March 22: Top news at 1 pm    

Three shops selling meat set ablaze in UP

Three shops selling meat and fish were set afire by unidentified persons in Hathras, Uttar Pradesh, triggering panic in the area, police said today. The incident comes close on the heels of some slaughter houses being sealed in Uttar Pradesh after the BJP government led by Yogi Adityanath was sworn in. Police said the arson incident took place in Manyawar Kanshiram Colony last night. The shop owners said all their stock was charred in the fire. Superintendent of Police, Hathras, Dilip Kumar Srivastava, said, "Unidentified persons set ablaze three shops selling fish and meat. An FIR has been registered against them." Sub-divisional magistrate (Hathras Sadar) Rakesh Gupta later met the aggrieved shop owners and heard their grievances. The BJP had announced in its manifesto that it would take "stern steps to close down all illegal slaughterhouses besides banning mechanised slaughterhouses" if it comes to power.

The Ghaziabad Police had yesterday sealed 10 meat shops and four slaughter houses which were allegedly running illegally in the city.

19 Opposition MLAs suspended for rest of 2017 from Maharashtra Assembly

Nineteen Opposition MLAs from the Congress and the NCP were today suspended from the Maharashtra Assembly for nine months for creating ruckus during the Budget presentation in the House last week. The suspension of nine Congress and 10 NCP members till December 31 came after a resolution to this effect was moved by Parliamentary Affairs Minister Girish Bapat and it was adopted by the Assembly. The Opposition members had disrupted the Budget presentation by Finance Minister Sudhir Mungantiwar in the Assembly on March 18 demanding farm loan waiver. The MLAs suspended are Amar Kale, Vijay Waddetiwar, Harshwardhan Sakpal, Abdul Sattar, D P Sawant, Sangram Thopte, Amit Zanak, Kunal Patil, Jaikumar Gore (all from Congress) besides Bhaskar Jadhav, Jitendra Awhad, Madhusudan Kendre, Sangram Jagtap, Avdhut Tatkare, Deepak Chavan, Datta Bharne, Narhari Jirval, Vaibhav Pichad and Rahul Jagtap from the NCP. Leader of Opposition Radhakrishna Vikhe Patil said the government can suspend all the Opposition MLAs but they will continue to raise farmers' issues.

Trying to implement GST from July 1, says Jaitley

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley today said he is hopeful of rolling out the biggest tax reform GST from July 1, which will make goods and services cheaper and tax evasion difficult. The Finance Minister also said achieving a growth rate of 7-8% is plausible and if economies pick up globally then the country's growth rate can go up further. Demonetisation, Jaitley said, will act as a disincentive towards continuing to deal with shadow economy, and integration of informal with formal economy will increase the size of the GDP and make it cleaner. "The biggest taxation reform what we are trying to implement from July 1 is Goods and Services Tax ... "It will increase the volume of taxation, there is no tax on tax and therefore makes goods, commodities and services little cheaper and far more convenient," Jaitley said at the 23rd Commonwealth Auditors General conference here. He said the tax department is trying to make the I-T backbone so strong so that evasion becomes difficult and hence only limited number of cases are taken up for scrutiny.

Congress motion on Goa Governor's role admitted in RS: Kurien

Congress leader Digvijaya Singh's substantive motion on the conduct of Goa Governor has been admitted but there are certain procedural formalities which have to be completed before a discussion could happen, Rajya Sabha was informed today. When the House met for the day, Singh sought to know about the decision on his notice, which was given following a direction from the Chair after his notice, under rule 267 seeking suspension of business to discuss the Governor's conduct in not inviting the single largest party in Goa to form the government, was rejected. “Yes, you have given notice... that has been admitted. But there are some more procedural formalities which are to be fulfilled," Deputy Chairman PJ Kurien said, adding that the decision on it will be conveyed "as early as possible". The decision may relate to under what rules a discussion will be allowed and who would reply to such a debate. Alleging "gross violation of constitutional propriety", Singh said the issue is important and urgency needs to be shown.

Life sentence for Ajmer blast case convicts

A special National Investigation Agency (NIA) court in Jaipur today sentenced Bhavesh Patel and Devendra Gupta to life in jail in the Ajmer Dargah blast case. The magistrate also imposed a fine of Rs 10,000 on Patel and 5,000 on Gupta. The blast on October 11, 2007 in the dargah of Khawaja Moinuddin Chisti at the time of Roza Iftaar, had left three pilgrims dead and 15 others injured. On March 8, the court had convicted Patel, Gupta and Joshi in the case while acquitting others including Swami Aseemanand. Joshi died soon after the blast. The case was handed over to the ATS Rajasthan and was later transferred to NIA which re-registered the case with the NIA police station in New Delhi on April 6, 2011. There were as many as 149 witnesses in the case and 451 documents were examined and the NIA filed three supplementary charge sheets in the case.