"Highest Punishment": Rahul Gandhi In US On His Disqualification

Opening up on his disqualification as a member of the Lok Sabha, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Thursday said he was "the first to be given the highest punishment for a defamation case".

Taking questions from journalists during a free-wheeling conversation at the National Press Club in Washington on Thursday, Rahul invoked the timing of his disqualification from Parliament, claiming that it came after his speech on the Adani-Hindenburg row in the Lok Sabha.

"...I asked a rhetorical question... I am the first person in India to be given the highest punishment for a defamation case, in history, since 1947. Nobody has been given a maximum sentence that too on the first offence. That should explain what's going on to you and my disqualification happens quite interestingly after my speech about Adani in Parliament, so you can do the math," Rahul Gandhi said.

Putting forth his point of view on a range of issues during a conversation at the National Press Club in Washington DC, Rahul said his party was in touch with fellow Opposition forces.

Responding to ANI's question on Opposition unity, Rahul said his party was holding regular dialogue with all the Opposition parties, adding that "quite a lot of good work is happening" in that regard.
"The opposition is pretty well united, and it's getting more & more united. We are having conversations with all the Opposition (parties). I think quite a lot of good work is happening there. It's a complicated discussion because there are spaces where we are competing with the Opposition. So a bit of give and take is required. But I am confident that it (a grand Opposition alliance against the BJP at the Centre) will happen," Rahul said.

Over the course of his ongoing visit to the US, the Congress leader will visit San Francisco, Washington DC and New York.

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Delhi Murder Case: Police Recover Knife Used By Accused To Kill Girlfriend

 Police have recovered the knife allegedly used by 20-year-old Sahil to kill a teenage girl in northwest Delhi's Shahbad Dairy area, police said on Thursday.

A senior police officer said the accused's police custody was extended for three more days by the court on Thursday. He was again questioned and on his instance, the weapon of offence was recovered, the officer added.

Sahil was cross-questioned as he frequently changed his statements, he said, adding the three friends of the victim, Bhawna, Ajay alias Jhabru and Neetu, too were individually questioned and their versions corroborated.

The officer said the route taken by the accused while fleeing the crime scene has been established.

On Wednesday, police had recreated the crime scene.

Sakshi (16) was stabbed over 20 times and bludgeoned to death with a cement slab allegedly by Sahil on May 28. She had 34 injury marks on her body and her skull was raptured.

Sahil was arrested from Bulandshahar in Uttar Pradesh the next day.

He had allegedly thrown away the knife after the crime into the bushes at Rithala.

Police had said during interrogation, Sahil told them that he was angry after Sakshi rebuffed him in front of her friends and refused to get back to him. The two were in a relationship that had turned sour, according to the police.

The probe carried out so far has revealed that no one was involved with Sahil in the crime, police had said, adding the accused confessed to have executed it himself.

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US Calls For UN Meeting On North Korea's Attempted Satellite Launch

The United States has called for a U.N. Security Council meeting on Friday to discuss North Korea's attempted satellite launch this week, the spokesperson for the U.S. mission to the United Nations said.

The launch on Wednesday was an attempt by North Korea to put its first spy satellite into space, but it ended in failure, with the booster and payload plunging into the sea.

Washington condemned the launch, saying it used ballistic missile technology in violation of multiple U.N. Security Council resolutions and risked destabilizing the security situation in the region and beyond.

Nate Evans, the spokesperson for the U.S. mission to the United Nations, said the United States had called for an open meeting on the launch, which means the proceedings would be streamed live.

Another U.N. diplomat said the call was made jointly with Albania, Ecuador, France, Japan, Malta and Britain.

Following the failed launch, North Korea's Kim Yo Jong, the sister of leader Kim Jong Un, said her country would soon put a military spy satellite into orbit and vowed that Pyongyang would increase its military surveillance capabilities.

Speaking in Tokyo on Thursday, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said "North Korea's dangerous and destabilizing nuclear and missile programs threaten peace and stability in the region."

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said any launch by Pyongyang using ballistic missile technology breaches Security Council resolutions, a spokesperson said.

In her statement, Kim Yo Jong said the criticisms of the launch were "self-contradiction" as the U.S. and other countries have already launched "thousands of satellites."

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Foreign National Arrested For Lewd Act With Woman Doctor In Noida: Cops

Police have arrested a foreign national for allegedly committing a lewd act with a woman doctor in the Surajpur police station area, an official said on Thursday.

Inspector-in-charge of the police station Awadhesh Pratap Singh said the doctor, a resident of Paramount Golf Forest Society, had complained that the foreign national, David Jayalian Empire, who lives in the same society, behaved obscenely with her.

She also alleged, that the foreign national also attacked her brother with a sharp weapon who came to her rescue, the police officer said.

He said the accused was arrested on Wednesday night based on the woman's complaint and a probe into the matter was underway.

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"Will Win By 50,000 Votes": Trinamool Vow In Suvendu Adhikari's Nandigram

The Trinamool Congress held a huge rally today in Bengal's Nandigram, venturing into the territory it lost to BJP's Suvendu Adhikari in the state elections. The coming panchayat polls in the state will be seen as litmus test before next year's general election and the Trinamool is determined to put up a good show in the area where Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had lost a straight fight with her aide-turned rival two years ago.

Party MP and Mamata Banerjee's nephew Abhishek Banerjee, who led the 20-km rally in Nandigram as part of the party's Nabo Jowar (New Wave) campaign, alleged that Suvendu Adhikari had won through "load-shedding" -- hinting at electoral malpractice.

