Category: NATIONAL NEWS

New Delhi, May 13 (DIN NEWS) There is a necessity for a whistleblowers act to protect RTI users as the system has strategised to stall free flow of information to disempower and stop such activists, says Aruna Roy, who spearheaded the Right to Information Act movement. She also feels that there is still a need to see the RTI as a larger democratic and people’s constitutional tool to make power truthful and accountable and put pressure on the political establishment, which it cannot ignore or distort. According to Roy, the RTI…

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Bengaluru, May 13 (DIN NEWS) A day after the Karnataka Assembly polls, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah today asserted that the Congress would retain power in the southern state and said this was his last election. Speaking to reporters in Chamundeshwari constituency, one of the two seats from where he contested in the high-stakes polls along with Badami in north Karnataka, the Congress leader said: “This will be my last election.” To a question on the possibility of a Dalit chief minister, he said, “It is fine if the party decides to have…

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Bengaluru, May 12 (DIN NEWS) Congress president Rahul Gandhi today urged the people of Karnataka to participate in the “festival of democracy” by voting in large numbers. Gandhi also welcomed first-time voters to take part in the electoral process. “Voter exercising his right without fail is the sign of functional democracy. I welcome all my young friends who are casting their vote for first time in Karnataka,” Gandhi said in a tweet in Kannada. “I request people of Karnataka to celebrate this biggest festival of democracy in large numbers with fervour,…

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Bengaluru, May 12 (DIN NEWS) About 24 per cent polling was recorded within the first four hours after voting began for the fiercely fought Karnataka Assembly polls this morning. Polling is being held in a single phase for 222 out of 224 seats in a three-cornered contest among the ruling Congress, the BJP and former Prime Minister H D Deve Gowda’s JD(S). According to state electoral authorities, the highest 31 per cent voting was recorded in Dakshina Kannada and Udupi districts respectively at 11 am while Bengaluru urban recorded the lowest…

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Damoh (MP), May 11 (DIN NEWS) Over 100 girl students of a government hostel in Madhya Pradesh are forced to defecate and bathe in the open because of water scarcity in toilets, says its warden, at a time when every state is trying to achieve the ‘Open Defecation Free (ODF)’ tag The hostel in Madiyadoh village, about 60 km from the district headquarters, has toilets, but shortage of water has rendered them useless, forcing students to defecate in the open, an official said. The hostel’s inmates, Class 6 to 12 students,…

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Srinagar, May 11 (DIN NEWS) Restrictions have been imposed in parts of Srinagar in view of a protest called by Separatist today against civilian deaths in a clash between protestors and security forces after an encounter in Jammu and Kashmir’s Sophian district. Separatist leader Mirwaiz Umar Farooq was put under house arrest this morning, a police official said. Restrictions, under Section 144 of the CrPc, were imposed by authorities in five police station areas of the summer capital, the official said. The curbs are in force in the Nowhatta, Khanyar, Rainawari,…

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The Shiv Sena today praised Congress president Rahul Gandhi for being dignified while attacking Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his speeches and said said he could pose a challenge to the BJP in 2019. The BJP should have welcomed Gandhi’s declaration of his prime ministerial ambitions, the NDA ally said, adding that it was against democracy to make fun of Gandhi over his remark. The BJP should have challenged him to defeat it in the 2019 general polls. Gandhi had said two days ago that he was ready to occupy…

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