'Even as CM Rupani promotes Rajkot-based private company’s ‘breathing apparatus’, Gujarat’s largest Covid-19 hospital urgently seeks full-fledged ventilators from Centre. Gujarat Chief Minister Vijay Rupani has not left his citadel in Gandhinagar and visited Ahmedabad, the worst-hit corona-affected city in the State. But Rupani did so on April 4 when he inaugurated Gujarat-made ventilators at Ahmedabad Civil Hospital.
'Tansen Tiwari, a veteran journalist from Gwalior district in Madhya Pradesh, has been booked by the police for referring to Bharatiya Janata Party leaders as gappu (braggart) and tadipar (externed) in a social media post on Sunday. The Gwalior police registered the case after a local BJP leader and advocate, Awdhesh Singh Bhadauria, reported the matter to the Gola Ka Mandir police station on his party’s letterhead...'
'The Narendra Modi government is procuring 5,000 ventilators from a Rajkot-based firm which has already been accused of supplying breathing machines to Ahmedabad’s largest COVID-19 hospital that doctors there say are not up to the mark. The firm’s current and former promoters have had close associations with top BJP leaders – with at least one business family, The Wire has established, linked to the controversial gift of an expensive suit to Prime Minister Modi. This procurement is being done through state-run HLL Lifecare, according to Gujarat’s principal health secretary Jayanti Ravi.
'The much touted Rs. 20 lakh crore relief package announced by Prime Minister Modi and detailed by the Union finance minister has turned out not to be a relief package at all. Instead of offering a fiscal stimulus, she has urged enterprises of all sizes to borrow from banks to tide over the immediate crisis. To millions of poor people staring at prolonged starvation, all she has offered is an additional allocation for the MNREGA programme.
'The Narendra Modi government announces a grand stimulus ‘package’ that it claims is worth Rs 20 lakh crore or ‘10 per cent’ of India’s GDP. But barely a fraction of it is new money being pumped into the economy. What is made to look like a stimulus is mostly a grand loan mela. The Modi government is making hungry migrant labourers pay train fare. When this became a political hot potato, it said it was paying 85 per cent per cent of the fare and the state governments were paying the rest 15 per cent.
'Stopped for violating lockdown orders, a BJP worker allegedly tried to crush a police inspector under SUV in Halvad town of Morbi district on Tuesday night...'
'The editor of a Gujarati news portal was charged with sedition and questioned by the police after he published a report that suggested the chief minister could be changed by the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party due to rising number of coronavirus cases in the state...'
'The Madhya Pradesh police has booked five persons, including three minors, for posting a Facebook comment on Union agriculture and farmers welfare minister Narendra Singh Tomar mocking the incorrect way in which he was wearing a face mask. All the accused – Ajay Pratap Singh Sikarwar, Aman Singh, and minors AB, XX and YY* – are residents of Jaura village in Morena, which the Union minister represents in the Lok Sabha...'
'It’s the season for politics over train tickets, even as migrant workers across the country are confused, and struggling to reach home. The BJP on Monday claimed that the Indian Railways has subsidised 85% of ticket fare for special trains being run to transport migrant workers. It’s only the remaining 15% that the state governments have to pay, they said. This development comes after Sonia Gandhi, interim-Congress president, earlier in the day said that state units of the Congress party will take care of the train fares which migrants are being forced to pay in many parts of the country.
'The National Investigation Agency on Thursday arrested a former village head from Shopian in South Kashmir in connection with a case registered in January, after suspended Jammu and Kashmir Police Deputy Superintendent Davinder Singh was caught with Hizbul Mujahideen militants, The Tribune reported. Tariq Ahmad Mir had unsuccessfully contested the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly elections on a Bharatiya Janata Party ticket, according to The Times of India. Mir was involved in providing logistical support to the militants and was in touch with Singh...'
