Latest news with #Khaira
Time of India
7 days ago
- Business
- Time of India
Khaira condemns Punjab AAP government's land pooling policy and alleges exploitation of farmers in Ludhiana.
Ludhiana: Congress legislator Sukhpal Singh Khaira has branded Punjab AAP govt's land-pooling policy a "sinister land grab" designed to benefit party leaders and cronies at the expense of farmers. Khaira, who also chairs the All-India Kisan Congress, accused the Bhagwant Mann govt of attempting to acquire about 25,000 acres of fertile agricultural land in Ludhiana under the guise of urban development. "This is not development — it's daylight robbery of ancestral land from Punjab's farming community," he told reporters Tuesday. He alleged that senior AAP figures had purchased land at throwaway prices in and around Ludhiana in anticipation of the project, using insider knowledge to make windfall profits. "This is a calculated scheme to loot farmers while enriching the land mafia and politically connected elites," Khaira said. He pointed to the recent removal of Punjab housing minister Aman Arora from his portfolio as a tacit admission of wrongdoing, claiming the move was linked to alleged improprieties involving land acquisitions. 'Loss of livelihood feared' The land-pooling scheme has faced mounting resistance from farmers across more than 40 Ludhiana villages, who fear the loss of their livelihoods and heritage. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like 5 Books Warren Buffett Wants You to Read In 2025 Blinkist: Warren Buffett's Reading List Undo Khaira said the anxiety in rural communities was widespread and justified. "This policy threatens to erode Punjab's agricultural backbone. Once this land is lost to concrete and speculation, there's no going back," he said. "The state's food security, economy and rural fabric are at risk. " Khaira further criticised the Mann government for failing to consult local panchayats or gram sabhas before rolling out the policy. "No surveys were done, no permissions sought. This is not just undemocratic — it's exploitative," he said, referencing sentiments voiced at a recent BKU Dakaunda meeting where he joined protesting farmers. Calling the scheme a "Delhi-dictated disaster," Khaira demanded an immediate rollback and a white paper revealing the real beneficiaries of the policy. "The people of Punjab deserve transparency, not backroom deals that reward the few and ruin the many," he said. The Congress MLA warned of intensifying opposition, including street protests and legal action, if the policy wasn't scrapped. MSID:: 121600536 413 |
Time of India
22-05-2025
- Politics
- Time of India
Khaira accuses Mann of surrendering Punjab's control over BBMB security
1 2 Chandigarh: Senior Congress leader Sukhpal Singh Khaira launched a scathing attack on the AAP govt, accusing chief minister Bhagwant Mann of gross mismanagement and failure to safeguard Punjab's interests in the matter of security control at the Bhakra Beas Management Board (BBMB). Khaira alleged that the central govt proposed as early as March 2022 to replace Punjab Police with Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) for guarding BBMB installations, including the Bhakra-Nangal dam. He criticised the Mann govt's "inaction and weak strategy," claiming that it led to the state losing control over this critical infrastructure while simultaneously placing a financial burden of Rs 8.58 crore annually on the public exchequer. "It is shocking and unacceptable that, while pretending to champion Punjab's water rights, CM Mann quietly surrendered the security control of BBMB to the CISF, betraying the interests of the state," Khaira said. He described the Centre's 2022 directive to deploy CISF personnel as a clear attempt to centralise power and blamed the Mann administration for failing to assert Punjab's autonomy. "This is a monumental failure of leadership and a direct assault on federalism," Khaira added. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Tired of High Power Bills? Plug in This Device elecTrick - Save upto 80% on Power Bill Learn More Undo Highlighting the cost implications, Khaira pointed out that the deployment of 296 CISF personnel at the dam will cost Rs 8.58 crore annually—an amount that the BBMB or the Punjab govt is expected to bear. "Why should Punjab's taxpayers be made to fund a decision forced by the Centre, especially when the Punjab Police was already providing security at no additional cost?" he questioned. The Congress MLA further accused the Mann govt of duplicity, arguing that while the CM vocally opposes the Centre's attempts to divert Punjab's river waters, he has done nothing to resist the creeping centralisation of control over key infrastructure like BBMB. "Mann talks of protecting Punjab's rights, but his actions suggest otherwise. By allowing CISF to take charge, he has compromised Punjab's autonomy," Khaira stated. Demanding an immediate rollback of the CISF deployment and restoration of Punjab Police's role in securing BBMB projects, Khaira also called for a public apology from the CM for failing to oppose the Centre's decision when it was first proposed in 2022. Khaira further urged the govt to provide a transparent disclosure of all communications between the Punjab govt and the Centre concerning BBMB security since March 2022. He also demanded an assurance that no funds from Punjab's exchequer or the BBMB would be used to finance the CISF deployment, which he described as serving "the Centre's agenda rather than Punjab's interests." "I appeal to the people of Punjab to stand united against this injustice," Khaira said. "We will not allow Punjab's rights to be trampled upon. The Congress will fight this issue at every level—from the streets to the courts—to safeguard the state's autonomy and future." MSID:: 121341488 413 |
Time of India
21-05-2025
- Politics
- Time of India
Villagers protest proposed land acquisition for urban estates in Ludhiana.
