BHOPAL -- Seeking a fourth straight term in Madhya Pradesh, the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) intends to cast a 'magic spell' on voters during the upcoming state Assembly polls.

The party would be roping in magicians to highlight the work done by it in the last 15 years and compare it with that of the previous Congress government, MP BJP spokesman Rajnish Agrawal told PTI.

"We have plans to hire magicians for campaigning and publicity," he said, adding that magic shows would be organised at market places to reach out to voters, especially in rural and semi-urban areas.

The number of magicians to be utilised for this is yet to be decided.

But, the BJP hopes to start the magic shows soon and budget allocation for these activities is also being worked out, Agrawal said.

"With this art, we are going to tell people about what the BJP government has done for people, especially the weaker sections of society in Madhya Pradesh in the last 15 years," the spokesman said.

The magic shows would also highlight the "poor condition" of roads, electricity supply and basic amenities during the 10-year Congress government headed by Digvijay Singh between 1993 and 2003 in the state, he said.

The MP Assembly polls will be held on November 28 and counting of votes will take place on December 11.

A Delhi court Saturday framed molestation charges against former TERI chief RK Pachauri in a case of alleged sexual harassment lodged by his former colleague.

Metropolitan Magistrate Charu Gupta put Pachauri on trial for the offence punishable under sections 354 (outraging modesty), 354 A (making physical contact, unwelcome and sexually coloured remarks) and 509 (teasing and using vulgar gesture and actions) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).

The charges were framed after Pachauri, who was present in the courtroom, pleaded not guilty and claimed trial.

Advocate Ashish Dixit, appearing for the accused, sought a speedy trial.

"My (Pachauri) age is 78 years and me and my family are suffering from hardship. For almost last four years we are facing media trial," the counsel said on behalf of Pachauri after which the court put up the matter for further proceedings on January 4, 2019.

The court also summoned the complainant on the next date for recording of her statement.

On September 14, the court had discharged him from the section 354B (using criminal force against a woman), 354D (stalking) and 341 (wrongful restraint) of the IPC, saying that prima facie these sections were not made out against Pachauri.

Reacting to the development, the complaint said today, "Spoken with my lawyers and understood all aspects especially with regards to challenging for inclusion of three charges (in which Pachauri has been discharged). Finally, trial is committed. Made complete arrangements to be available during the said time period...The truth will triumph."

On February 13, 2015, an FIR was registered against Pachauri and he was granted anticipatory bail in the case on March 21, 2015.

The former TERI chief had earlier secured an interim order from Additional District Judge making it mandatory for media houses to publish or telecast the coverage of the case with a title that "in any court, the allegations have not been proved and they may not be correct".

This order had also said "when such information is published in any page of a magazine or report, then it should be in middle of the page in bold letters and it should be five times larger than the font in which the article is being published."

Over 1,400-page charge sheet was filed by the Delhi Police on March 1, 2016, saying there was "sufficient evidence" against Pachauri that he had sexually harassed, stalked and threatened the complainant.

A supplementary charge sheet was filed in March 2017 after the police said it had retrieved several deleted e-mails and chats exchanged between the accused and the complainant.

The final report had said the deleted WhatsApp chats, text messages, retrieved from the cell phones, computer hard disks and other devices, were "not fabricated".

The charge sheet. which was filed a year after the former research analyst of TERI lodged the complaint, had said Pachauri had committed offences under various sections of IPC. Pachauri has denied all the allegations against him.

AMRITSAR -- The situation remained tense on Sunday as locals continued with their sit-in at Joda Patak where 61 Dussehra revellers were mowed down by a train. Locals had started protesting on Saturday, raising slogans against the state government and demanding action against the train's driver, a day after the accident in Amritsar.

Police said locals are sitting on railway tracks and do not want to leave.

"We hope that normalcy will be restored in the area by Sunday evening as the number of protestors have come down since Saturday," a senior police officer said. Punjab Police have deployed its personnel, including commandoes, to manage the crowd. The Rapid Action Force is also present in the Joda Patak area.

The district administration has said that out of 61 people who were mowed down by the speeding Jalandhar-Amritsar train on Friday, 40 have been identified. The process of identifying the other persons is underway, it said.

Punjab chief minister Amarinder Singh, who visited the accident site on Saturday, has ordered a magisterial inquiry into the incident.

The train was coming from Jalandhar when the accident occurred at Joda Phatak near Amritsar, where at least 300 people were watching 'Ravana dahan' at a ground adjacent to the tracks. The rail tragedy that claimed 61 lives and left many injured during Dussehra festivities in Amritsar on Friday has turned into a political minefield.

Opposition Akali Dal-BJP leaders have trained their guns on Punjab local government minister Navjot Singh Sidhu, saying his wife, Navjot Kaur, who was chief guest at the function, "fled the scene" after the accident. They also claimed the organiser Mithu Madan, son of councillor Vijay Madan, a Sidhu loyalist, overlooked security concerns and did not inform local Railway employees about the event, a claim denied by Sidhu loyalists.

