
Shopkeepers being asked to remove their pants: Owaisi slams UP over nameplate row
"The police should do their job and arrest those who are harassing shopkeepers. These people have created a spectacle. They are not even following the orders of the Supreme Court. How can they enter someone's hotel? Going to a hotel and asking someone's religion is wrong. Why isn't the government doing anything?" he added.On July 22 last year, the Supreme Court issued an interim order, putting on hold guidelines that asked shopkeepers in Uttar Pradesh along Kanwar Yatra routes to display their names. The court said that owners would only display the kind of food served in their eateries.advertisementDuring the hearing, senior advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi had said the Uttar Pradesh government's directive was issued without any authority of law and called it a "camouflage order"."It is a camouflaged order for Kanwar Yatra. Violators will be fined if they do not show their names. We are talking about thousands of kilometres. The bulk of these shops are tea stalls and some belong to fruit shop owners. This is economic death," he had said.The Supreme Court's order came after the Muzaffarnagar Police had directed all eateries along the Kanwar Yatra route to display their owners' names on display boards last year. Later, the Yogi Adityanath-led Uttar Pradesh government extended the order across the state. The Uttarakhand and Madhya Pradesh governments also followed suit.The move had invited a backlash, not only from the Opposition but also from some of the NDA allies, including Janata Dal (United) and Rashtriya Lok Dal.- Ends
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Indian Express
16 minutes ago
- Indian Express
‘Open defiance of courts': Lawyer who fought for a decade to get old vehicles banned on Delhi govt's U-turn
In 2014, Delhi-based lawyer Vardhaman Kaushik moved the National Green Tribunal (NGT) over the Capital's choking air pollution crisis. A decade and orders from the NGT and Supreme Court later, a no-fuel ban on end-of-life petrol and diesel vehicles has barely lasted three days. On Thursday, in a letter to the Commission for Air Quality Management (CAQM) — the overarching statutory body for matters concerning air pollution — Delhi Environment Minister Manjinder Singh Sirsa had said that it would not be feasible to enforce the ban 'at this juncture', and 'immediate implementation… may be premature and potentially counter-productive'. The ban came into effect on July 1. The Delhi government's move has drawn sharp criticism from several quarters. According to Kaushik, the 'poor implementation' of the ban order is 'an open defiance of courts'. 'The (Supreme Court) judgment (on fuel ban) had come in long ago, in 2018… and it has not been executed,' Kaushik told The Indian Express. 'The fuel ban was only a way to implement the court's directions. The hue and cry over this now doesn't make sense.' 'This is not a new rule. These rules for end-of-life vehicles have been there for a long time. The judgment is not being taken seriously,' Kaushik said, adding that only a few vehicles have been impounded over the years. Kaushik dismissed the argument that the ban unfairly targets the middle class. 'People who can afford cars and sit in air-conditioned rooms are cribbing at not being able to sell their car at good rates… Their opinion should not matter,' he said. 'The larger population that cannot afford cars bears the brunt of air pollution.' He insisted that emissions, not the age of the vehicles, should be the focus. However, he underscored that age remains a legitimate proxy. 'Even if an age cap is put aside as suggested by the Environment Minister, the fact remains that a (Bharat Standard) BS III or a BS IV vehicle will always be far more polluting than a BS VI vehicle. The government needs to take a call at this juncture.' In April 2015, acting on Kaushik's plea, the NGT had laid the legal foundation for phasing out old vehicles from the Capital's roads. In 2018, the Supreme Court banned diesel vehicles older than 10 years and petrol vehicles older than 15 years in Delhi. The legal backing for the ban was reinforced by the 2018 SC order, which had upheld the NGT order. 'The Transport Departments of NCR will immediately announce that all diesel vehicles more than 10 years old and petrol vehicles more than 15 years old shall not ply in NCR in terms of the order of the National Green Tribunal…,' the order had said. It also mandated the impounding of violators and directed that lists of such vehicles be published on the websites of the Central Pollution Control Board and respective transport departments. Following the CAQM's April order on enforcing a fuel ban, a phased rollout was planned, first in Delhi from July 1, then expanded to the districts of Faridabad, Gurgaon, Ghaziabad, Gautam Buddha Nagar, and Sonipat in November. The plan was to expand the ban to the rest of the NCR from April 1, 2026.