Ludhiana: Tensions are running high across 32 villages around this city after reports emerged of a leaked notification suggesting the state's Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) govt plans to acquire more than 24,000 acres of farmland for new urban estates. More than 1,200 villagers and farmer unionists gathered at a Ferozepur Road marriage palace on Wednesday, demanding that chief minister Bhagwant Mann clarify the govt's intentions publicly. The proposed land pooling scheme, involving the Greater Ludhiana Area Development Authority (Glada) reportedly, has triggered fears of mass displacement and economic ruin among farmers. Jagroop Singh of the Bhartiya Kisan Union (Dakonda) said: "The govt is silent, and if this is untrue, the CM must say so." He warned the farmers that nearly 20,000 families could be displaced and forced to accept just an acre in return for five, without proper compensation. Villagers, including those from Hassanpur and Mullanpur, expressed outrage and confusion over the alleged plan, with concerns it could take over a decade to implement, leaving them in limbo. "Where are these farmers supposed to go in the meantime?" asked Amarjeet Singh Gill, a local farmer. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like 오돌토돌 닭살피부, 이제야 알게된 진실 현명한소비자 Undo Sukhpal Singh Khaira, Congress MLA from Bholath, led the political charge, calling the alleged land pooling a "sinister land grab" driven by AAP's Delhi-based leadership. Speaking at the meeting, Khaira accused AAP of surrendering Punjab's agricultural wealth to "land mafias" for political gain. "This is a betrayal of our farmers — a recycled scheme that has already failed elsewhere in Punjab," Khaira said. "Bhagwant Mann is acting under Arvind Kejriwal's orders. It's not development; it's exploitation." Khaira vowed to oppose the plan "tooth and nail," demanding an immediate cancellation of the proposal and a white paper to reveal its beneficiaries. As uncertainty looms, villagers say their livelihoods, and Punjab's agrarian legacy, hang in the balance — and they want answers, not silence. MSID:: 121320336 413 |
Engadget
06-05-2025
- Engadget
Backbone Pro hands-on: A pricey controller for more than just your phone
Since arriving in 2020, the Backbone One has helped popularize dedicated mobile game controllers, the kind you might use for streaming services like Xbox Cloud Gaming and NVIDIA GeForce Now, remote play apps, emulators or any smartphone game you'd rather play with buttons and joysticks instead of your fingers. While you can always clip your phone to a PlayStation or Xbox controller paired over Bluetooth, telescopic gamepads like the One tend to be more ergonomic, creating a Nintendo Switch-style shape by clamping around your device at both ends. Backbone is far from the only company making these things now, but the One is still among the most frequently recommended options on the market — Engadget's own Mat Smith gave it a favorable review back in 2022. After releasing several iterations of the One, Backbone is now unveiling its first real follow-up: the Backbone Pro. The new device comes with many of the design upgrades you might expect, from comfier grips and smoother joysticks to larger triggers and quieter face buttons. But it also supports Bluetooth, which means it can unhook from your phone entirely and work with PCs, iPads, smart TVs and the like. Backbone has built a few new features for its companion app as well, including one called 'FlowState' that lets you quickly connect to previously paired devices from one menu (provided they have Bluetooth active). '[The Pro] is meant to be a premium device for anyone who wants to play games on any screen,' Backbone CEO Maneet Khaira said during a briefing in New York City last month. 'Our idea was really, we want to make one device for all of gaming.' After using the Backbone Pro for the past few days, I can squint and see the future Khaira has in mind, and the controller itself clearly feels more premium than its predecessor (which will remain available). But at $170, the device will be prohibitively expensive for some. That's Xbox Elite territory for a controller still mainly aimed at smartphones. Plus, as with the One, some the gamepad's perks are locked behind a Backbone+ subscription, which tacks on another $40 per year. You really need to buy the Backbone Pro as a multi-device controller for it to make the most sense as a purchase. Used strictly with a phone, however, it's a definitive upgrade over the Backbone One. This is most obvious in the grips, which are considerably thicker and more grooved than before. They fill out and hug your palms much more naturally as a result, which keeps the design comfier to hold over time. They're also coated in a soft, lightly textured matte plastic that seems better at fending off sweat. The concave joysticks are significantly taller and have a