Ending weeks and months of speculation, Bollywood celebrities Deepika Padukone and Ranveer Singh have announced they are getting married.

Padukone and Singh have worked together in several movies including Padmaavat, Bajirao Mastani, Goliyon Ki Rasleela-Ram Leela and Finding Fanny.

The wedding is set for 14-15 November, 2018.

The couple, rumored to have been dating for five years, announced the news over Twitter and Instagram on Sunday.

"With the blessing of our families, it gives us immense joy in sharing that our wedding is set to take place on the 14th and 15th of November, 2018," they said.

Read the full announcement below.

pic.twitter.com/E0IbjQTnYI

— Deepika Padukone (@deepikapadukone) October 21, 2018

🙏🏽 pic.twitter.com/5L6euh6TtR

— Ranveer Singh (@RanveerOfficial) October 21, 2018

JALANDHAR, Punjab — The success of an ambitious plan to network every police station in India—a 10 year old project with a budgetary outlay of Rs 2,000 crore—hinges on whether the over-worked Station House Officer in this nondescript police station in the city dips into his savings to pay the monthly internet bill.

"What can we do?" said the SHO, speaking on condition of anonymity as he feared reprisals from his senior officers. "The officers say everything has to happen online, but for two months we haven't received any funds to pay for internet."

The Union government claims to have connected 94% of the country's police stations to the Crime and Criminal Tracking Network and System (CCTNS)—a common national network to enable policemen in different states to seamlessly share information, and make it easier to track criminals and repeat offenders.

Yet, departmental progress reports, interviews with policemen in four states and station visits by HuffPost India reveal these claims are grossly overblown, and balanced on a precarious fulcrum of ad hocism and old-fashioned jugaad.

Meanwhile, delays in deploying the CCTNS has pushed some state police forces to work with private vendors to develop their own systems which may, or may not, integrate with the national grid.

Six states including Gujarat, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Goa have already refused to implement the CCTNS as they say their own police software is far more advanced. This implies the CCTNS might be obsolete by the time it is finally functional.

Delays in deploying the CCTNS has pushed some state police forces to work with private vendors to develop their own systems which may, or may not, integrate with the national grid.

The project was supposed to create a unified network connecting every police station in the country. In its place, officers are struggling with a piecemeal system where some bits of police work—like filing First Information Reports (FIR)—have been digitised, while other aspects—like the registering of serial offenders—are still done manually and stored in dusty folders in locked file cabinets.

In Punjab, for instance, all police stations claim to register FIRs online, but all other documents such as surrender forms, crime detail forms, search-and-seizure forms etc are first filled out on paper, and then filled out again in the computer system according to National Crime Records Bureau data from August this year. This has duplicated work at the station, adding further strain to the state's stretched police force.

While the report claims that over 73% of police stations in India have digitised their old police records—to help policemen track repeat offenders, keep track of old cases etc—it doesn't specify a time period for which these files have been digitised.

In Assam, for instance, Special DGP AK Jha, the nodal officer overseeing the project in the state, told HuffPost India the state has digitised only selected records from the database for the last ten years. States such as Punjab and Haryana have also digitised selected records from the database for the last five years, police sources told HuffPost India.

In Maharashtra, one of the best-performing states in this regard, Inspector General of Police Brijesh Singh, cyber Security head, said his force had digitised old records dated back to 1998.

The consequences of this incomplete digitisation of police records are dramatic.

In July 2016, for instance, this reporter wrote about a child named Saurav Kumar, who went missing in Hoshiarpur, Punjab, in 2013. His parents, migrant workers from Uttar Pradesh, immediately filed a missing persons complaint—but this was never shared on the state police network.

So when Saurav was found 40 km away in Kapurthala, by the District Child Protection Unit, officials had no way of knowing that the child's parents were looking him. Instead, Saurav was put up for adoption. Three years later, when this reporter chanced upon his case, Saurav had been cleared for adoption by foster parents in Spain. He was rescued hours before boarding a flight out of Indian when a district civil judge noticed a procedural lapse, his photograph was flashed on television screens across the state, and his real parents came forward.

We have neither digitised old records nor digitising the present records. What purpose will the system serve in future with incomplete information?

"We have neither digitised old records nor digitising the present records," admitted a senior officer in the Haryana police. "What purpose will the system serve in future with incomplete information?"

READ: How Andhra Pradesh Built India's First Police State Using Aadhaar And A Census

Technocratic nightmare

HuffPost India visited three different police stations in Punjab to understand why the Rs 2,000 crore spending, meant to improve the efficiency of the state police, has had the opposite effect.

Our findings suggest that the shortcomings of the CCTNS, like many top-down technocratic solutions, arise from an inability to understand the actual conditions in which the system is implemented by beat cops.

