Category: Political News

Hyderabad Woman Becomes World’s Second Female to Swim 30-Mile Palk Strait Between India and Sri Lanka

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A 47-year-old Hyderabad-based woman named Shyamala Goli became the world’s second female to swim across the 30-mile long Palk Strait between India and Sri Lanka on Friday.

She swam for 13 hours and 43 minutes from Talaimannar in northern Sri Lanka to Dhanushkodi in India to create the record.

Her swimming journey began a few years ago after she decided to overcome her aquaphobia. Mother of an engineering graduate son, Shyamala runs a play school in Hyderabad. After successfully completing the mission an elated Shyamala said that the experience was unforgettable for several reasons.

“Sri Lankan water was calm and I could swim easily. The Indian water was choppy. The last five miles were really tough. That’s why it took 90 minutes extra time to cover the 30-mile sea which divides India and Sri Lanka”, Shyamala told News18 over a call.

Shyamala was all set to swim across the Palk Strait last year. A day before Sri Lanka declared a country-wide lockdown forcing her to postpone it to the next year. “Namal Rajapaksa, currently the Sports and Youth Affairs Minister of Sri Lanka went out of his way to get me all necessary clearances from his government. He was supposed to flag off my expedition. He could not make it because of some other commitments. I thank him” she said. However, on Friday morning, Namal Rajapaksa tweeted wishing her success.

Talking about her inspiration, Shyamala stated that TRS leader Kalvakuntla Kavitha is her role model and said, “Kavitha has encouraged me a lot. I am from a lower-middle-class background. She has helped me even financially to realise my dreams. I am always indebted to her.”

Shyamala was trained and guided for this sea-swimming event by senior IPS officer Rajiv Trivedi who has also swam the Palk Strait in the past. Considering that Syamala learnt swimming just four years back, her successful effort and the timing are creditable.

Indian Swimming Federation had sent an observer with her to verify and certify her swimming expedition. She was bowled over by the hospitality and the support extended by the Sri Lankan Navy and Coast guard.

“Sri Lankan Navy and Coast guard personnel were awesome. They were too kind and generous”, she added.

Captain Vikas Sood, Naval Attache at the Indian High Commission in Sri Lanka helped her in getting all approvals and he also flagged her expedition at the Thalaimannar.

She hopes her expedition will help India and Sri Lanka to bridge the gaps in their relationship, which has hit roadblocks in recent times.



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Ram Mandir Trust purchases 1.15 lakh sq ft of land in Ayodhya

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The Sriram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra has purchased about 1.15 lakh square feet of land about 2-3 km away from Ram Janmabhoomi premises to develop facilities for security forces, devotees and for activities of the trust, an official of the trust said on Saturday.

Trustee Anil Mishra said two plots of land situated in Ram Kot and Tehri Bazaar localities were purchased last week from Harish Kumar Pathak, a resident of Basti district.

The land has been bought at the rate of Rs 690 per square feet, he said.

“We have paid a sum of Rs 8 crore to the owner for the two plots,” he said.

A survey is underway of properties adjoining the Ram Janmabhoomi premises for expansion of the temple land and a list is being prepared to ascertain their ownership. These properties include some Muslim houses and mosques.

Ayodhya mayor Rishikesh Upadhyay said the survey is being carried out to find out the owners of these properties. “This will help to find out whether those residing here are tenants or owners of houses,” he said.

Trust secretary Champat Rai said the expansion of Ram Janmabhoomi premises will be done with mutual understanding and dialogue.

“We will purchase the land by paying the demanded price or we can give them an alternate land for the resettlement,” he said, adding the extension is being done to provide devotees the basic facilities.

In the first week of March, the trust purchased 7,285 square feet land adjacent to the Ram Janmabhoomi premises here, in accordance with its plan to expand the temple complex area to 107 acres from the present 70 acres. The trust bought the land for Rs 1 crore.

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Drive with a light foot, APSRTC drivers told

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Vice-Chairman and Managing Director of Andhra Pradesh State Road Transport Corporation (APSRTC) R.P. Thakur on Friday directed the corporation’s drivers to drive in an economical manner in order to extract maximum mileage, keeping in view the rising diesel prices in recent months.

APSRTC buses consume eight lakh litres of diesel per day, and judicious usage of fuel and proper maintenance of vehicles would lead to huge savings for the corporation, Mr. Thakur said.

The MD inspected the Srikakulam APSRTC complex and depots. Speaking to reporters, Mr. Thakur said that the corporation was doing its best to mitigate the financial burden caused by the hike in diesel prices. He assured that arrears would be cleared for the employees and said new plans will be drawn up for their welfare as well as for passengers.

APSRTC Executive Director K. Ravikumar, Regional Manager A. Appala Raju and Division Manager G. Varalakshmi were present during Mr. Thakur’s visit.

