Jaipur: With just a fortnight left for the elections in Bengal, there is a severe shortage of staff in homes and eateries across Jaipur as migrant workers from Cooch Behar return home to cast their votes, leading to kitchen shortages and problems for businesses.As nine constituencies in Cooch Behar go to the polls on April 23, a large section of Bengali domestic workers and daily wage earners in Jaipur are pushing back, asking employers to “vote first, work later”. The migration has disrupted regular services at homes, hotels, restaurants and construction sites.“More than 80% of Jaipur’s domestic servants and laborers are from villages in Cooch Behar. This is the first time we are seeing so much enthusiasm to return home to cast their votes.” In fact, the enthusiasm is the highest post-Covid,” said Mewa Bharti, a domestic help worker who runs Rajasthan Mahila Kamaraj Union.The impact is widespread. Women largely work as domestic helps, while men are employed in hotels, marriage gardens, factories and construction work.“We cannot think of running kitchens in Jaipur without Cooch Behar manpower. At present, there is an acute shortage as almost entire families are going to vote,” said Tarun Kumar Bansal, president of the Hotel and Restaurant Association of Rajasthan. He said that out of his 240 employees, more than 70 are from Cooch Behar and all have applied for leave.Its impact has spread to the markets, the Bengali fish market at Bais Godam and the Bengali grain market at Shakar Marg are likely to remain closed for about a month.Explaining the increase, migrant Usha Barman said: “We have been promised financial help by political parties depending on the number of family members who vote. There is also a fear that if we do not vote, our names may be struck off in the next amendment.”With trains full and waiting lists long, many are opting for ordinary coaches or private buses – underscoring that, for these workers, voting takes priority over livelihood.

New Delhi: Justice Yashwant Verma of Allahabad High Court has probably submitted his resignation to the President. Draupadi Murmu on Friday, but he went down screaming. In a letter addressed to Supreme Court Justice Arvind Kumar, who heads the judges’ inquiry committee, the controversial HC judge faulted the committee’s process to test the veracity of allegations related to the discovery of huge amounts of unaccounted burnt cash from his official residence. Questioning the committee’s decision to proceed without any concrete evidence against him, Justice Verma said such a process left him no option but to withdraw, as his further participation would legitimize a process that “asks me to give unassailable answers – where did the money come from”. “Parallel to this, I have also written a letter to Her Excellency the President of India,” he said. The video, recorded by the first responders – firemen and police – of the fire incident at his residence in central Delhi on the night of March 14-15 last year and later uploaded on the Supreme Court website, proved Justice Verma’s murder. If his evidence before the committee was damning, it became even more trenchant during his cross-examination by Justice Verma’s lawyers, as they sketched the discovery of the cash and the conduct of the people present in the judge’s house that night. Justice Verma was considered very close to Justice DY Chandrachud, who had a two-year tenure as CJI from November 2022 to November 2024. An SC bench headed by him had in March 2024 quashed a CBI FIR and an ECIR by the Enforcement Directorate against Justice Verma, who, as a lawyer and before his appointment as an HC judge, had come forward as a non-executive director of Simbhaoli Sugar Limited in an alleged bank loan fraud case. One of his main complaints was that the committee had put the onus of proving his innocence on the basis of evidence collected by the inquiry committee constituted by the then CJI Sanjiv Khanna. He said the investigation report could not serve as evidence or be relevant to any future proceedings. His decision to challenge the inquiry proceedings, its report and the then CJI Khanna’s recommendation of removal motion was quashed by the SC bench of Justices Dipankar Datta and AG Masih on August 7 last year. Justice Verma said that the storeroom from where the burnt cash was allegedly found and where the video was recorded was never seized by the police. Moreover, since the room was accessible to all, it could not be the responsibility of the judge to keep track of who kept what in the vast complex of the official bungalow, which also included residential quarters for domestic help. Justice Verma said that he left it for the coming generation to decide “whether such an obligation can ever be discharged or can fairly be imposed on the occupants of such premises”. He said that there is no basis or evidence in the allegations and allegations made against him. Saying there was no concrete evidence to prove the charges against him, Justice Verma said the criminal trial would be conducted in a process undisclosed by law. “The burden of proof has effectively been reversed without making any substantive case.” Justice Verma said, “I am extremely disappointed that despite the serious nature of these proceedings, which could have the potential consequence of removing a sitting judge of a High Court from constitutional office, the Commission (Committee) did not intervene despite the shocking manner of the proceedings.”

