Intelligent India

Chief Election Commissioner Nasim Zaidi on Saturday announced that all future elections, including that of Himachal Pradesh assembly, would be held with Voter-Verified Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) machines. "India would be the first country to use them...VVPAT machines would boost the voters' confidence," he added. In paper trail machines, voters get a printed proof of the vote they cast.\


The Election Commission has issued letter of intent for purchase of 16.15 lakh Voter-Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) machines, following a clearance by the Union Cabinet on fund allocations.

The machines will be procured in 2017-18 and 2018-19 at an estimated cost of ₹3,173.47 crore from public sector undertakings BEL and ECIL.


“In its letter sent to CMDs of ECIL and BEL on Friday, the commission has communicated its intent for purchase 8,07,500 VVPATs from each of the PSUs by September 2018,” said an EC note.

TV actress Sonarika Bhadoria — known as the small screen's 'Parvati' for her role in the hugely popular show Devon Ke Dev Mahadev — got a stalker arrested after being harassed for several months.



The stalker is a 23-year-old male fan from Kurkheda in Maharashtra, and was allegedly sending the actress lewd text messages, in addition to making phone calls.

Sonarika reported the matter to the police in February this year, who in turn tracked and arrested the man on Friday, 28 April 2017.

Speaking with a national newspaper , Sonarika narrated a saga of harassment that had been spread out over the past eight months.

The stalker would call and message her repeatedly through the day; when she tried to block his phone number, he would call her from others.

"I was fed up and scared," Sonarika said.

Matters reached a head when, having turned off her phone for a few days, Sonarika's family members began receiving calls from the stalker.

The assistant police inspector of Kurar …

Google CEO Sundar Pichai doubled the amount he made in 2015, as he received nearly $199.7 million in compensation last year.

According to a filing from Google's parent company, Alphabet (GOOGL, Tech30), the company's compensation committee attributed the generous pay to Pichai's promotion to CEO and "numerous successful product launches."

Uttar Pradesh director general of police Sulkhan Singh has constituted a special investigation team (SIT) to probe a multi-crore petrol pump scam exposed through raids at seven petrol pumps in the state capital.


The raids, conducted by the special task force (STF) on the intervening night of Thursday and Friday, revealed that the petrol pump owners were using a hi-tech chip-based device to dispense lower quantities of petrol to consumers than what they paid for. The police action had followed the arrest of an electric technician – identified as Rajendra – who confessed to installing the “cheat chip” at hundreds of petrol pumps across Uttar Pradesh and beyond.



Incidentally, the seven petrol pumps found using electronic chips to cheat customers included those owned by UP Petrol Pump Dealers’ Association president BN Shukla and his son, Gopal Shukla. The association president’s filling station – the Standard Petrol Pump – is located in Madiaon.



The STF suspects that the chips have been so…

31-year-old IAS officer Sriram Venkitaraman , who made the state proud by securing second rank in the civil services examination in 2013 is in news because of his takes on Kerala's land mafia.

In an anti-encroachment drive that began early on Thursday morning, a team led by Devikulam tahsildar had reportedly reached the spot in Pappathichola a little after 7.30 am, after traveling for more than three hours. Following this, they initiated the process of bringing down the 25-feet tall cross.

Thursday's drive was a continuation of the anti-encroachment drive being carried out in Munnar under the instruction of Devikulam Sub-Collector Sriram Venkitaraman.

According to television reports, the cross was erected by a Thrissur-based group Spirit in Jesus. This was the revenue department's third attempt at razing the massive cross, allegedly built on encroached land. At both the earlier instances, the officials were prevented by agitators.


Kerala Minister MM Mani asks S Collect…

Amit Shah's  visit to West Bengal was a symbolic warning to Mamta Banarjee. In reply to Amit Shah's statements Mamta Banrjee roared saying she was not scared of the BJP's threat to "put Trinamool Congress in jail" and vowed to "capture Delhi." 

 She was responding to BJP chief Amit Shah's targeted attack on her and her party during a two-day visit to the state aimed at rapidly expanding his party's footprint in West Bengal, where it has so far had limited political presence. Mr Shah has handed his Bengal BJP team the task of uprooting the ruling Trinamool Congress by 2019.