grippier 'ring' around the top. They don't use magnetic Hall effect sensors to resist drift long-term, which is annoying at this price, but they're tight and tangibly smoother. Khaira says the Pro uses the same joystick component as Microsoft's Xbox Elite controller and Sony's DualSense Edge; indeed, the sticks don't feel all that different than the ones on a full-size gamepad. Like other 'pro' controllers, you can also remap buttons and fine-tune the joysticks' and triggers' dead zones in the Backbone app, then assign those tweaks to different profiles. The face buttons still aren't super quiet but feel distinctly less clicky and stiff, with a smoother finish and deeper sense of travel. Along those lines, the triggers are wider and fuller — my large-ish fingers can rest on them without hanging off, which wasn't the case with the One. The shoulder buttons are longer as well, while the menu buttons are less flush and easier to reach. The D-pad is similarly firm and precise but now has a glossier coating. There's also a pair of customizable back buttons, which rest right against your ring fingers but haven't caused any accidental presses in my testing. The fatter grips make the design taller than the One, but not much wider, and it's still about 80 grams lighter than a typical Xbox or PlayStation pad at 199g. As before, the Pro comes with adapters that hold different-sized phones steady in place, with or without a case. I've experienced no wobbling using an iPhone 15 Plus with Apple's Clear Case on. There's still a built-in headphone jack and pass-through charging port, though the actual connector is USB-C only, so the controller won't work with older Lightning-based iPhones. Since the Pro needs its own battery to play wirelessly, it sips a small amount of power to recharge whenever you top up a connected phone. Overall, Backbone says the Pro can last up to 40 hours; I haven't yet been able to perform a full rundown test but the battery hasn't given me reason to doubt that estimate in the few days I've spent with the device. You can quickly connect the Backbone Pro to new devices from this menu in Backbone's app. (Jeff Dunn for Engadget / Backbone) Pairing the Backbone Pro with other devices wirelessly is largely straightforward. There's a dedicated button at the bottom of the controller that puts it into pairing mode, and the app prompts you to connect to all your other gear upon setup. Once you connect to a new device for the first time, the Pro remembers it, and that information is relayed in the app. When you want to connect to one of those devices again, you simply tap a menu in the app, select the device you want and hit "connect." As long as that device has Bluetooth active, it'll immediately reconnect. You need to have your phone hooked into the Pro's USB-C port to swap devices via the app, but I've had few hiccups bouncing from screen to screen otherwise. You can see how the Pro lines up with the multi-screen vision brands like Xbox are pushing. I can launch a Game Pass stream of Clair Obscur on my phone while my wife has the TV, then move it to the Fire TV Stick when she's all set. I can start a Balatro session on my PC and carry it to my iPad through Steam Link. I don't have to change my controller at any point. I don't have to fiddle with any buttons to pair with the next thing I want to use — I just pop in my phone, select the device and go. I can even pick up right where I left off in a cloud stream, provided I swap devices within a few minutes. The Pro isn't the only controller that lets you game like this, of course, but its phone-friendly design and fast pairing tech make it especially inviting to this sort of 'play anywhere' approach. Top to bottom: an Xbox Series X/S controller, the Backbone Pro and the Backbone One. (Jeff Dunn for Engadget) There are a few issues once you look closer, though. One is simply that the Pro lacks the proprietary tech needed to pair with an Xbox, PS5 or Switch. That's not necessarily Backbone's fault, but when it pitches the Pro as a controller for 'all of gaming,' it has to ignore the main way tons of people actually play video games. Second, for as much as I like the Pro compared to other mobile gamepads, it still can't help but feel cramped next to more traditional alternatives. The right joystick constantly brushes up against the bottom of my thumb, for instance, because it has to sit right below the face buttons. The triggers may be deeper, but they don't have the same travel as a standard console pad. The Pro is still comfy, still capital-N Nice, and it's great if you use your phone for gaming often. But an Xbox or PlayStation controller just has more room to work with. Third, all of this can get expensive in a hurry. The Pro's price tag is already steep. To take full advantage of cloud services like Xbox Cloud Gaming or GeForce Now, you have to pay a subscription fee. Same goes for Apple