Manikam Tagore of Congress on strike

New Delhi: After their suspension was revoked on Tuesday, Congress MPs insisted that their “dignified” protest was to demand that Leader of the Opposition (LoP) Rahul Gandhi and other opposition members be given the right to speak in Parliament.Congress MP Manickam Tagore said, “Parliamentary conventions and rules should apply equally to all, and not to select opposition MPs. The Lakshman Rekha should include maintaining the dignity of the leader of the opposition.”He said the opposition MPs protested only when the LOP was not allowed to speak on the motion of thanks to the President and then representatives of 240 opposition MPs were also “silenced”.Amarendra Raja Waring, another suspended MP, said the period of suspension was too long. He said, “We feel there is discrimination in the House. There is no equality. BJP MP Nishikant Dubey is given a chance whenever he wants. There is an independent mandate for Nishikant, Anurag Thakur, Ravneet Bittu, but there is no independent mandate for the Leader of the Opposition. The Speaker sometimes discriminates, takes biased decisions and we feel bad.”After his suspension was withdrawn on Tuesday afternoon, MPs Tagore, Waring, Hibi Eden, Prashant Padole, Kiran Reddy, Gurjit Aujla, Dean Kuriakose paid homage at the statue of Mahatma Gandhi in the Parliament complex.

President Murmu serves food to a group of children (PTI photo)

Murmu lauds Akshaya Patra Foundation’s 5 billion meals

President Murmu serves food to a group of children (PTI photo)

Murmu lauds Akshaya Patra Foundation’s 5 billion meals

President Murmu serves food to a group of children (PTI photo)

New Delhi: Ensuring good nutrition for a child is an investment in human capital, President Draupadi Murmu said on Tuesday, stressing that children are not just beneficiaries of the mid-day meal program in schools, but they are the creators of the country’s bright future.Murmu was speaking at an event organized by Akshaya Patra Foundation to commemorate the achievement of 5 billion meals and 25 years of service at the Rashtrapati Bhavan Cultural Centre. The President said serving five billion meals in the advancement of educational causes is a remarkable achievement of the non-profit organization.As the implementing partner of the Government of India’s flagship PM Poshan initiative, Akshaya Patra is serving fresh, nutritious meals to millions of children studying in government schools across India. Murmu said the theme of the programme, ‘From a well-nourished and well-educated India to a developed India’, underlines the importance of a nourished and educated society in realizing the national resolve to build a ‘developed India’ by the year 2047.As a symbolic gesture the President also served food to a group of children. Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan, Akshaya Patra Foundation Founder and Chairman Madhu Pandit Dasa, Co-Founder and Vice Chairman Chanchalapati Dasa were present on the occasion.He said, “Children are not just beneficiaries of the free school lunch programme; they are the drivers of a productive, competitive future workforce to ensure a $30 trillion economy by 2047. Every meal is an investment in our country’s human capital, resulting in a healthy, educated youth demographic dividend that will contribute to the socio-economic development of a new and developed India.”Murmu lauded Akshaya Patra for continuously working to address the issue of malnutrition among children for the last 25 years and encourage them to pursue education by delivering mid-day meals to schools.Education Minister Pradhan said, “India cannot fully realize its potential unless our children and youth are well-nourished.”

New Delhi: It was a “sham and premeditated investigation” and “a sham prosecution” that led to a son and his wife being wrongly convicted and spending eight years in jail for allegedly murdering their aged parents and now the Supreme Court has acquitted them.Referring to various lapses in the investigation and trial proceedings which led to two innocent people languishing in jail, a bench of Justice Sanjay Kumar comprising Vinod Chandran cautioned the police and courts to strictly follow the accepted procedural rules when lives are lost or taken and when there is a possibility of false allegations jeopardizing the dignity of living people.“Overzealous investigation is as fatal to the prosecution as dull and sloppy one. Deciding a case on the basis of public perceptions and personal prejudices leads to confusion, often endangering an innocent and always leaving the culprit free. Here, we have a case of gruesome death of a couple when their house was gutted in a fire, in which the son and daughter-in-law were accused of murder. The whole case is based on motive; the grudge that the son held against the father The entire village was against the son for not giving him his due share in the ancestral property and the mishap culminated in an investigation where truth was sacrificed on the altar of alleged vendetta, the selective but careless activities of the investigating officer derailed the entire prosecution.”Advocate Smrhar Singh, appearing for the elder brother of the accused, tried to convince the court that his younger brother and his wife were guilty and this was also proved by the dying declarations of the deceased couple. But the bench said that the dying declaration is not reliable as it has not been recorded as per law.“The investigation, according to us, was a sham and pre-meditated, flouting every principle of criminal jurisprudence informed by due process. Therefore, the prosecution was a sham, producing witnesses whose testimony failed. The investigation and prosecution were based on the alleged motive and nothing more,” the bench said.