The BJP chief challenged Ms Banerjee directly on her turf. After visiting Naxalbari in north Bengal, where he ate lunch sitting cross-legged in the tin-roofed hut of farm worker Geeta Mahali, Mr Shah went to Mamata Banerjee's assembly constituency Bhawanipore in south Kolkata and visited three homes in a slum. He was greeted warmly by residents who showered him with flow…

New Delhi: Just days ahead of the Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s visit to India, New Delhi has pledged continuing support to the unity and integrity of Cyprus, whose President Nicos Anastasiades is currently on a five-day visit to India. India also said it was “aware” of Turkey’s close ties with Pakistan but said Indo-Turkish ties stand on their own strength.



External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj on Friday called on Cyprus President Nicos Anastasiades for an offical meeting.

“Intensifying cooperation with Cyprus. External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj calls on President Nicos Anastasiades, discusses areas of bilateral cooperation,” ministry spokesperson Gopal Baglay tweeted.

Earlier, President Pranab Mukherjee and Prime Minister Narendra Modi received Anastasiades who was accorded a ceremonial welcome at the Rashtrapati Bhavan here.

The visiting guest was given a ceremonial guard of honour at the forecourt of the Rashtrapati Bhavan.

Anastasiades also paid tributes to Mah…

NEW DELHI: Senior IPS officer Rajiv Rai Bhatnagar was appointed as the new Director General of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) on Wednesday. His appointment comes two days after the CRPF lost 25 jawans in the deadly Sukma attack.

Bhatnagar will be replacing acting DG Sudeep Lakhtakia.

Currently, Bhatnagar serves as DG of the Narcotics Control Bureau - an ADG rank post which has temporarily been upgraded to a Special DG rank.

Bhatnagar belongs to the 1983 batch of the Indian Police Service (IPS).

In another key appointment, R K Pachnanda was appointed as DG of the Indo Tibetan Border Police (ITBP). He'll be taking over from Krishna Chaudhary, who is set to retire in June this year.

Pachnanda is serving as DG of the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF), India's specialized force for responding to natural disasters and CBRN emergencies

New Delhi: Veteran actor and sitting BJP MP Vinod Khanna passed away at the age of 70 on Thursday after a difficult battle with cancer.

The actor, who was part of several Bollywood hits like Amar Akbar Anthony and The Burning Train, was admitted to the HN Reliance Foundation and Research Centre in Girgaon, Mumbai recently.



A photo of the actor in which he looked frail and a shadow of his former self had shocked his fans and many in the film fraternity.

Vinod Khanna, a sitting Bharatiya Janata Party MP from Gurdaspur district of Punjab, was born on 6 October, 1946. He was seen in 141 films between 1968 and 2013.

The Uttar Pradesh government cancelled 15 state-specific public holidays that were being observed to mark birth and death anniversaries of historical figures, political and religious leaders.


Currently, government servants in the state are entitled to a potential 180-odd holidays and leaves. This translates to six months of holidays, including 104 weekends, 40 public holidays, restricted holidays, earned and medical leaves.



At an event to mark the birth anniversary of BR Ambedkar on April 14, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath had expressed displeasure at the huge number of public holidays in the state. Nearly all of these holidays were declared in the last decade and a half.

The UP cabinet on Tuesday cancelled 15 of these public holidays. But national holidays will continue to be observed in the state.

The cabinet decided to cancel the public holiday to mark the birth anniversary of former Bihar chief minister Karpoori Thakur, obverved on January 24. Interestingly, his birth anniversary is …

The official websites of at least three central universities - Delhi University, Aligarh Muslim University and the Indian Institute of Technology-Delhi (IIT-Delhi) - were hacked today and pro-Kashmir messages were splashed on them by a group that only identified itself as 'PHC'.



"Greetings Government of India, and the people of India. Do you know what your so-called heroes (soldiers) are doing in Kashmir? Do you know they are killing many innocent people in Kashmir?" the same message on both sites read.


"Pakistan Zindabad," it says in fluorescent green at the bottom, with the page displaying two videos of the army's alleged brutalities in Kashmir and the protest of the people over it.



The other message read as - "How would you feel if your brother, sister, father and mother gets killed? Won't your life and your families be destroyed?"





Also, 'Pakistan Zindabad' was splashed in fluorescent green at the bottom.