"I have around 15 investigating officers who have to appear for the court hearing every second day," said the Station House Officer from Jalandhar. "Since they do not have expertise or time to fill in the details online, I have to spare two cops separately for the job."

Yet the Punjab police, like many state forces, has an acute shortage of trained policemen.

"Sparing two cops just to update the CCTNS is a huge risk and not called for," the SHO said, adding that it was unrealistic to push such a system without recruiting data operators familiar with the software.

The system has a dropdown menu that allows policemen to select the specific acts and provisions of the Indian Penal Code under which FIRs must be filed. Yet, the software is rarely updated, leaving policemen unsure of how to proceed.

For instance, Punjab passed the Punjab Travel Professionals Regulation Act in 2014 to reduce instances of human trafficking, but CCTNS has not updated its database to include the act.

Once the information is fed into the computer in the police station, policemen said, it is a struggle to upload the data to the network.

"The system takes very long to update new Acts and its provisions," said a Station House Officer based in Patiala. "This causes huge harassment to our data operators."

Once the information is fed into the computer in the police station, policemen said, it is a struggle to upload the data to the network.

"We were only provided a bandwidth of 512Kbps on a single computer," said a policeman based in Kurukshetra, Haryana, explaining that many cases involve 44 different forms, photographs and scanned documents. "The minimum requirement to upload our entire data is a 4Mbps connection."

The absence of a proper internet connection is why some station house officers are paying for their own internet connections.

"CCTNS is not easy to use, the amount of data that comes is not enough because it's all manual entry, and the quality of photos isn't very good," said a senior Punjab police officer, summing up the system's many shortcomings. "Only a few people in the station will know how to use it properly."

Policemen are particularly frustrated as the system was designed to be used in concert with the e-court system. The idea was that policemen could use the online network to share digitised copies of case files directly with the courtroom where their cases are listed. This would eliminate the need to carry bulky reams of documents every time a case was listed.

Yet, 10 years later, the two systems still cannot talk to each other.

"This is causing great inconvenience to our cops as they are forced to do double work," said a Punjab policeman who works frequently with the court system. "First they upload the data on the CCTNS and later print out a hard copy to take to the courts. I don't find any point in the implementation of the CCTNS until it gets integrated with e-courts."

Funding issues

Private vendors tasked with implementing the system say that state and central governments have been slow to release budgets to pay for the deployment of the CCTNS.

Punjab, Haryana and majority of the north eastern states have refused to allocate funds for it, a senior executive with an implementing agency said, explaining that his company had closed down its operations in Punjab, Gujarat, Haryana, Arunachal Pradesh and Mizoram.

"The project requires the integration of crime and criminal record at the national level which is an ongoing process," said Praveen Sinha, former assistant director at the Sardar Vallabh Patel National Police Academy at Hyderabad, explaining that splitting the project between states and the centre had stymied its implementation. "The Union government must run it at its level. Giving it to the state governments separately may dilute the purpose."

SRINAGAR, Kashmir — At least six civilians were killed, and more than 40 injured, in an explosion at the site of a gun battle on Sunday between security forces and militants in south Kashmir's Kulgam region.

Officials told Huff Post India that a cordon was laid in the Laroo area of district Kulgam after receiving information about the presence of three militants. Subsequently a gun fight broke out early morning Sunday, resulting in the killing of Shahid Ahmed Tantray, Zubair Ahmed Lone and Yazil Ahmad Makroo of the Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) outfit.

"In Kulgam encounter while three terrorists of JeM terror outfits were killed , in the aftermath of the encounter when a large congregation entered the encounter site before it was cleared led to an explosion in which six people died," the Jammu and Kashmir police said in a statement.

According to local reports, the explosion took place when residents of the area entered the encounter site en masse to clear out the debris.

While the police in their statement requested locals not to visit any encounter site until the site is sanitized by the bomb disposal team, locals asked why the area was left unattended if it wasn't sanitized.

"After the conclusion of encounter as the forces moved out, the locals from the area started assembling at the site of encounter and had apparently fiddled with some stray explosive materials leading to an explosion. Consequently some individuals sustained grievous injuries and some of the injured identified as Ubaid Shah, Tajamul, Irshad Ahmad Padder, Uzair Ahmad and Masroor Ahmad unfortunately succumbed when brought to hospitals, besides five other injured are undergoing treatment. It is pertinent to mention that this incident occurred post encounter," the police statement continued.

The incident drew flak from all political circles in the Valley.

"Extremely saddened by the news of Kulgam incident , where civilians were once again caught in the cross fire of violence , thus adding fuel to the already volatile situation ," said former Chief Minister of Kashmir Mehbooba Mufti. "All words of condemnation ,condolence sound very hollow at this tragedy."

