Maharashtra govt approves Rs 79 bn for water projects in drought-hit areas

The Maharashtra government has approved over Rs 70 billion to complete the drinking water projects in scarcity-hit areas, state minister Babanrao Lonikar said.

The government is committed to provide water to all villages that are perennially dry, the water supply and sanitation minister said in a release issued last night.

Under the National Rural Drinking Water Scheme, the government has approved a proposal of Rs 79.52 billion for completing 6,624 water projects in 10,583 villages, he said.

The jumbo proposal is aimed at the completion of works in Konkan, Nashik, Aurangabad, Amravati, Nagpur and Pune divisions.

Nearly 6,500 projects have already been completed in the last four years by spending Rs 55 billion, Lonikar said.

During the last four years, the main emphasis was to complete the pending projects, he said.

Rahul Gandhi stresses the need for a united opposition for 2019 elections

Congress President Rahul Gandhi on Thursday said there were "valuable lessons" to be learnt from the results of the bypolls across the country, in a reference to the need for a united opposition for the 2019 general elections.

"Congratulations to all the winners in the by polls, across India. Valuable lessons to be learnt from the victories and defeats for all parties," tweeted Gandhi.

"I want to thank all the workers and leaders of the Congress party for their hard work and dedication in these elections. God bless you all," he added.

A united opposition got a major boost on Thursday when it delivered a huge blow to the BJP, defeating it in the Kairana Lok Sabha by-election in Uttar Pradesh and Bhandara-Gondiya in Maharashtra while the saffron party managed to retain the Palghar parliamentary seat and win only one out of the 10 Assembly bypolls in 10 states.

CM Fadnavis chairs 'war-room' meeting; reviews ongoing state projects

Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis chaired a 'war-room' meeting to review the progress of various projects underway in the state here on Monday.

Among the various projects accessed by the Chief Minister were the Mumbai Urban Transport Project-3, under which a new suburban corridor linking Nerul, Belapur, Seawood, Uran is being constructed, the Wardha-Yavatmal-Nanded railway line, the Ahmednagar-Beed-Parli-Vaijnath railway line, Wadsa-Gadchiroli line and issues related to Maharashtra Samruddhi Corridor.

The official Twitter handle of the chief minister's office later gave a peek at the progress of a few Metro projects in the state.

"CM @Dev_Fadnavis also reviewed progress of irrigation projects," they mentioned in a separate tweet.

Women hooked to IPL 2018: Female viewership up 18%, average watch time 7%

With women accounting for 40 per cent of its total viewership this season, Vivo Indian Premier League (IPL) has proved that it continues to be popular with both genders. Compared with last year, IPL’s female viewership in the first four weeks of the tournament has grown 18 per cent, and its impressions have grown from 606 million in 2017 to 717.4 million. Impressions refers to the number of people watching the tournament at any given point via live telecast.

The average time spent by women watching the tournament has also grown – from 31.07 minutes in 2017 to 33.09 minutes now, an increase of seven per cent.

The top markets for female viewership this year remain the same as last year – Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh/Telangana and Karnataka, in that order. The viewership is, however, more heavily skewed towards the urban markets this season. Fifty-nine per cent of the female viewership is coming from urban markets this season, against 56 per cent in 2017.

Farmers flood Mumbai, force Maharashtra govt to accept four major demands

Faced with a public-relations crisis, the government of India’s richest state accepted four major demands made by thousands of farmers, after they flooded in to Mumbai on March 12, 2018.

A seven-day, 180-km march of 35,000 mostly poor farmers in India’s richest state finally attracted nationwide attention when they reached the country’s financial capital to bring their problems to the attention of Maharashtra chief minister Devendra Fadnavis.

They marched for four distinct reasons: land rights to those who have tilled forest land for several years; better minimum prices from the government for agricultural produce and better security against the vagaries of the monsoons; pensions for agricultural labour, still considered a part of the informal sector; proper implementation of farm-loan waivers that the government promised; and for relief from the economic losses of 2016’s demonetisation decision.

BJP set to increase its tally in Rajya Sabha from Maha; Polls on March 23

The ruling BJP is set to increase its tally from Maharashtra in the Rajya Sabha and also in the state Legislative Council, given its improved strength in the 288-member Legislative Assembly post the 2014 polls.

Elections will be held on March 23 for various seats of the Rajya Sabha, including six from Maharashtra, falling vacant on April 2.

At present, the opposition Congress and the NCP hold two seats each, while the Shiv Sena and the BJP have apiece each of these six seats of the Upper House of Parliament.
The BJP, with its tally of 122 in the Assembly, is poised to get three Rajya Sabha seats now, while the Sena, the Congress and the NCP will get one each.

Meanwhile, the biennial elections to 21 Legislative Council seats, out of the total 78, are due later this year.

Former Shiv Sena corporator Ashok Sawant stabbed to death in Mumbai

Former Shiv Sena corporator, Ashok Sawant, has been stabbed to death outside his house in Maharashtra's Kandivali.

Sawant (62) was accosted by two men late on Sunday night who then attacked him with sharp weapons.

The incident took place when he was returning home after meeting a friend.

He was immediately rushed to a nearby hospital where he was declared brought dead.

Sawant was a two-time corporator of Shiv Sena from Samta Nagar.

Investigation in the case is on.
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Maharashtra farm loan waiver for the poor? Shiv Sena MLA a beneficiary too

Shiv Sena MLA Prakash Abitkar has claimed he was named as a beneficiary of the farm loan waiver in the Kolhapur District Central Cooperative Bank, even though he had not applied for it. He has got a loan waiver of Rs 25,000 from the bank.

This has come just a day after Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis announced the scheme was being implemented smoothly. He told the state legislative assembly on Thursday that his government had committed some "mistakes" while implementing the Rs 34,022-crore farm loan waiver scheme, but has fixed all these issues.

Abitkar, an MLA from Radhanagari in Kolhapur district, has got the benefit of Maharashtra Government's loan waiver scheme for drought affected farmers.

The Shiv Sena MLA has raised the issue citing faulty implementation of the loan waiver scheme and demanded an inquiry into this flawed inclusion as the rules bar any existing or former elected representative from getting benefit under the scheme.

He said, "I was stunned when I came to know that my name appeared in the green list of loan waiver beneficiaries. I was shocked again when I got more details about the list of my (Kolhapur) area. I had not even applied or registered my name anywhere to get the waiver."

The Opposition is directly blaming Fadnavis for this as the Chief Minister Office (CMO) had been working on the data of the beneficiaries of this scheme through information and technology department of Maharashtra.
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Good news! RBI may lift cash withdrawal limit by Feb-end

Latest News - With the cash crunch situation easing, the Reserve Bank might do away with the weekly withdrawal limits from banks as well as ATMs by the end of next month, bankers said.

The RBI had recently raised the ATM withdrawal limit to Rs 10,000 a day but maintained the weekly cap at Rs 24,000 for saving account and Rs 1 lakh for current account holders.

"I think the restrictions on withdrawal by RBI should be completely lifted by February-end or by first half of March as cash situation is easing gradually," Bank of Maharashtra executive director R K Gupta told PTI.

It is entirely RBI's decision and the (Read More)