Deccan Herald
an hour ago
- Deccan Herald
The row over rolls revision: Voters' lists must be cleaned up
The Congress, which had imposed Emergency during its stint in power in the 1970s, is now stooping to a new low as an opposition party. The Bharatiya Janata Party, on the other hand, set a high moral standard in opposition politics and always lived up to the expectations of a democratic India. After the defeat in the assembly elections of Maharashtra, Haryana and the 2024 parliamentary elections, the Congress is questioning the impartiality of the Election Commission of India, which has a longstanding record of credibility in conducting free and fair elections in India. This is the time in India when the Opposition is constantly attacking all the pillars of democracy – legislature, executive, judiciary, and media – for its superficial politics and casting doubts on them. . The Opposition is even targeting India's foreign policy and the Indian Armed Forces. The target of all these allegations is Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his government. It seems that the Opposition, which is continuously failing in politics, is now engaged in destroying the democratic tradition of India. It would be understandable if Pakistan or China took this approach to India, but, unfortunately, it is the Congress and other opposition parties, which resorted to this strategy, only to survive in politics. Now, the question is whether the opposition will be able to revive its fortune in politics by tearing apart the democratic dignity of India? Are the traditions, ethics and principles of India's democratic politics a thing of the past, thanks to the Opposition? Will the opposition counter the ruling party only by maligning the image of the impartial institutions and the pillars of democracy, like the ECI?.The row over rolls revision: Great Bihar disenfranchisement. As the ECI has started the revision of the voter list in Bihar, the Congress-led INDI Alliance has started attacking the prime minister, the government and, of course, the commission. Whereas the reality is that the ECI keeps revising its voter list at regular intervals every year. In India, elections to the Lok Sabha, state assemblies, panchayats and municipal corporations are held every year in several phases. By-elections also keep happening in between. It is the important responsibility of the ECI to be fully prepared and ready for elections on time. It seems that frustrated by the repeated failure to stand against the BJP, the Congress is raising questions on the ECI in desperation and frustration, hence desires to create doubts among the masses to play politics. The complete accuracy of the voter list is essential for a successful voting process and to strengthen democracy. No one can deny the fact that a large number of fake voters are registered across the country. According to an estimate, there are at least 5000 to 25000 fake, or double or triple registered voters are enrolled in every assembly constituency of Bihar. This needs to be revised and corrected on a priority basis before the election is announced. Even within the same assembly constituency, a voter is registered at multiple places. It is necessary to clean up the voter lists and free the rolls of duplications. The BJP has been demanding that the ECI should link the electoral rolls with Aadhaar, so that the fraud in the voting system could be stopped completely. There should be a positive participation of all the political parties. The Opposition should encourage the process for strengthening democracy, rather than indulging in superficial politics through propaganda. It is the responsibility of all the political parties to strengthen the democratic institutions and cooperate with the ECI in making the electoral process completely free and fair. The Congress and the rest of the INDI Alliance are pretending to make a political move, but are, in reality, trying to weaken democracy in India by hitting at the pillars of democracy.. (The writer is presently the National General Secretary of the BJP's OBC Morcha.)


India Gazette
2 hours ago
- India Gazette
JP Nadda meets former Himachal CM Prem Kumar Dhumal
Hamirpur (Himachal Pradesh) [India], July 5 (ANI): Union Minister and BJP president JP Nadda visited senior party leader and former Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Prem Kumar Dhumal at his residence in Samirpur on Friday. It was a courtesy visit. 'During my stay in Himachal Pradesh today, I paid a courtesy visit to senior BJP leader and former Chief Minister Shri Prem Kumar Dhumal ji at his residence in Samirpur and enquired about his well-being,' Nadda said in a post on X. BJP's newly appointed state chief Rajeev Bindal was also present. Nadda took a dig at the Congress-led state government on Wednesday over its handling of disaster relief funds. 'Between 2023 and 2025, the Central Government allocated Rs 1,736 crore to the State Disaster Response Fund (SDRF), Rs 1,071 crore through the National Disaster Response Fund (NDRF), and Rs 339 crore to the State Disaster Mitigation Fund for Himachal Pradesh as relief funds. This demonstrates that under Prime Minister Modi's leadership, the Government of India stands firmly with the state government in times of need, not just in words but in action.' 'Out of the Rs 360.11 crore allocated, only Rs 78 crore has been utilised, which is just 21.7 per cent of the total amount. I have cautioned the state government that they have one year to effectively utilise these funds. Nevertheless, the Central Government and Prime Minister Modi remain steadfast in their support for Himachal Pradesh.' Expressing condolences for the lives lost in cloudbursts and flash floods, Nadda expressed BJP's solidarity with the affected families. 'I express my deepest condolences to those who lost their lives in the cloudburst and flash floods. The BJP stands with the families who have lost their loved ones. We are assisting in the ongoing rescue operations in the affected areas. Whenever Himachal Pradesh has been affected by any disaster, Prime Minister Modi has always stood with Himachal Pradesh,' he said. (ANI)