Leader of the National Conference and also an former CM, Omar Abdullah tweeted, "Alienating the people in the fight against militancy is a sure fire recipe for losing the fight. How long can we go on ignoring the ground realities & living in denial about how bad things are in Kashmir?"

Words fail me 😢 https://t.co/nuja9hDtea

— Omar Abdullah (@OmarAbdullah) October 21, 2018

Advisor to Jammu and Kashmir Governor K Vijay Kumar and DGP, J&K, Dilbag Singh also expressed regret in a statement issued by the state government

"They have expressed profound condolences to the bereaved families. Such sites should be avoided by civilians till they are properly sanitized," said an official statement, issued by his office.

The incident triggered violent clashes between government forces and civilians in several areas of south and central Kashmir.

The Joint Resistance Leadership (JRL) a conglomerate of separatist leaders , called for a shutdown on October 22, prompting the security establishment in the Valley to take immediate measures to prevent the situation to deteriorate further.

Chairman of Hurriyat Conference Mirwaiz Umar Farooq tweeted, "Amidst internet &news blackout reports of #BloodbathInKulgam as Indian forces go berserk! Many civilian casualties reported,3 armed youth martyred more than sixty civilians injured many critical! Homes destroyed, women ruthlessly beaten! All roads to the area sealed, media barred!"

While the Jammu and Kashmir state board of school education postponed the Class 12 examinations scheduled for Monday, the Kashmir University in Srinagar and Islamic University of Science and Technology, which lies in south Kashmir also delayed the examinations scheduled for Monday.

NEW DELHI — The CBI on Sunday tried to defend its Director Alok Verma following allegations of corruption levelled against him by his deputy Rakesh Asthana, booked by the agency on bribery charges last week, saying they are "false and malicious".

In his letters to the Cabinet Secretary and Central Vigilance Commission, Asthana had written about 10 cases of alleged corruption and irregularities against the CBI Director Alok Verma, levelling serious corruption charges in some of them.

One of the case pertained to Sathish Sana, a businessman facing probe in a corruption case involving meat exporter Moin Qureshi in which Asthana had alleged on 24 August that Sana paid Rs2 crore to Verma to get relief in the case.

Asthana had also alleged that Verma delayed his team's request to arrest Sana in the case.

The complaint was referred to Central Vigilance Commission by the Government which is looking into it.

Gujarat-cadre officer Asthana, currently number two in the CBI, has also cited instances of alleged irregularities and violation of rules and regulations against Verma.

In an unprecedented operation, the CBI registered an FIR against Asthana and his Deputy Superintendent of Police Devender Kumar, and two alleged middlemen Somesh Prasad and Manoj Prasad on the basis of a statement from Sana that bribe was paid to the middlemen to get relief in repeated questioning by the Asthana's Special Investigation Unit.

Asthana had alleged that he had moved a file for the arrest of Sana on September 20, 2018 which was held by the CBI Director Alok Verma and was later referred to Director of Prosecution who demanded the evidence file.

He had alleged that it was his team which opened a Look Out Circular (LOC) against Sana who was stopped at immigration and prevented from fleeing the country.

In a late night statement, CBI spokesperson said allegations that Director CBI was not aware of LOC issued against Satish Sana is incorrect.

"DCBI had seen and ratified the proposal to issue LOC on May 21, 2018," he said.

The spokesperson said contention that Director CBI made an attempt to stop Sana's arrest is false and malicious.

"The allegation has been made to deflect the charge of receipt of bribe money by CBI Special Director Rakesh Asthana and the other public servant named in the FIR," he said.

The agency FIR is based on allegations levelled by Sana, who was facing CBI charges, before magistrate under section 164 of the CrPC.

The statement attached in the FIR does not make any mention of any direct meeting or call between Asthana and Sana or any direct and confirmed interaction between the two.

"Sana was called to the CBI for examination/inquiry on multiple occasions in October/November, 2017. During October/November, 2017, there were four instances in which notices were given to Sana. In order to get relief from frequent notices, Shri Sana approached one Manoj Prasad in Dubai in the month of December, 2017," the spokesperson said.

He claimed Rs 2.95 crores was paid to the public servants through Manoj Prasad and Somesh Prasad and Sana was able to obtain relief in the on-going investigation in the Moin Qureshi case.

Subsequently, there were no notices issued to him till mid of February, 2018, the spokesman said.

He said on February 19, 2018, again notice was issued to Sana who flew to Dubai and met Prasad.

"Subsequently, there were no notices issued till end of May/early June, 2018," he said.

The spokesperson claimed that an LOC was issued to prevent Sana's escape from the country on May 16 (by the team of Asthana which was probing the matter).

On the basis of LOC, Sana was stopped from going abroad by immigration office at Hyderabad on September 24 on the basis of the Look Out Circular.

"Subsequently, he was called by investigation officer on October 1, 2018 and again on October 3. Faced with continued harassment, Sana got his statement recorded with the Magistrate Court regarding the entire transaction," he said.