Arcade. You can't remote play without owning a console or gaming PC. And Backbone restricts some app features to its own membership program, most notably the ability to launch cloud-based games directly from the app. So there are questions of what the market for a device like this actually is: Just how much do hardcore gamers, the people who'd buy a $170 controller, play on their phone? How much do they need a multi-device controller when they likely own an Xbox or PS5 pad already? Who really wants a subscription for a video game controller? You can organize and start up games from the Backbone app, but the ability to launch games from cloud services like Xbox Cloud Gaming and NVIDIA GeForce Now directly in the app (annoyingly) requires a subscription fee. (Jeff Dunn for Engadget / Backbone) That aside, the app still looks clean, and it still lets you organize your games or streaming apps in one central hub. The search function works well, allowing you to filter games by different platforms. When you select a game, it helpfully shows you which platforms you can play it through. Backbone is also adding a new built-in emulator with its next update. It can run NES, SNES, Game Boy, Game Boy Advance and Nintendo 64 games today, though the company says it's testing PlayStation 1 and PlayStation Portable cores as well. Opening a ROM in the app is simple enough, and once you do, it'll appear in your hub alongside the rest of your library. That said, you need a Backbone+ subscription to use the emulator, and it's fairly barebones compared to an app like RetroArch, with no way to rewind, adjust resolution or manage multiple save states. I also experienced a few bugs with certain games, with one title not loading entirely. This is still a neat idea, but given that other more featured emulators are available for free, I can't say it's worth paying for today. In an ideal world, the Backbone Pro would be a next-gen version of One rather than a step-up model priced $70 higher. The hardware is better in meaningful ways, and being able to use it across devices is genuinely convenient. But it's certainly not cheap. There's a decent chance the price was influenced by the looming effects of President Trump's tariff policy, but that still leaves the device well above other capable mobile gamepads today. If you've got the cash and spend hours gaming across your phone and other screens, the Pro is still well worth a look. It's one of the best in its niche. It's just hard to call it a great value. If you buy something through a link in this article, we may earn commission.
Time of India
01-05-2025
- Politics
- Time of India
Khaira slams BBMB for ‘robbing Pb's water'
Chandigarh: Punjab Congress MLA and chairperson of the All India Kisan Congress, Sukhpal Singh Khaira , on Thursday condemned the Bhakra Beas Management Board 's (BBMB) unilateral decision to release 8,500 cusecs of water from the Bhakra Dam to Haryana, despite firm objections from the Punjab govt and its people. He termed the move a direct assault on Punjab's water rights and a grave threat to the state's agricultural backbone, especially ahead of the paddy sowing season. Khaira pointed out that Punjab is already grappling with an acute water shortage, with water levels in the Bhakra, Pong, and Ranjit Sagar dams significantly lower compared to the last year. Despite this, Haryana — having already utilised 104% of its allocated water quota for the current accounting year — is being unjustly favoured by the BBMB's decision, which he claimed was made under the pretext of "humanitarian grounds." "This is nothing short of daylight robbery of Punjab's rightful share of water, carried out under political pressure from the BJP-led central govt and in favour of Haryana," Khaira alleged. He further criticised the recent transfer of Punjab cadre officer Akashdeep Singh, director of water regulation, and his replacement with Haryana cadre officer Sanjeev Kumar, calling it highly suspect and biased. The decision, he said, deepened concerns over the BBMB's impartiality. Singh's transfer was falsely attributed to a personal request — an assertion he publicly denied — raising serious questions about transparency and fairness. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like 2025 Top Trending local enterprise accounting software [Click Here] Esseps Learn More Undo Khaira also noted that Sanjeev Kumar, the newly appointed official, reportedly lacks experience in water regulation — a fact pointed out by Punjab's chief engineer — which adds to the state's apprehensions over water management decisions being influenced by partisan interests. "As a son of Punjab and a representative of its people, I stand shoulder-to-shoulder with our farmers who rely on every drop of water for their survival and livelihoods," Khaira declared, reaffirming his commitment to fight for Punjab's water rights. MSID:: 120795253 413 |
