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Rajya Sabha Chairman M. Venkaiah Naidu has nominated former Prime Minister and senior Congress leader Manmohan Singh to the parliamentary standing committee on finance in place of party colleague Digvijaya Singh. Digvijaya Singh has now been nominated to the parliamentary standing committee on urban development. Sources said that he resigned from the finance committee to make way for the former PM.
Protest over disrespecting RSS flag
A woman Deputy Chief Proctor at the South Campus of Banaras Hindu University in Uttar Pradesh’s Mirzapur district has been booked on charges of “promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, caste,” etc, because she allegedly removed an RSS flag from the university’s playground on Tuesday. The police registered a case on a complaint by RSS zilla karyawah, Chandramohan. Kiran Damle resigned from the post following protests by a group of students and local RSS workers.
Chandramohan alleged that “The daily Sangh shakha was taking place at the stadium. At 7 am, Damle uprooted a saffron flag and threw it on the floor. All swayamsevaks present there told her that the flag had importance for religious reasons. Damle then abused the swayamsevaks and said that she did not accept the Supreme Court’s verdict on Ayodhya.”
Damle, however, says that when she found the flag hoisted in the playground she made inquiries but nobody knew who had put it there. “Then I picked up the flag, gave it to my attendant and asked him to keep it in my office.” Later in the afternoon, a protest was held at the university demanding her resignation.
The Glory Of Guru’s Turban
The 550th birth anniversary of Guru Nanak Dev has generated interest the world over. Two Iran-based universities have expressed their interest to establish academic Chairs to conduct research on the first Sikh Guru’s life and teachings. They have also proposed to initiate the Sikh religious study programme in collaboration with the Iran-based universities. There are around 60 Sikh families living in Iran. They visit two gurdwaras in Tehran and Zahran. The University of Religion president Sayyid Abulhasan Navab and a representative of Al-Mustafa International University, Syed Afroz Nazvis, held a discussion with Akal Takht officiating Jathedar Giani Harpreet Singh. Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh had also announced Chairs in Guru Nanak’s name to be set up in 11 universities, of which seven are in Punjab, three across India and one (University of Religion) in Iran.
Pervinder Singh Chandhok, a Sikh citizen of Iran, told The Sunday Guardian that the Sikhs comprised a miniscule population of the country, the government had accorded them all rights to observe the Gurpurbs and other religious ethics.
Bald & Beautiful
A senior Kerala woman civil police officer Aparna Lavakumar(44) has donated her long hair for the cause of cancer patients. “I had my head tonsured not for a change but for changing the lives of children fighting cancer,” she told The Sunday Guardian. A mother of two, Lavakumar is posted at the all-women police station in Irinjalakkuda in Thrissur. She donated her long tresses to a cancer research centre in Thrissur where wigs for poor cancer patients are made and given free of cost.
“The wigs made from natural hair are unaffordable for poor cancer patients who are faced with hair loss from radiation or chemotherapy treatment. The artificial wigs are allergic to many,” explained Lavakumar. “I decided to give up my hair after seeing a cancer afflicted child struggling to cope with the loss of his hair due to chemo treatment,” said Lavakumar.
Keith Vaz Retires
Keith Vaz (62), the longest-serving Indian-origin MP in the House of Commons, has announced his retirement from British Parliament after 32 years in the wake of a drug scandal. Vaz had been the Labour Party’s MP for Leicester East since 1987. He has now announced that he would not be seeking re-poll in 12 December general election. The Goan-origin politician won eight general elections from his constituency since 1985. Vaz was caught up in a scandal in 2016 following newspaper headlines linking him with male escorts. At the time, he had issued a public apology and stepped down as the head of the influential House of Commons’ Home Affairs Committee.