Sana also contacted Prasad to get relief from appearance due on October 9, which was promised by Manoj. He had promised to obtain relief till 25th as requested by Sana, the spokesman said.

"This relief was obtained with the promise of payment of Rs 2 crore, of which, Rs 25 lakh was paid on October 10, 2018," he said.

Manoj was caught on 16th October when he came to India to get the remaining Rs 1.75 crore, the spokesperson alleged.

"On 20th, Sathish Sana once again recorded his statement with the concerned court corroborating the facts he mentioned in the complaint," he said.

NEW DELHI—Sundari, a tigress relocated from Madhya Pradesh to Odisha's Satkosia Tiger Reserve to boost its tiger population in June this year, has been blamed for allegedly killing two local residents and grievously injuring a television journalist who went to cover one of the deaths, The Hindustan Times reported.

Sundari's relocation was carried out under India's first interstate translocation drive. However, it quickly became unpopular with local residents as they believe she has carried out the three attacks. The first killing, of a woman named Kailashi Soy, occurred in September.

According to HT, the latest attacks happened on Saturday, when the tigress allegedly killed 65-year-old Trinath Sahu on the outskirts of the reserve when he was on his way to fish at a pond. Some hours after that, Sundari apparently mauled local TV journalist Raghunath Sahu when he went to report on the attack. The Divisional Forest Officer for Satkosia, V Karthick, told HT that the reporter was admitted to the Angul district hospital and was said to be critical.

Odisha TVreported that protesting villagers have torched a police vehicle and pelted stones at police and senior government officials.

Read the full HT report here.

Two days after more than 60 people died in Amritsar after being hit by a train on Dussehra, a blame game that has erupted over who is responsible for the tragedy shows no signs of ending soon. The Punjab Home Department has now asked Divisional Commissioner Jalandhar, Baldeo Purushartha, to conduct a magisterial inquiry into the incident.

Reports say that the inquiry will also look into "remedial measures to ensure that such unfortunate incident do not reoccur".

On Monday, DGP Punjab Suresh Arora said on the sidelines of of the Commemoration Day parade, that there had been negligence and that liability had to be fixed.

The probe report will be submitted within four weeks.

Meanwhile, everyone is blaming everyone else for the tragedy.

Navjot Singh Sidhu blames Railways

Punjab minister Navjot Singh Sidhu questioned the Railways for giving a clean chit to the loco-pilot.

PTI quoted him as saying, "What sort of commission did you set up that you gave a clean chit to him (loco-pilot) in one day? Either the driver was permanent or he was engaged for one day. Why do not you say?"

Sidhu's wife Navjot Kaur Sidhu had taken part in the event at Joda Phatak, where the accident happened.

The railways, PTI reported, ruled out an inquiry, saying that the accident was caused due to trespassing, and that the organisers had failed to inform the local administration or railways about the event.

"When you stop (the train) for cow, you even get an FIR registered if someone is found sitting on a track. And you ran over...people and you did not stop. And what was the speed of train? It was more than 100 km per hour, Zip it goes," PTI quoted Sidhu as saying.

Sidhu claimed that announcements were made from the stage, asking people to stay away from the railway tracks.

Cops, municipal corporation blame organisers

While the organisers of the event are on the run, reports say that the police has accepted that Saurabh Mittoo Madan, the organiser of the Ram Leela event, had gotten a 'no objection certificate' from them for the event.

Amrik Singh Powar, Amritsar's Deputy Commissioner of Police, told PTI that the organisers were given a 'no objection certificate' on the condition that they also get permission from the municipal corporation and the pollution department.

However, the Amritsar Municipal Corporation said the organisers did not ask for any permission.

"Nobody was given permission for organising the Dussehra event. Moreover, nobody had applied for the permission with the Amritsar Municipal Corporation," Commissioner Sonali Giri told PTI.

Witnesses blames driver

The driver of the train had said in a statement that he applied emergency brakes to stop the train, but a mob attacked the train by pelting stones. He then, allegedly, sped off for the safety of his passengers. But now, local councillor Shailender Singh Shally has claimed the train did not slow down at all.

NDTV quoted Shally as saying, "It seemed as if the driver wanted to run over us. The train passed us in a matter of seconds. Would it have been logically possible for us to throw stones at the train when we were in such a state of shock, when there were so many people lying dead and injured around us? The driver is lying."

Witnesses have also said that they did not hear a horn or see a light that would have warned them of the approaching train.

The Indian Express reported that several videos doing the rounds of social media also corroborate eyewitness accounts.

Driver blames mob

The driver of the DMU train was quoted by The Indian Express as saying, "Suddenly I saw a crowd of people near the track. I constantly sounded the horn as I immediately applied the emergency brake. Despite applying emergency brake, some people were run over by the train. The train was almost coming to a halt when a very large crowd started attacking the train by throwing stones. Considering the safety of my passengers, I proceeded with the train."