"Just here to d…

BSNL orBharat Sanchar Nigam Limitedhas announced three new data plans priced fromRs.333, the latest offering from the telecom operator seen as aimed at Jio's Dhan Dhana Dhan plans. BSNL is offering up to 270 GB of 3G mobile data along with unlimited voice calls for a period of 90 days. BSNL's Triple ACE STV or special tariff voucher priced atRs.333 includes 3 GB per day of unlimited data, beyond which the speed will be reduced to 80 Kbps, the operator said. RelianceJio's aggressive pricing is causing intense competition in Indian telecom industry, forcing incumbent operators to offer attractive mobile data and unlimited voice calls plans, according to analysts. BSNL has also revised its existingRs.339 plan, which now includes 3 GB of data per day, instead of 2 GB earlier, it added.



Here are some of the other offerings by BSNL:

Rs.

Pakistan's Supreme Court on Thursday ruled there was insufficient evidence to order Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's removal from office over corruption allegations levelled by the opposition, but it ordered further investigations.

A verdict to dismiss Sharif would have left his party in power but would have brought turmoil at a time when Pakistan is experiencing modest growth and improved security, and the civilian government and powerful military have appeared to come to uneasy terms. Two of five judges on the court bench recommended Sharif should step down, saying he was dishonest "to the nation as well as to the parliament", but they were out voted.

Presenting its 549-page judgment amid tight security in the capital Islamabad, the court ordered a joint investigation team be formed to look into allegations around three of Sharif's four children using offshore companies to buy properties in London. The team has two months to complete its inquiry, after which a speci…

During the Cabinet meeting, Prime Minister Narendra Modi is learnt to have announced that Rule 108 (I) and 108 (II) of the Motor Vehicles Act, which allow central and state governments to permit red beacons for dignitaries, would be scrapped.

Every Indian is a VIP and the culture ofbeaconshould have gone long ago, PM Modi said on twitter.... He was responding to tweets onred beacondecision
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has decided to shake up India’s privileged VIP culture, most notably symbolised by flashing red beacon lights on top of vehicles, by scrapping a rule that allowed the Central and State governments to nominate dignitaries who could use such lights.

Moreover, States are also being stripped of their power to specify persons whose vehicles can use blue flashing lights. Effective May 1, only emergency services vehicles such as ambulances, fire engine trucks, and police vehicles will be allowed to use blue lights. Red lights will not be permitted on any vehicle. Private vehicl…

The Supreme Court on Wednesday revived the conspiracy charge in the Babri Masjid demolition case against BJP and VHP leaders including L.K. Advani and Murli Manohar Joshi, triggering calls for the resignation of Kalyan Singh and Uma Bharti.

After the court verdict, Prime Minister Narendra Modi held a meeting at his official residence with senior cabinet colleagues including Home Minister Rajnath Singh, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, Information and Broadcasting Minister M. Venkaiah Naidu and Road and Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari where they are understood to have discussed the issue.

A senior party leader said that the several issues figured in the meeting including the situation in Jammu and Kashmir

LUCKNOW: The UP government today shunted out tainted Vice Chairman of Lucknow Development Authority Satyendra Singh while effecting a major bureaucratic reshuffle involving 41 IAS officers in the second such drill in less than a week.

Singh, who is mired in controversy over alleged corruption in LDA, has been put on wait list by the Yogi Adityanath government which completed one month in office today.

CHENNAI: Beginning May 14, fuel outlets in eight states will be shut every Sunday following Prime Minister Narendra Modi's call to conserve oil, a fuel pump owners' body said here today.

"We had planned to shut our outlets on Sundays a few years back. But oil marketing companies had then requested us to reconsider our decision. Now we have decided to shut the outlets on Sundays," said Suresh Kumar, an executive committee member of the consortium of Indian petroleum dealers.

In a jab at Snapchat, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said Tuesday that Facebook will be making the "first mainstream augmented reality platform out of the camera," positioning it as "Act 2" for the company.

"We see something different ... in order to create better tools," Zuckerberg said. "We need an open platform where any developer in the world can build for augmented reality without having to first build a camera and get a lot of people to use it."

Zuckerberg spoke at the annual Facebook Developer Conference, or F8, at the McEnery Convention Center in San Jose, California. In his address, he debuted an early version of a new feature that allows users to scroll through features like "face masks," with thousands of options, from creators across the world.

The feature builds off Facebook's "Act 1," according to Zuckerberg — which included a widespread implementation of Snapchat-like "stories." He said the phone c…

Sunil Grover is teaming up with his 'The Kapil Sharma Show' co-actor Ali Asgar for an upcoming episode of 'Sabse Bada Kalakaar'. The ongoing reality show will soon have these two comedians rib-tickle the audience and perform their antics on stage.

