India-Bangla ties are time-tested, written in blood: Bangladesh minister

The relation between Bangladesh and India are tied with the blood-stained history of the 1971 Liberation War, and the neighbouring countries are tested friends, Bangladesh Minister Obaidul Quader said

The relation between Bangladesh and India are tied with the blood-stained history of the 1971 Liberation War, and the neighbouring countries are tested friends, Bangladesh Minister Obaidul Quader has said. Quader, the Road Transport and Bridges Minister, said if relations with neighbouring countries become friendly and strong, it will be easier to make mutual progress and resolve unsettled bilateral issues,

He said this on Tuesday while interacting with the reporters after Indian High Commissioner to Bangladesh Riva Ganguly Das paid him a courtesy call at his secretariat office. The minister extended his thanks to the High Commissioner for her cooperation in taking ahead of the road infrastructural development projects in Bangladesh.

During the meeting, they discussed the progress of the under-implementation projects in road infrastructural development and public transport in Bangladesh under the Indian Lines of Credit, he added.Bangladesh and India are now maintaining stronger, friendly, warm, and development-oriented relations than any previous time, added Quader, the general secretary of the ruling party of B’desh Awami League.

Priyanka Gandhi attacks govt over transfer of Delhi HC judge Muralidhar

Delhi HC Judge S Muralidhar was transferred to the Punjab and Haryana High Court, days after the Supreme Court collegium made the recommendation

Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra on Thursday attacked the government over the transfer of Delhi High Court Judge S Muralidhar, saying the Centre’s attempts to “muzzle” justice and “break people’s faith in an upright judiciary are deplorable”.

Delhi HC Judge S Muralidhar was transferred to the Punjab and Haryana High Court, days after the Supreme Court collegium made the recommendation. The judge was hearing the Delhi violence case and the late evening notification came on the day when a bench headed by him expressed “anguish” over the Delhi Police’s failure to register FIRs against alleged hate speeches by three BJP leaders. “The midnight transfer of Justice Muralidhar isn’t shocking given the current dispensation, but it is certainly sad & shameful,” Priyanka Gandhi tweeted. “Millions of Indians have faith in a resilient & upright judiciary, the government’s attempts to muzzle justice & break their faith are deplorable,” she said.

Punjab set to move resolution in state assembly seeking repeal of CAA

A minister would move a resolution on the second day of the two-day special session of the Assembly urging the Centre to repeal the Act, the sources said

The ruling Congress in Punjab is all set to bring a resolution in the state assembly on Friday demanding scrapping of the controversial Citizenship Amendment Act, official sources said. A minister would move a resolution on the second day of the two-day special session of the Assembly urging the Centre to repeal the Act, the sources said.

Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh had on Thursday not ruled out the possibility of bringing a resolution against the amended citizenship law. “Wait till tomorrow,” Singh had said when asked by reporters if the government will bring in a resolution, on the lines of Kerala, against the Act. The state Congress government had on Tuesday said it will proceed according to the “will of the House” on the issue of CAA, National Register of Citizens (NRC) and National Population Register (NPR).

Singh had recently said his government would not allow the implementation of the “brazenly divisive CAA”.After a cabinet meeting on Tuesday, his colleagues in the ministry had expressed concern over the implications of the “blatantly unconstitutional and divisive CAA, NRC and NPR.” “The ministers were of the view that the matter was bound to be raised during the two-day session of the assembly on January 16-17 and it was unanimously decided that the government should accept the will of the House,” an official statement had said.

US-based journalist says MJ Akbar raped her while she was at Asian Age

The journalist, Pallavi Gogoi, narrated her alleged ordeal in a detailed column for the Washington Post, published on November 1

A former Asian Age employee has accused MJ Akbar of raping her at a hotel in Jaipur over two decades ago. The journalist, who is presently based in United States, has also claimed that she faced harassment at the hands of the former minister while working as the editor of the publication’s op-ed page at the age of 23.

The journalist, Pallavi Gogoi, narrated her alleged ordeal in a detailed column for the Washington Post, published on November 1.

Recounting the details of the alleged incident, Gogoi claims that she was once in Jaipur after covering an assignment in a remote village, when MJ Akbar called her to his hotel for discussing a story. Upon reaching there, she was raped by the former editor of Asian Age, the woman alleged.

“In his hotel room, even though I fought him, he was physically more powerful. He ripped off my clothes and raped me. Instead of reporting him to the police, I was filled with shame. I didn’t tell anyone about this then. Would anyone have believed me? I blamed myself. Why did I go to the hotel room?” she wrote.

She further claimed that the incident left her broken and destroyed and she couldn’t muster courage at the time to share it with her immediate colleagues.

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