NEW DELHI — As the 400-odd petrol pumps and CNG dispensing units in the national capital remain shut Monday in protest against the Delhi government's refusal to reduce VAT on fuels, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal accused the BJP of "threatening" petrol pump owners to go on strike against the AAP dispensation.

"BJP people have threatened petrol pump owners of Income Tax raids if they did not go on strike. The oil companies also stated that tough action will be taken against petrol pumps not on strike," he said in a tweet in Hindi.

The AAP leader said oil prices were the "lowest" in Delhi among four metro cities, adding petrol pumps were not on strike in Mumbai despite the oil prices being "highest" there "because the BJP was ruling in Maharashtra".

Kejriwal had on Sunday said that petrol pump owners told him "privately" that the strike was "BJP-sponsored" and "actively supported" by oil companies.

A call of strike was given by the Delhi Petrol Dealers Association (DPDA) to all the 400 petrol pumps along with linked CNG dispensing units in the national capital in protest against the AAP government's refusal to reduce VAT on fuels.

The chief minister also reiterated his government's demand to bring petrol and diesel within the ambit of the Goods and Services Tax (GST).

He also claimed that the prices of petrol and diesel rose because of "arbitrary taxes" levied by the Modi government at the Centre which should be reduced to provide relief to the people.

"Arbitrary taxes were imposed on petrol in the past four years by Modi ji and not us. Modi ji should reduce taxes to give respite to the people," Kejriwal said in another tweet.

In Delhi, petrol now costs Rs 81.74 a litre and diesel is priced at Rs 75.19 per litre. In Mumbai, petrol is sold for Rs 87.21 per litre and diesel at Rs 78.82.

We are more obsessed with black forgiveness than we are with white sin.

We are so quick to implore people of color to forgive and too slow to hold white people to full accountability.

A prime witness in the case of the rape of a nun in Kerala, Father Kuriakose Kattuthara, was found dead on Monday, said multiple news reports. The cause of death has not yet been ascertained.

Father Kuriakose had given a statement to the police against the accused bishop, Franco Mulakkal.

A priest in the Jalandhar Diocese, Father Kuriakose was 60 years old.

Father Kuriakose's family have alleged foul play in the death. His brother, Jose Kattuthara told Mathrubhumi that he suspected that his brother was killed for giving a statement against Mulakkal. He added that Kuriakose feared for his life and had been frequently threatened by the church officials.

Father Kuriakose reportedly helped the nun who accused Mulakkal of rape and had taken a vocal stand against the bishop.

Franco Mulakkal was granted a conditional bail by the Kerala High Court last week. On his return to the Jalandhar diocese, a large number of supporters gave him a "grand welcome".

The nun had accused Mulakkal of raping her at a guest house in Kuravilangad in 2014 and later sexually exploiting her on several occasions.

She said the church did not do anything despite her repeated complaints.

Mulakka, meanwhile, has called the accusations "baseless and concocted."

NEW DELHI — Congress chief Rahul Gandhi on Sunday termed the deteriorating air quality in Delhi a "serious problem" and called for collective steps to reduce the pollution levels in the national capital.

He said no government can by itself, without the help of countrymen, ensure clean air to people.

"Air pollution in Delhi is a serious problem. It is our responsibility to take possible steps to reduce the pollution around us. Without the support of countrymen, no government can provide relief from air pollution," Gandhi said in a Facebook post in Hindi.

Delhi's air quality oscillated between "poor" and "very poor" category Sunday as authorities warned of days of severe pollution ahead.

The Central Pollution Control Board recorded the overall Air Quality Index (AQI) of Delhi at 292, while the Centre-run System of Air Quality Forecasting and Research reported an AQI of 318, which falls in the "very poor" category.

An AQI between 0 and 50 is considered "good", 51 and 100 "satisfactory", 101 and 200 "moderate", 201 and 300 "poor", 301 and 400 "very poor", and 401 and 500 "severe".

"A few days ago on my Facebook page I had shared Punjab farmer Gurbachan Singh's campaign to reduce air pollution. We have many Gurbachan Singhs around us. We should take inspiration from them and develop such desires. This (the effort) will not only benefit us but also decide the fate of future generations. The time to wake up is now," Gandhi said.

On 18 October, Gandhi had shared a news report about Singh's efforts to curb paddy stubble burning in Punjab's Tarn Taran district.

The air quality in Delhi might deteriorate to "severe" category in the coming days as the air becomes heavier and results in formation of smog, an official has said.