"The results of 2021 Bengal elections in Nandigram were falsified. The people of this land know exactly what happened," he said. In the next election, the Trinamool candidate will win by over 50,000 votes, added the leader, who is on a statewide public outreach march called the "Jono Sanjog Yatra".

Mr Adhikari is yet to respond.

While Mr Banerjee was touring Nandigram, he had visited Garh Salboni in Jhargram district, where the Trinamool leader's convoy was attacked last week, and met families of the people arrested in the case.

"The CPM government did it here, and now the TMC government is doing it -- detaining people without trial. I stopped it that time, and will do it now as well," he was quoted as saying by news agency Press Trust of India.

"Poor people are being tortured here. This cannot go on. People of all political parties are there within the Kurmi community. Divisions are being created between tribals and Kurmis," he said, promising the families of those arrested all kinds of assistance, reported PTI.

The Nandigram and Singur agitations against land acquisition had catapulted Mamata Banerjee to power in 2011, after CPM's 35-year regime in the state. Suvendu Adhikari, an aide of Mamata Banerjee during the Nandigram agitation, quit the party in 2021 and joined the BJP.

In the elections that followed, Ms Banerjee had contested from Nandigram – a move that had drawn eyeballs and recharged the party.

A case challenging Mr Adhikari's victory in the election is pending in the Calcutta High Court.

But Nandigram is back in focus again ahead of next year's general election, which will be crucial for Trinamool.

In the 2019 election, the BJP had managed to win 18 of Bengal's 42 Lok Sabha seats – pushing CPM to the third spot in the state and posing serious challenge to Trinamool.

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New Mars Mission Still In "Study Phase," Says ISRO Scientist

The second mission to Mars is in the study phase as the Indian space agency is looking at various options available to make the mission happen, a senior ISRO scientist said on Thursday.

The Mars mission has to be bigger with a more scientific outcome, M Sankaran, Director, of UR Rao Satellite Centre of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) told PTI.

"If you are talking about a new mission to Mars, then that is still in the study phase. We are looking at various options available to us for making a mission happen. It has to be significantly bigger or with more scientific outcomes with respect to Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM). We are still in the study phase and we are configuring it," Sankaran told PTI.

India successfully launched its first Mars Orbiter Mission called Mangalyaan on November 5, 2013, which started orbiting the red planet on September 24, 2014. The orbiter lost contact in October 2022 and thus the Mangalyaan-1 mission came to an end.

Regarding Chandrayaan-3, he said the lunar spacecraft had already reached the launch port.

"The preparation is going on in Sriharikota. We do expect that sometime in July the launch will take place," he said.

According to the space scientist, every aspect of the mission has been checked, especially those experiences that ISRO gleaned from its Chandrayaan-2 mission.

"All possible precautions have been taken. The mood at ISRO is upbeat," he added.

Regarding India's space mission Gaganyaan, Sankaran said it was an intense project with a lot of new development activities taking place.

"Many developments and many tests are happening, which is not visible to the public. Lots of works are going on. We do expect that there will be something which will be visible to people during this year," he added.

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Probe Agency ED Attaches Assets Worth Rs 124 Crore Of Chennai-Based Firm

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Tuesday said it has attached 78 immovable and 16 movable properties worth Rs 124 crores in the possession of various persons and entities linked to the Chennai-based Surana Group of Companies under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).

The action is in connection with the three cases of bank fraud involving Rs 3,986 crore of principal outstanding amount to the public sector banks, said the ED.

Earlier, on August 2022, ED had attached 75 immovable properties, including 67 windmills valued at Rs 113.32 crore in total, of Chennai-based Surana Group of Companies, under the provisions of the Money Laundering Act.

The agency initiated a money laundering investigation on the basis of three FIRs by the Central Bureau of Investigation, BF and SB, Bengaluru registered against M/s Surana Industries Limited and others, M/s Surana Power Limited and Others, and M/s Surana Corporation Limited and others.

Based on the investigations conducted, 67 windmills with land valued at Rs 51.69 crore and various immovable properties valued at Rs 61.63 crore of Shri Ramlal Jain, who allegedly put the proceeds of crime into his regular business, were provisionally attached under the provisions of PMLA. The combined value of the windmills and immovable properties was estimated at Rs 113.32 crore.

ED stated that its investigations revealed that these three companies of Surana Group defrauded the banks by floating a web of shell companies wherein they appointed its employees/ relatives as Directors/ Proprietors/ Partners and indulged in paper transactions with them without actual movement of goods, the credit capital of the banks was round-tripped/ layered to the personal accounts of the promoters of the company by projecting the bank funds as unsecured loans from their associate shell companies and same funds were subsequently infused in the leading group companies as part of the promoters' contribution to enhance the DP limits.

The probe revealed further that the Surana Group has companies in the Cayman Islands and the British Virgin Islands in the name of dummy directors and siphoned off money to be parked in these firms.

For this purpose, ED said they established four companies in Singapore and exported goods to them and the money received from them was written off in the book of accounts in India. Further, a portion of the diverted funds was used to purchase movable/immovable properties in the names of various benami persons/ companies, the agency informed further.

These actions of the promoters/officials of the Surana Group led to the accounts becoming irregular, ultimately resulting in the accounts turning into NPAs, ED said.

Based on the investigations conducted, Shri Dinesh Chand Surana, MD of M/s Surana Industries Limited and M/s Surana Power Ltd, Shri Vijay Raj Surana, MD of M/s Surana Corporation Limited, and two dummy directors of shell companies -- P Anand and I Prabhakaran -- were arrested on July 12. The principal session judge in Chennai remanded them to judicial custody.

Further Investigation is underway in the matter.

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