Tag: Devendra Fadnavis

  • GFP redflags selection of private bank for disbursal of teachers salaries

    GFP redflags selection of private bank for disbursal of teachers salaries



    Panaji

    : Goa Forward Party (GFP) has questioned the state government’s move to tie up with Axis Bank to disburse salaries to teachers of government aided institutions. The party has asked the government to explain how the private lender was chosen as the banking partner for the Mukhyamantri Guru Dakshina Yojana.
    GFP vice president Dilip Prabhudesai said that a BJP leader from Maharashtra could have played a role in Axis Bank’s selection.
    “Let the government tell us why it has picked Axis Bank. We want to know why Axis bank is being favoured,” said Prabhudesai. “Does it have something to do with a BJP leader in the ruling side of the Maharashtra government, who was also appointed as the in charge for elections in Goa?”
    As part of the Mukhyamantri Guru Dakshina Yojana, which takes care of salaries of grant-in-aid institutions, the state government has asked aided schools to open bank accounts with Axis Bank. Henceforth, Axis Bank will process the salary payments.
    In his earlier term as the chief minister of Maharashtra, Devendra Fadnavis had ordered government employees including police personnel to transfer their account to the Axis Bank. Fadnavis’ wife Amruta is a vice president with Axis Bank.
    GFP has also claimed that the state government has only repackaged an existing practice into the new scheme. “The schemes that the government keeps bringing out have big names but the schemes themselves have nothing to offer. It claims to be a fully online salary disbursal process, which already existed anyway,” said Prabhudesai.
    He said that the government is trying to exert control over teachers and government employees.

    function loadGtagEvents(isGoogleCampaignActive) { if (!isGoogleCampaignActive) { return; } var id = document.getElementById(‘toi-plus-google-campaign’); if (id) { return; } (function(f, b, e, v, n, t, s) { t = b.createElement(e); t.async = !0; t.defer = !0; t.src = v; t.id = ‘toi-plus-google-campaign’; s = b.getElementsByTagName(e)[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(t, s); })(f, b, e, ‘https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtag/js?id=AW-877820074’, n, t, s); };

    window.TimesApps = window.TimesApps || {}; var TimesApps = window.TimesApps; TimesApps.toiPlusEvents = function(config) { var isConfigAvailable = “toiplus_site_settings” in f && “isFBCampaignActive” in f.toiplus_site_settings && “isGoogleCampaignActive” in f.toiplus_site_settings; var isPrimeUser = window.isPrime; if (isConfigAvailable && !isPrimeUser) { loadGtagEvents(f.toiplus_site_settings.isGoogleCampaignActive); loadFBEvents(f.toiplus_site_settings.isFBCampaignActive); } else { var JarvisUrl=”https://jarvis.indiatimes.com/v1/feeds/toi_plus/site_settings/643526e21443833f0c454615?db_env=published”; window.getFromClient(JarvisUrl, function(config){ if (config) { loadGtagEvents(config?.isGoogleCampaignActive); loadFBEvents(config?.isFBCampaignActive); } }) } }; })( window, document, ‘script’, );

  • Safeguard the rights of interfaith couples

    Safeguard the rights of interfaith couples


    Maharashtra may be on its way to joining a string of Bharatiya Janata Party-ruled states that have enacted strict rules against forced conversions in recent years. Maharashtra deputy chief minister Devendra Fadnavis told the state legislative council that prima facie there was a design behind alleged cases of “love jihad” and announced that the state government was thinking of a legal solution for this. Though first used in Kerala by some Christian groups, love jihad is a term popularised by Right-wing groups to describe interfaith unions between a Muslim man and a Hindu woman.

    PREMIUM
    This case is likely to stoke a raging row over interfaith marriage and conversion after the Kerala ‘love jihad’ controversy.(Representative photo)

    Several states have had laws against forcible conversion attempts, and any such effort to compel someone to change their faith must be tried to the fullest extent of the law, because it curtails the right to practise one’s religion, as guaranteed by the Constitution. But the state administration would be well served to note the complaints of harassment and violence that many interfaith couples have lodged against groups that claim to fight against love jihad, and the attempts at weaponising the criminal justice system to curtail individual liberties. The Maharashtra government must also look at the data collected by its controversial committee set up last December to track interfaith marriages. The committee’s remit was to seek information about couples who had gotten into an interfaith marriage — the initial ambit was also inter-caste couples which was later dropped — and it received zero complaints in three months. This indicates that claims of there being a problem of conversion through marriage are misleading. In a country where only a handful of couples transcend barriers of faith, the government should safeguard their rights.