Vinay Sahasrabuddhe, the prabhari (in-charge) of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Madhya Pradesh, is among the key party functionaries involved in the nuts and bolts of the campaign for the upcoming assembly election. The Rajya Sabha MP is also part of the intra-party group which is deciding who the party's candidates will be in the election. In an interview with HuffPost India,Sahasrabuddhe spoke about why he thinks the Shivraj Singh Chouhan-led government will come back to power for a fourth consecutive term and why creating new opportunities for farmers with limited land is a "big challenge" for the state. Edited excerpts from an interview:

In Madhya Pradesh, this is the fourth time that the BJP is going to the electorate as an incumbent. Why should your party be voted back to power?

For practically every sector in Madhya Pradesh, I can list out achievements of our government. Let us take the example of agriculture growth rate. It was -3 when we took over, now it is in two decibels, close to 20%. Or at times even cross that, if I remember correctly. We have been talking about linking of rivers... But, you never see that the river linkage has happened right on the ground. Except for Gujarat where the Sabarmati now has Narmada waters in it. But in Madhya Pradesh, it is now a reality that Kshipra and Narmada are linked.

Take the example of this Public Service Guarantee Act, which was later on replicated by Bihar and now Maharashtra also. But where did it start? It started with Shivraj Singh Chouhan in his first tenure. Or take the example of roads. I would say that, in so far as Madhya Pradesh is concerned, the first five years of our government between 2003 and 2008, all our attention was dealing with the issues of bijli, sadak, paani (Energy, Roads and Water resources), and having overcome issues pertaining to these three things, we moved on and in the next tenure of our government, we resolutely worked at bringing out Madhya Pradesh from the BIMARU status. And the next phase, which is 2013 and 2018, we built all the necessary infrastructures required for industrial growth as well as agriculture growth.

The issues that we are now grappling are for instance arising out of abundance of things. Whether it is agriculture produce; how to deal with the market situation, the prices. Now, for example, the young farmers in Madhya Pradesh, they are happy with agriculture but are aspiring for something more. So now we have to enter into maybe food processing. There is a group actively working on our vision document which is considering whether we can open the nation's first food processing university in Madhya Pradesh. The idea is being discussed.

Madhya Pradesh has been showcasing a high agricultural growth rate, but it is also among the top three states in the number of farmer suicides. There have been many instances in the recent past of rapes in which complaints by women were lodged only after protests. The Vyapam scam has raised a question mark over the credibility of competitive examinations in the state. How do you reconcile these two realities?

It is nobody's case that when we try to offer good governance, there are no problems at all. Problems are there. Some of the problems are not our creation, they are there in the system, for that matter. Take the case of Vyapam. Software wise and everything was pretty ok, administratively. Not a single loophole (was found) when it was audited and re audited. But then if you don't get people with integrity to man the system, problems arise. And this is a situation perhaps in several cases. You talked about rapes. Of course, there is certainly nothing to defend all these kinds of things. And nobody would and should (defend). But then one must appreciate that MP is the first state to make a law which gives capital punishment to those who are committing such atrocities on juveniles. And then the nation also followed. We are taking a lead even on the count of social reforms. Our schemes go beyond routine caste considerations. Practically, I would say that the state government has addressed the problems of deprivation in all sections of the society and not just the scheduled castes and scheduled tribes. Let me make this abundantly clear.

While you say that interests of every section of society have been taken care of, the upper castes are angry with you. SAPAKS is on the rise and the so-called upper castes seem to believe that you are appeasing the 'lower' castes.

See, it is very understandable that when the Supreme Court judgement [about the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989] is analysed and then the government of the day, in tune with the desire of the entire Parliament, takes a call to undo the negative impact of the SC decision, then naturally some people will ask questions. And there absolutely is no question of any appeasement as this can't be termed as compromising with the basic tenets of the Constitution for any vote bank politics. Far from that. And people must also appreciate that what we have done is restoration of the pre-judgement situation. There is no new law. It was there. And let's not forget that this Act too, like many other legislations, provides for prevention of its misuse and our CM has already made this clear. We will protect every section of society, no matter what their social background is.

How do you propose to deal with the challenges in front of your government if re-elected? For instance, there is the crisis of farmer suicides.

Well, let us wait for the vision document of the party which is taking its final shape and it will answer most of your questions, I'm sure. What has happened is that the marginal farmers are facing all kinds of adverse situations. These situations are, in a way, pushing them towards the suicide decision. So how to save these marginal farmers? We are trying, for example, in Maharashtra also we are trying, how many more options could be provided to the next generation of farmers. In a house, they may have only 5 or 10 acres of land and if there are three brothers, then they are going to end up with some 3 acres land per person, which may not make agriculture as a viable proposition. So if you provide an alternate vocation to him which is based on agriculture, which is based on rural resources, then perhaps things could be taken care of. But how to make this happen? Because you cannot thrust anything upon anybody. Thrusting is not possible in a democratic set-up. So how to incentivise agri-based and rural-based industries and similar such professions, which may be even in the service sector, for that matter, is a big challenge and I am sure our vision document will come out with some brilliant ideas on this.