Salem: Two decades after dreaded forest robber Veerappan was killed in a police encounter in Tamil Nadu, his daughter and widow are attempting to rewrite his story – from a dreaded outlaw to a defender of Tamil rights – through electoral politics.Veerappan’s elder daughter Vidyarani, 35, an advocate, is contesting from the Mettur constituency as a Nam Tamilar Katchi candidate, while his widow Muthulakshmi is contesting from Krishnagiri on behalf of the Tamilaga Vazhvurimai Katchi. Both parties support ‘Tamil nationalism’.“Had my father been alive today, he too would have entered the democratic process,” says Vidyarani, who is contesting the election for the second time. He had earlier contested the 2024 Lok Sabha elections from Krishnagiri as an NTK candidate, in which he received more than one lakh votes.For Muthulakshmi too, it marks a comeback to politics after debuting as an independent candidate in the 2006 assembly elections.Instead of turning away from Veerappan’s controversial legacy, both women have embraced it and want to repaint it in their own colors. “He was not as dreaded a criminal as he was portrayed to be. He stood against exploitation and injustice,” Vidyarani said at a rally in Mettur. His campaign echoes NTK’s core plank of Tamil nationalism.NTK chief Seeman was vocal in his support for Veerappan. Campaigning for him, he said, “If Prabhakaran (LTTE chief) was the guardian of our caste, Veerappan was the guardian of our forests.”Vidyarani’s political journey began with Pattali Makkal Katchi, which draws support from Vanniyars, a numerically strong community spread across more than a dozen districts of Tamil Nadu. She joined the BJP in 2020, before switching to NTK in 2024.In Krishnagiri, Muthulakshmi focuses on the agrarian crisis in her campaigns. “I have been among farmers. My fight is for water, crops and respect,” she told TOI.Both say that they do not face any hostility because of their past. “On the contrary, people respect us,” Vidyarani said.Observers believe his entry could hurt AIADMK’s ally PMK, especially in the Vanniyar-dominated Mettur and Krishnagiri belts. Although no candidate has put forward a caste, he is expected to attract a part of the community’s votes, which is otherwise expected to go to the PMK.

New Delhi: Several coal-fired power plants with a combined capacity of 10 gigawatt (GW) have deferred their scheduled maintenance by three months to meet the country’s power demand, while up to 27 GW of additional load is expected at the distribution level due to the shift towards induction-based cooking amid a shortage in LPG supplies due to the military conflict in West Asia, the government said on Friday.Piyush Singh, Additional Secretary, Power Ministry, told reporters that of the 15 GW capacity originally planned for maintenance, 10 GW will remain operational to compensate for about 8 GW of gas-based plants lying idle due to supply shortage and to meet the surge in summer demand. Power plants take planned shutdowns for maintenance and repair of wear and tear in machinery. Earlier, state-owned oil companies had also postponed the annual shutdown of their refineries due to the current geopolitical situation and its impact on energy supply.He said the power ministry is also accelerating the addition of 22 GW of power generation capacity – a mix of thermal, solar, wind, hydro, and battery and pumped hydro storage – in the next three months.Bureau of Energy Efficiency (BEE) Director General Krishna Chandra Panigrahi said people are moving towards induction-based cooking due to shortage of LPG cylinders, which is likely to create an “additional layer of demand” during morning and evening peak hours. However, he said it is difficult to estimate the exact demand given the variations in usage patterns in different regions due to differences in climate, socio-economic conditions and cooking habits.“…the additional demand due to induction cooking is broadly estimated to be in the range of 13 GW to 27 GW under the low and high adoption scenarios, respectively,” Panigrahi said. A significant impact on demand is yet to be seen, he said.With India’s peak power demand likely to reach 271 GW this summer, Singh said despite global uncertainties, the system is “robust, well-diversified and adequately positioned” to meet both short-term and long-term demand needs. “India’s current installed capacity of over 531 GW reflects a well-diversified portfolio, with significant contributions from coal, renewable energy, hydro and nuclear sources, with non-fossil sources accounting for over 50%,” he said.Singh said maintaining adequate coal stocks at thermal power plants and full operation of imported coal-based plants are among the short-term measures taken by the government to meet the peak demand.