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Indians, Chinese Account for 47% of Foreign Student Population in US: Report

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Students from China and India accounted for 47 per cent of all active foreign students in the US in 2020, according to latest official figures, which also indicated a significant drop in fresh enrolments from abroad due to the impact of the pandemic.

The annual report released by Student and Exchange Visitor Programme (SEVP), part of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) noted that there were 1.25 million active records in SEVIS for F-1 and M-1 students during calendar year 2020, a 17.86 per cent decrease from calendar year 2019.

While an F1 visa is issued to international students who are attending an academic programme or English language programme at a US college or university, M-1 visa is reserved for international students attending vocational schools and technical schools. US schools saw a 72 per cent decrease in new international student enrollment in 2020 compared to 2019, it said. New international students include those who were not enrolled in a programme of study at a US school during the previous calendar year, the report said.

In August 2020, there was a 91 per cent decrease in new F-1 international student enrollment and a 72 per cent decrease in new M-1 international student enrollment at US schools. According to SEVIS, there were 382,561 students from China, followed by 207,460 students from India. China and India were followed by South Korea (68,217), Saudi Arabia (38,039), Canada (35,508) and Brazil (34,892), the report said.

SEVIS is a web-based system for maintaining information on international nonimmigrant students and exchange visitors in the US. Forty-seven per cent (590,021) of all active SEVIS records hailed from either China (382,561) or India (207,460) in calendar year 2020, a slight decrease from 48 per cent in calendar year 2019. While the overall number of active F-1 and M-1 student records coming from Asia decreased by 143,697 from calendar year 2019 to calendar year 2020, student record trends varied across different countries, it said.

The number of students from China and India made Asia the most popular continent of origin. However, China sent fewer students in 2020 in comparison to 2019 (-91,936), as did India (-41,761). Still, 74 per cent of all international students in the United States call Asia home. Other Asian countries sent fewer students including South Korea (-15,854), Saudi Arabia (-15,244) and Japan (-10,897), it said. Forty-four per cent (552,188) of F-1 and M-1 international students in calendar year 2020 were female, while 56 per cent (698,964) were male. Among Indian students, 35 per cent were females and 65 per cent are males. For China the figures are 47 per cent are females and 53 per cent are males.

Of K-12 student enrollments in 2020, 42.5 per cent were female (33,759). In addition, 44 per cent (194,558) of bachelor’s and master’s international students were female, 50 per cent (42,608) of international students seeking associate degrees were female and 39 per cent (70,418) of international students seeking doctoral degrees were female in 2020. Of the top 10 countries of citizenship in calendar year 2020, the average female enrollment was 44 per cent (386,851) and the average male enrollment was 56 per cent (484,103).

According to SEVIS, the outbreak of COVID-19 in 2019 impacted international student enrollment in the United States in 2020. The total number of SEVIS records for active F-1 and M-1 students was 1,251,569 in calendar year 2020, a decrease of 17.86 per cent from calendar year 2019, it said. The number of international students enrolled at kindergarten through grade 12 (K[1]12) schools decreased 24.6 per cent from 2019 to 2020 (-19,247). In calendar year 2020, US schools saw a 72 per cent decrease in new international student enrollment when compared to calendar year 2019.

New international students include those who were not enrolled in a programme of study at a US school during the previous calendar year. US schools saw dramatic decreases in new international student enrollment in both August and September, traditionally months where the largest numbers of new international students enroll in US schools.

In August 2020, there was a 91 per cent decrease in new F-1 international student enrollment and a 72 per cent decrease in new M-1 international student enrollment at US schools. In 2019, more than three K-12 schools enrolled more than 700 international students, with one school hosting more than 1,000 international students. In comparison, in 2020, only one school hosted more than 700 international students, the report said.

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Ashoka University founders have bartered away its soul: Raghuram Rajan after Pratap Bhanu Mehta, Arvind Subramanian exits

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Eminent economist and former Reserve Bank of India (RBI) governor Raghuram Rajan has said free speech is the soul of a great university, and by compromising on it, the founders of Ashoka University have bartered away its soul.

Describing Pratap Bhanu Mehta’s exit from the varsity earlier this week as “a sad development for India”, Rajan wrote in a post on LinkedIn, “Ashoka’s founders should have realised that their mission was indeed not to take political sides but to continue to protect the right of people like Pratap Bhanu Mehta to speak, for in doing so, they were enabling Ashoka to make its greatest contribution to India’s wellbeing –– identifying what is wrong and encouraging us all to remedy it.”

Rajan also referred to the departure of Arvind Subramanian, former chief economic advisor (CEA) in the Modi government, saying both his and Mehta’s resignation letters suggest the founders of the university, which “till this week was considered India’s likely competitor to Cambridge, Harvard ad Oxford in coming decades”, have succumbed to outside pressure to get rid of a troublesome critic.