Ever since Sunil and Kapil Sharma's ugly spat both Sunil and Ali have gone missing from the show.

Meanwhile, Kapil Sharma has brought back Upasna Singh on the show as his maternal aunt.

Sunil's fans have been missing him on the comedy show, but the actor has not broken his fans hearts, instead he has been giving appearing on several shows. He also gave a live performance in Delhi, which was a major hit.

Mumbai: BookMyBai, an online service which allows people to find a house-help, has put a blanket ban on Bollywood celebrities. The decision was taken after the online platform got multiple complaints of misconduct from their domestic helps.

In a blog post, the website’s co-founder Anupam Sinhal has penned down a lengthy record of how over 20 Bollywood celebrities have mistreated the domestic helps provide to them through the online platform, BookMyBai.

While keeping the names aside, he mentioned 5 incidents where the house helps were horribly mistreated by the celebrities. In his post, he writes, “Fortunately, out of the 10000 households that we have served, we have not come across even a single case of harassment/exploitation. But this figure comes to a rest when it comes to providing a domestic help to a “Bollywood celebrity”.”

New Delhi: Liquor baron Vijay Mallya who is wanted in India for defaulting on loans worth Rs 9,000 crore has been arrested by the Scotland Yard in London. He will be produced before the Westminster Magistrates' Court there.
Mallya, who has been declared an absconder in India, is likely to be extradited and a team from the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) will visit the United Kingdom soon.


The reason for the arrest of the 61-year-old former liquor and aviation tycoon is not known.
Mallya, who arrived here in March last year and had his Indian passport revoked, would appear before the Westminster magistrates court later in the day, the sources said.

New Delhi: With Sahara failing to deposit Rs 5,100 crores, the Supreme Court on Monday appointed official liquidator of the Bombay High Court to auction the Aamby Valley project near Pune in Maharashtra valued at Rs 34,000 crores to realise the dues from Sahara chief Subrata Roy, who is now on parole. On February 28, the Court while attaching the Aamby Valley project near Pune had permitted Sebi to sell some of the properties and directed Sahara to deposit about Rs 5,100 cr on or before April 17.

During the resumed hearing a three-judge Bench of Justices Dipak Misra, Ranjan Gogoi and A.K. Sikri refused to accept the arguments of senior counsel Salman Khurshid that time was needed till May 24 to deposit the amount. The court asked the official liquidator to submit a report by April 27 indicating the value of the properties and how he is going to sell them.

MUMBAI: Both the new managing directors of LIC - B Venugopal and Sunita Sharma, whose appointments were cleared by the government yesterday, assumed charge today.   
Both the MDs have a tenure of nearly two years and will be superannuated in 2019. Venugopal will retire on May 31, 2019 while Sharma will be retiring on March 31 in 2019.

In their prior assignments, Venugopal was heading the Western zone of LIC in Mumbai, while Sharma was managing director of LIC Housing Finance. Venugopal took over as the head of the Mumbai zone last year, whereas Sharma has been heading LICHFL since November 2013.   
The top management of LIC consists of the chairman and four managing directors. With these appointments, LIC has four MDs, with the other two being Usha Sangwan and Hemant Bhargava, who was appointed in mid-February.  

The post of an MD fell vacant after VK Sharma was elevated as chairman last December, and the other post was lying vacant since the superannuation of…

BSP Supremo Mayawati's latest offer of opposition parties unity to stop BJP, is being seen as an opportunist move. According to experts, Mayawati's RS term will expire next year in April. She wants opposition parties support to retain the RS seat again. Because her party is not having required MLAs to elect her to Rajya Sabha, she is talking about such unity.

The BJP calls the idea of a grand alliance a non-starter. "Whether Akhilesh forms alliance or a grand alliance, he won't be able to stop the BJP. People of the nation are with Prime Minister Modi and they want development," said Keshav Prasad Maurya, the deputy chief minister of Uttar Pradesh.

Mild tremor shook parts of Bengaluru triggering panic among the residents on Tuesday at about 8 am. The tremor lasted only for two seconds.

Social media was abuzz soon after the incident. Milind Dharmasen posted in his Facebook page: “Mild earth quake around 8am in Kengeri. My cot shook twice for about 2 -3 seconds each time. Did others experience it too?”

Subhash Agrawal too reported that he too felt the tremor when he was in Banashankari. Srinivas Reddy of Diaster Management Centre said he too received queries from various government officers such as Deputy Commissioners of Bengaluru Urban District and Ramanagara District and Mines and Geology Department.

