refugees. The 1964 killings, however, sparked a ferocious communal response in India, with 264 people reported killed in Kolkata alone. Also read: Coup rumours are circulating in Dhaka. Here's why the army isn't keen on it Fragmenting democracy The road to disillusionment has been a short one for Bangladeshis. In 1990, a mass uprising—involving future Prime Ministers Hasina and her Bangladesh Nationalist Party rival Khaleda Zia—overthrew military dictator Husain Muhammad Ershad. Elections saw Prime Minister Khaleda take power, beginning what scholar Ali Riaz, now an advisor to Yunus, has called the country's new democratic era. Five years later, Khaleda peacefully conceded power when the Awami League won the next election. From the outset, though, there were cracks in the new system. First, as Riaz notes, both major parties discarded the allies who had backed them during the struggle against General Ershad. This narrowed the reach of the political system. Second, both parties launched mass movements against the government while in opposition, undermining its legitimacy. Khaleda's victory in 2001 created new imbalances. Although the electoral margin was razor-thin, the first-past-the-post system gave the BNP a substantial majority in Parliament. Hasina alleged electoral fraud and initially refused to join the new Parliament. Her MPs later took their oaths, but in 2006, the parties deadlocked over appointing a caretaker government to supervise elections. In early 2007, the Awami League announced it would boycott the polls. Faced with this impasse—and widespread street violence that left dozens dead—the military stepped in. Army chief General Moeen Ahmed persuaded the President to declare a state of Emergency. Former World Bank official Fakhruddin Ahmed took charge as Chief cases were filed against both Zia and Hasina in what was initially hailed as a campaign to clean up the country's system. Islamist rise Two principal forces benefitted from this democratic collapse. First was the Jamaat-e-Islami, heir to the Pakistan Army's war crimes in 1971. During 2001-2005, scholar Devin Hagerty notes, the Jama'at leveraged its 18 MPs to secure control over the ministries of agriculture and social welfare. This, together with remittances from supporters in the Middle East, allowed it to set up a massive network of seminaries, economic institutions, and welfare organisations. For all practical purposes, the Jama'at became 'a state within a state.' Islamists outside the political mainstream also flourished. Closely linked to Lashkar-e-Taiba and al-Qaeda, the Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh drew hundreds of recruits from Salafist seminaries. In August 2005, the group set off an estimated 500 bomb explosions, targeting 300 locations in 63 of the country's 64 districts. The organisation's hopes of setting up an Islamist mini-state were crushed by security forces, but it laid the foundation for persistent threats to Bangladesh, as well as India. Hizb-ut-Tahrir, led by diaspora elements in the United Kingdom, brought caliphate ideology to elite campuses. The al-Qaeda-affiliated Ansarullah Bangla Team later began assassinating progressive activists. The new authoritarianism After returning to power post-Emergency, Prime Minister Hasina built an order designed to insulate her regime from political and security threats. The Awami League cracked down on BNP street protests, jailed opposition leaders, and used force ahead of the 2014 elections. For the most part, judicial independence was erased through political control of appointments and threats. The caretaker governance system, established in 1996 to ensure impartial elections, was abolished in 2011. To insulate itself from jihadist and Jamaat-e-Islami attacks, Hasina's government allied with Hefazat-e-Islam Bangladesh, a movement of clerics and madrasa students. Hefazat's demands included Islamic language in the Constitution, gender segregation in public spaces, and capital punishment for blasphemy — eating into Jamaat's traditional support base. The Awami League's strategy to crush the opposition worked in 2018 and again in 2024. But in July, what began as a student protest against job quotas evolved into a mass movement to oust Hasina and her increasingly authoritarian regime. The government responded with violence. Eventually, fearing the cracking of the country's social edifice as well as state, the army forced Hasina out. For the upcoming elections to matter, they must mark the beginning of an inclusive political revival and the rebuilding of a multicultural society. There is no roadmap, but there are plenty of reminders of what failure will look like. Eleven hundred people were killed in East Pakistan in 1964, official estimates say. An American Peace Corps nurse counted 600 bodies at a single hospital in Dhaka. Each of those bodies is a reminder that Bangladesh's Arab Spring could all too easily give way to a long, parched summer. Praveen Swami is contributing editor at ThePrint. He tweets with @praveenswami. Views are personal. (Edited by Prashant)