On electricity, Madhya Pradesh seems to have improved a bit in terms of production, but tariff is significantly expensive. Until recently, it was the costliest in the country.

I think it is a global challenge because sources of energy are becoming costly. Even solar is not costly anymore.

Coming back to the question of electoral politics, there seems to be substantial anti-incumbency after three continuous terms in power for the BJP. Whether it is opinion polls or recent reports that the RSS has asked the BJP not to repeat 78 sitting MLAs as candidates in the forthcoming election—all of these point towards anti-incumbency. What do you think explains this and how do you plan to address it?

I don't think there is anything which points to 'anti-incumbency'. Even this report about 78 MLAs is unfounded. I am involved in the process (of selecting candidates) and there is nothing of this kind which has been decided so far. So I think it is a figment of imagination. It has no basis in truth.

I don't have any feeling about (the existence of) anti-incumbency as such. There are certain cases where maybe one of our mayors or municipal councillors or MLAs, in rare cases, some of the MPs they do not seem to be remaining popular all along. Such cases keep happening. There is nothing new about it. Wherever it is required, we will make some changes.

But you don't feel the government as a whole is facing anti-incumbency?

I don't think so. Shivraj Singh Chouhan continues to be the most popular leader of Madhya Pradesh today. I am sure the opposition is also deeply conscious of this fact.

How do you explain the opinion polls then? They are giving the Congress party an upper hand.

I don't think. Whatever the upper hand, the surveys that I have seen, is just a wafer-thin majority. It is not a huge majority in favour of Congress. Because people are at a loss to understand who is going to be their face. And I heard Mr Digvijay Singh saying that, "If I campaign, Congress loses votes." I would say that he is perhaps stating the fact and which is not applicable to him only but to several leaders right from the top. Anybody who campaigns for the Congress, right from the top, I believe cuts into the vote share, whatsoever, of the Congress party.

It is inexplicable to me, I don't know why (the polls are giving the Congress an upper hand). Many a times opinion polls have gone wrong as well, but I don't want to question the credibility of those who have come out with these results. We will look into them. But, in general, I don't think there is any kind of anti-incumbency.

In the election campaign this time around, there seems to be competitive Hindutva at work between the Congress and BJP. For instance, Congress wants cow shelters at the district level and Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan announced, just before elections were declared, his decision to set up a cow ministry in MP.

Basically, cow protection has been a part of our guiding principles of the constitution. So to label it as a newfound love for Hindutva and other things, I don't know how appropriate it is.

BJP has every right to have Hindutva as its guiding ideology. I am not questioning that. But in an election campaign, when your stated focus is on development and achievements in governance, critics say invoking Hindutva is one way of distracting from failures in governance. So, are both parties sidelining governance-related issues to focus on Hindutva for votes?

See, if I may put it this way, the BJP has been known for both Aastha and Vyawastha. Aastha is ethos, popular belief and respecting those feelings. Vyawastha is administration, governance. Unfortunately, since Congress has nothing to tell about Vyawastha, because it is all Bantadhar (ruined), they are now trying to put their money on the horse, which is known as Aastha. We don't look at these issues as electoral planks. This has been there right since Jan Sangh days.

So, we don't believe in soft and hard Hindutva. BJP's love or commitment for cow protection has been there for decades together. There is nothing new about it. If they are copying us, they need to be answering. Why should we answer and explain their acts? Since they have nothing to report on the governance front, they are perhaps trying to play a new trick. And good luck to them, but I'm sure people are conscious about the intellectual bankruptcy with which they face the electorate.

I also asked this question because recently, the call for Ram Mandir has again grown, with RSS Sarsanghchalak Mohan Bhagwat demanding a law for constructing the temple and BJP president Amit Shah saying the temple will be built before 2019.

I think there is only selective emphasis given by the media, largely because these issues have been there and everybody knows about BJP's commitment to constructing a temple and I would put it this way, temple is already there, what we are now aiming at is a majestic temple. That is the only unfinished agenda and we believe, as has been rightly said by Sarsanghachalakji and several party leaders also, that there are three ways and Sarsanghachalakji has suggested one way. Party leadership will consider all those issues, suggestions and take an appropriate position.

What is your opinion about the Congress campaign?

The major stumbling block that the Congress leaders are facing is that they have leaders but they don't have cadres. Because all these years, since the party couldn't get a chance at any of these levels in most cases, whether the local self-government, state government or the Parliament, so no reason for cadres to stick to the Congress party. And the Congress party, just as at the centre, in the state as well is also run by two or three dynasties. There is no reason why a political activist would want to go for the Congress party. Therefore, the Congress is a party with many leaders and very few cadres.

Critics claim BJP has been winning MP every time because the Congress party is a divided house. How would you respond to such claims?

Any success or failure depends upon a comprehensive set of reasons. Among them are a well-oiled organisation, credible leadership, uni-directional organisation that works collectively and a track record in governance.