Reddy stated that none of the five observatories registered the tremor. “Our centres did not showing any such tremor. It happens when the magnitude of earthquake is less than one in Richter scale,” Reddy explained.

VIJAYAWADA: Senior Telugu Desam Party (TDP) leader and former minister Devineni Rajasekhar who is popularly known as Nehru, died of cardiac arrest while getting treated in a private hospital in Hyderabad. He was 64. Nehru has been suffering with kidney and heart ailments for the past several months and he was rushed to hospital last week. The end came around 6am on Monday.

Singer Sonu Nigam climbed to the top of Twitter's trending chart on Monday morning over a series of posts questioning the use of loudspeakers by places of worship with a complaint about the muezzin's call to prayer. "God bless everyone. I'm not a Muslim and I have to be woken up by the Azaan in the morning. When will this forced religiousness end in India. And by the way Mohammed did not have electricity when he made Islam (sic)," he posted.

"Why do I have to have this cacophony after Edison? I don't believe in any temple or gurudwara using electricity To (sic) wake up people who don't follow the religion. Why then..? Honest? True? Gundagardi hai bus(just hooliganism)..." he tweeted to his 5.94 million followers.

P.M. CHANDRAIAH
MD and Director Finance,BPCL
After 63 years, Bengal Chemicals and Pharmaceuticals (BCPL) has posted an annual profit, of Rs 4 crore, in the financial year 2016-17 (FY17).

In 1977, the Union government took over the management of the company, founded by chemist and entrepreneur P C Ray in 1901. It was nationalised in 1981.

In FY17, the company earned Rs 111 crore, about two per cent less than what it earned in 2015-16. But, it made a profit, compared to a loss of Rs 9 crore FY16.


A senior company official said the company achieved a gross margin of Rs 23 crore in the last financial year. This improved its financial position by a little more than Rs 43 crore.

BPCL director of finance, P M Chandraiah, who holds additional charge as managing director, said reduction in procurement costs and stoppage in financial leakages were instrumental in turning the company around.

Direct cost of gross sales reduced to 48 per cent in FY17, against 59 per cent the previous year.

After BCPL pos…

Four Collectors on Madhya Pradesh will be falicited by the Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi on Civil Service Day at New Delhi on 21st April 2017. Collector of Badwani Tejassavi Niek will be awarded for outstanding implemetation of Govt.’s Deendayal Upadhaya Gram Jyoti Yojana in Dadwani district.While Collector Indore P Narhari and Collector Burhanpur Smt. PJ Irene Cynthia will be awarded for effective work of stand up India.

Also Collector Jabalpur will be awarded for innovation integrated solid waste management and generation of power from waste.

Mr. Mahesh Kumar Jain has assumed charge as Managing Director & CEO of IDBI Bank with effect from April 3. Prior to the current assignment, Mr. Jain was the Managing Director & Chief Executive Officer of Indian Bank. A press release from IDBI Bank said Mr. Jain had joined Indian Bank as an Executive Director in September 2013 where he handled key portfolios such as Corporate & Retail Credit, SME Credit, Risk Management, Recovery & Legal, Accounts, Technology Management, Banking Operations Department, Business Process Re-engineering and Compliance Department.


Prior to joining Indian Bank, he served as General Manager with Syndicate Bank and handled various portfolios, including Credit, Operations, Investments and Risk Management. He began his banking career with Punjab National Bank. He was a member of the Steering Committee on Risk Management of IBA and a Member of the IBA working group on Risk Management and implementation of Basel II and III. He was also the S…

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has appointed Ms. Malvika Sinha as Executive Director (ED) consequent upon the appointment of Mr. B P Kanungo as Deputy Governor yesterday. Ms. Sinha took charge of her new position yesterday, a press release from the central bank said. As Executive Director, Ms. Sinha will look after Foreign Exchange Department, Department of Government and Bank Accounts and Internal Debt Management Department. Ms. Sinha holds a Master's Degree from University of Bombay and has done her Master's in Public Administration. She is also a Certificated Associate of Indian Institute of Bankers. She joined RBI in 1982 and as a career central banker served in the areas of regulation and supervision, foreign exchange and Government and Bank Accounts in the Bank. Prior to being promoted as ED, she was Principal Chief General Manager, Department of Co-operative Banking Supervision in the Reserve Bank.