“The reality is that Professor Mehta is a thorn in the side of the establishment. He is no ordinary thorn because he skewers those in government and in high offices like the Supreme Court with vivid prose and thought-provoking arguments. It is not that he has much sympathy for the opposition either,” Rajan said.

According to him, Mehta is an equal opportunity critic just as how a true academic should be. “He is, and I hope will continue to be, one of the intellectual leaders of liberalism in India,” Rajan opined.

Putting on record his reason for leaving Ashoka University, Mehta had said in his resignation letter that the founders made it “abundantly clear” his association with the institution was a “political liability”. Calling the exit “ominously disturbing”, for academic freedom, Subramanian had sent in his resignation too.

The developments had led to student protests on campus; the faculty issuing a statement calling for Mehta’s return; and over 150 academicians from international universities, including Columbia, Yale, Harvard, Princeton, Oxford, and Cambridge, coming out in support Mehta.

At least two more faculty members are said to be on the verge of quitting.

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Over 40k coronavirus cases recorded in India, highest in 111 days | India News – Times of India

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NEW DELHI: India saw 40,953 new coronavirus infections being reported in a day, the highest single-day rise recorded in 111 days, taking the nationwide Covid-19 tally to 1,15,55,284, according to Union Health Ministry data updated on Saturday.
Registering an increase for the tenth day in a row, the total active caseload has reached 2,88,394, which now comprises 2.49 per cent of the total infections, while the recovery rate has further dropped to 96.12 per cent, the data stated.
The daily rise in infections (40,953) was the highest recorded in 111 days, while the death toll increased to 1,59,558 with 188 new fatalities, the data updated at 8 am showed.
On November 29, 41,810 new infections were recorded in a span of 24 hours.
The number of people who have recuperated from the disease surged to 1,11,07,332, while the case fatality rate stood at 1.38 per cent, the data stated.
India’s Covid-19 tally had crossed the 20 lakh mark on August 7, 30 lakh on August 23, 40 lakh on September 5 and 50 lakh on September 16. It went past 60 lakh on September 28, 70 lakh on October 11, crossed 80 lakh on October 29, 90 lakh on November 20 and surpassed the one-crore mark on December 19.
According to ICMR, 23,24,31,517 samples have been tested up to March 19 with 10,60,971 samples being tested on Friday.

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Ashoka University students want Prof. Mehta reinstated

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They plan to boycott classes to protest exit of academic, Arvind Subramanian.

The students of Ashoka University have demanded that Pratap Bhanu Mehta be offered his job back with a public acknowledgement of the pressures behind his resignation, as well as a divestment of the trustees’ powers to the university staff, students and faculty.

They plan to boycott classes on March 22 and 23 to protest the exits of Prof. Mehta and Arvind Subramanian.

“If these demands are not met by Tuesday, we will be organising a separate movement demanding that the Vice-Chancellor resign,” said the statement issued by the student union on March 20.

“Not only have we lost intellectual giants and erudite academics whose scholarship we value deeply, but also our trust and faith in this administration to protect the students within this University from external political pressures — specifically, the Vice-Chancellor (Professor Malabika Sarkar), Chancellor (Professor Rudrangshu Mukherjee), and Founders of this University. This is a gross violation of academic freedoms and we strongly condemn it,” they said.

They demanded an open meeting of the university’s founders with the student body. “We must create a body with both members of the faculty and student body to serve as a medium to discuss matters with the founders and the administration,” they added.

On March 19, at least four of the trustees met with the faculty to hear their concerns regarding recent developments.

According to one faculty member, the trustees insisted that there had been no government pressure behind Prof. Mehta’s resignation but admitted that “donors wanted it”. However, they insisted they had not asked him to resign.

Several senior faculty also pushed strongly for the founders to “stay out” of the university’s functioning in the future, added the source.

Solidarity letter

More than 170 senior academics from top universities around the world, including Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard, Yale and Columbia, signed an open letter in solidarity with Prof. Mehta, expressing their distress at his resignation under political pressure.

“A prominent critic of the current Indian government and defender of academic freedom, he had become a target for his writings. It seems that Ashoka’s Trustees, who should have treated defending him as their institutional duty, instead all but forced his resignation,” said the letter, which was signed by distinguished scholars of political science, history, government, law and ethics.

They contended that the values Prof. Mehta practised included free argument, tolerance, a democratic spirit of equal citizenship, free inquiry, candour and a rigorous distinction between the demands of intellectual honesty and the pressure of politicians, funders, or ideological animus.

“These values come under assault whenever a scholar is punished for the content of public speech. When that speech is in defence of precisely these values, the assault is especially shameful,” said the letter.

