Bihar
Liquor in PSU Bank Cash Van
Police in Darbhanga on Saturday seized 155 cartons of Indian Made Foreign Liquor (IMFL) illegally traded from Haryana in a cash van bearing the sticker of a nationalised bank. The van, bearing a Haryana registration number, was searched at a location between Donar and Beta Chowk.
Punjab
I-T Unearths Rs 170 cr in Punjab, Haryana
In post-demonetisation Punjab and Haryana, the income tax department has detected undisclosed income of Rs 170 crore in 13 cases, which are now being investigated. According to investigators, there was large-scale purchase of gold and jewellery in cash, money laundering through builders, payment of freight, labour and petty expenses, etc. in illegal tender of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000. In certain other cases, there was large-scale clandestine movement of demonetised currencies with the purpose of exchanging it with valid notes.
Police Turn Hawkers
Punjab Police personnel have been reduced to newspaper hawkers for Deputy CM and SAD president Sukhbir Singh Badal. When he wanted to read a news item in a leading English daily, police personnel were ordered to get the newspaper before his helicopter landed in Jalandhar and deliver it to him.
Clueless About Code of Conduct
The buzz in bureaucratic circles is when will the code of conduct for the Assembly elections be in place. No one seems to have an answer, not even Sukhbir Singh Badal. When asked about it, pat came his reply, “I have no clue.”
Nowhere to Go
BJP vice-president Avinash Rai Khanna was to be appointed member of the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), but his fate is now hanging in limbo. He resigned as a Rajya Sabha member from Punjab and as BJP in-charge of Jammu and Kashmir after his name was finalised by the PMO for the NHRC post. “He is now in a fix about what to do as he is nowhere, not in the NHRC nor in the party,” said a close aide of Khanna.
West Bengal
Back door for Urjit
RBI Governor Urjit Patel is not immune to anti-demonetisation protests. He had to enter the RBI eastern zonal headquarters in Kolkata through its back door last week to avoid TMC protesters and media. But he couldn’t avoid the Congress workers’ wrath when they showed him black flags during his exit from the city through the airport, despite the party’s vow to maintain decorum while opposing the holder of a constitutional post.
Mamata, Minister Not on Same Page
West Bengal Education Minister Partha Chatterjee, known as one of the closest aides of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, did not agree with all the clauses of the Education Bill that was to be tabled in the Assembly on Friday. While Mamata wanted the support of opposition Left and the Congress for passage of the bill, the minister’s statement has put serious questions on the bill’s future.