Mr. Gajendra Singh has taken charge as Director (Marketing) of the public sector natural gas processing and distribution major GAIL (India) Limited. Prior to his appointment as Director (Marketing), Mr. Singh served as Executive Director (Marketing), a press release from the company said.

 He started his career in processing and interpreting of seismic data in upstream industry, and possesses 32 years of illustrious career in hydrocarbon sector, the release said.

Mr. Singh has been involved in the execution of several prestigious projects of GAIL starting from the HVJ and has held various leadership and strategic positions. Some of these key roles where he has served as the Head of Department include General Manager (Gas Sourcing and Gas Marketing), Executive Director (Operations & Maintenance). He has been managing company`s top line and bottom line through various Zonal offices located across India. He joined GAIL in 1986, having worked in Oil and Natural Gas Corporati…

IndiGo, which currently operates over 900 flights, plans to add these additional flights to existing routes
Low-cost carrier IndiGo today announced 18 new domestic flights in its summer schedule, including its 15th flight between Bengaluru and Delhi and tenth flight between Bengaluru and Hyderabad and Kolkata and Bengaluru.

It will also operate new additional flights from Ranchi, Guwahati and Thiruvananthapuram, a press release from the airline said.

The new flights will provide increased frequencies on the routes and offer greater travel options to its customers, it said.

Mr. Aditya Ghosh, President and Whole Time Director, IndiGo, said, “We have witnessed a growing demand in the domestic sector for business and leisure travel. The additional frequencies in the summer schedule are a testament to our promise to provide enhanced connectivity in the country. It gives me immense pleasure to announce these new frequencies, which will provide even more flexibility of choice to our customers…

India TodayManaging Editor Rahul Kanwal invited Hindu Yuva Vahini leader Narendra Singh Tomar for his prime-timeshow, Newsroom. The news peg was anattackon a couple in Meerut on suspicion of ‘Love Jihad’. Just when Kanwal and Tomar were about to discuss the issue in all its nuance (yeah right), things got pretty, umm, heated. About 15 minutes into the show, Kanwal unleashed himself on Tomar and vice-versa, and what passed off as primetime news was amahayuddhof sorts between the two.

Meanwhile, Twitter totally enjoyed the showdown and promptly took sides. Some felt that Kanwal's behaviour was uncalled for and that it was against 'journalistic ethics' Here’s a mash-up of some of our favourite moments from the show. Have a good laugh and then weep at what television news has to offer to you, the viewer.

Google has quietly launched the new Areo app on Google Play in India, without any official statement regarding its release. Areo is a local services application that allows you to pay bills, order food, call a plumber to fix your sink, or have a beautician come over to give you a facial.

And although Google has the contact details of all these different services through the database it builds for Google Maps, it's not using its own muscle to make this work. Instead, it has used the Google Areo app to bundle together different services. So, for example, in the food delivery section you can flip between Freshmenu, Faasos, and Box8. For other categories such as beauty and repairs, UrbanClap appears to be the main services provider at present.

At the time of launch, the new Areo app supported services in parts of Delhi Mumbai and parts of Bengaluru, but naturally, this will change quickly. In Bengaluru's HSR Layout, however, these four services were the only providers…

In the first major bureaucratic reshuffle by Yogi Adityanath government, 20 senior IAS officers, including Principal Secretary (Information) Navneet Sehgal were today transferred.
Mr. Sehgal, who wielded considerable influence in Akhilesh Yadav government, also held the charge of Religious Affaris, Information and Tourism.


He was the CEO of UP Industrial Development Authority, UP State Highway Authority and Additional Resident Commissioner, New Delhi.
An official release here said that he has been put on the wait list.
UP cadre IAS officer Avanish Kumar Awasthi, who was on wait list after he was relieved from the Centre, has got charge of all the departments held by Sehgal.

Thiruvananthapuram: Cadell Jeanson Raja, the man accused of massacring his family to perform astral projection, has now told the police that he murdered his family members because he was neglected by them, and not in a bid to perform astral projection.

Raja had earlier said that he killed his family members to perform astral projection that allows him to communicate with souls of dead people.

But after the police started questioning him in the presence of a psychiatrist he said that he took the extreme step because of the neglect. He also alleged that his family did not take care of him as they did of his sister.

But he says that he has been following astral projection for some time now.

He had earlier told the police that performing astral projection gave him an extra strength which helped him push his physical and intellectual limits.

Four members of a family were found dead On Saturday in Thiruvanthapouram. The police had taken Raja into custody on Monday evening. On Tuesday his arrest…