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‘Founders bartered away its soul’: Raghuram Rajan on PB Mehta’s resignation from Ashoka University | India News – Times of India

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NEW DELHI: Leading economist Raghuram Rajan has termed academicians Pratap Bhanu Mehta and Arvind Subramanium’s resignation from Ashoka University as a “grievous blow to free speech” saying that the founders “bartered away its soul”.
In a social media post on Saturday, Rajan said that Professor Mehta is a “thorn in the side of the establishment” as he “skewers those in government and in high offices like the Supreme Court with vivid prose and thought-provoking arguments”.
Last week Ashoka University, which had quickly made a name for itself as one of India’s premier new-age private educational institutions, found itself at the centre of a furore following the resignation of noted economist Arvind Subramanian and leading political scientist Pratap Bhanu Mehta.
Rajan reacting to the resignation of the academic duo said that if founders of the university feel that their compromises have been made in the greater interest of the university, then they are wrong.
“Free speech is the soul of a great university. By compromising on it, the founders have bartered away its soul. And if you show a willingness to barter your soul, is there any chance the pressures will go away?,” wrote Rajan in a Linkedin post.

“As a true academic, he (Mehta) is an equal opportunity critic. He is, and I hope will continue to be, one of the intellectual leaders of liberalism in India,” said Rajan.
The former RBI governor said that professor Mehta’s resignation was so sudden that in his resignation letter, he had to plead with the university to make arrangements for his driver, who would be left jobless.

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5 White House Staffers Lose Jobs Over Drugs, Marijuana Use, Says Press Secretary

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Five White House staffers have been fired because of their past use of drugs, including marijuana, press secretary Jen Psaki said on Friday.

Marijuana has become a delicate issue for President Joe Biden’s administration because 15 states and Washington, D.C., allow for recreational usage, despite a federal prohibition. The administration has tried not to automatically penalize potential staffers for legal behavior in their communities by developing a more flexible policy, Psaki said in a statement to The Associated Press.

In an effort to ensure that more people have an opportunity to serve the public, we worked in coordination with the security service to ensure that more people have the opportunity to serve than would not have in the past with the same level of recent drug use, Psaki said. While we will not get into individual cases, there were additional factors at play in many instances for the small number of individuals who were terminated.

Hundreds of aides in the 2-month-old Biden administration have cleared the suitability review by career staffers handling security issues. The White House has said there can be multiple factors for dismissals, including hard drug use. The marijuana policy has become less stringent under the Biden administration, allowing for up to 15 past uses in a year among White House staffers.

The broader federal government has also become somewhat more lenient, with the Office of Personnel Management releasing a memo that says a person should not be deemed unfit merely because of past marijuana usage. The seriousness of the use and the nature of the position will also be factors in judging new hires.

Security and suitability reviews have been an issue for past administrations. At least 25 clearance denials were overturned by President Donald Trump’s administration, where people faced possible disqualification because of foreign influence, conflicts of interest, concerning personal conduct, financial problems, drug use and criminal conduct.

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At 73, she keeps traffic in order

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E. Molly Elliott has stood the Nilgiris police in good stead since the 1970s.

For over 50 years, E. Molly Elliott, a Coonoor resident, has assisted the Nilgiris police in regulating traffic and other minor duties. Now 73, Ms. Elliott has been made a honorary traffic warden.

Ms. Elliott grew up in Coonoor and began assisting the police in the 1970s. “When I first started helping the police, it was just with minor police work, when there were very few women in the force. So, I used to help in keeping the roads safe and assist people who visited Coonoor,” she recalled.

Ms. Elliott does not have a house of her own or a job, but she reports for duty on time every day.

“She doesn’t complain about the work assigned to her, nor does she expect anything in return. She likes doing the job of a traffic warden,” said Coonoor DSP D. Suresh.

Rajesh Kumar, a resident of Ottupattarai, has known Ms. Elliott since he was a child. “I have seen her around town for as long as I can remember, and she has become one of the most recognisable people with her signature camouflage cap,” he said.

As she does not have a full-time job, Ms. Elliott depends on the kindness of strangers for food. “I don’t need much food, but I love biscuits,” she said. She is well-known throughout the town and people offer her free meals. “Even then, I mostly turn them down and accept meals only from people whom I consider my very close friends.”

Two badges

She points proudly to her two badges — one reads E. Molly Elliott, social worker, and the other reads ‘honorary traffic warden’. Working for the police gives Ms. Elliott a sense of fulfilment and meaning.

“Especially during the peak tourist season, I really enjoy helping the police in their duties. I always take part in awareness campaigns that the police and the municipality conduct,” she said.

Among Ms. Elliott’s most prized possessions are photos she has taken with top IPS officers who have visited the Nilgiris.

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