The Evening Wrap: Vinesh Phogat returns Khel Ratna and Arjuna Awards, leaves them at Kartavya Path

Multiple World Championship medallist Vinesh Phogat on December 30 returned her Khel Ratna and Arjuna Award, keeping the two awards lying in the middle of the national capital’s Kartavya Path after Delhi Police stopped her from reaching the Prime Minister’s office. In a letter to Priem Minister Narendra Modi on December 26, Phogat announced she had decided to return her Khel Ratna and Arjuna Award to the government, saying such honours have become meaningless at a time when wrestlers are struggling to get justice. On December 30, she attempted to reach the Prime Minister’s office to return her awards but the police stopped her and as a mark of protest, she left the awards at the Kartavya Path and they were later picked up by Delhi Police. Phogat, along with Olympic medallists Sakshi Malik and Bajrang Punia, had protested against the election of Sanjay Singh, a close aide of former Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) President Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh, who had been accused of sexual harassment by the three well-known grapplers. In her letter posted on X (formerly Twitter), Phogat said that their lives were not like “fancy government advertisements” that talk about women’s empowerment and upliftment. Not possible for all to reach Ayodhya on January 22; celebrate at home, visit later: PM Modi Prime Minister Narendra Modi arrived in Ayodhya on December 30 to unveil a ‘new look’ city with an airport, a revamped train station and projects worth ₹15,700 crore ahead of the consecration of the Ram temple next month. “The whole world is waiting for the historic moment of the ‘pran pratishtha’ ceremony in Ayodhya on January 22,” Modi said at a rally while appealing to people to not come on the day itself. Modi said while people are eager to come to Ayodhya on January 22 for the Ram temple consecration ceremony, it is not possible for everyone to reach the holy city on the day and they should visit later on according to their convenience. Modi was addressing a public rally after inaugurating and laying the foundation stone of development projects. He also inaugurated the Maharshi Valmiki airport and the redeveloped station named Ayodhya Dham from where he flagged off two Amrit Bharat and six Vande Bharat trains, some virtually. Marking January 22 as a special day, he also asked people to launch cleanliness drives at pilgrimage sites and temples across the country from Makar Sankranti on January 14 till the temple consecration day. There was a time Lord Ram was “living under a tent”, but now he will get a concrete house like the four crore poor who got pucca houses, he said. Modi also inaugurated and laid the foundation stone of multiple development projects worth more than ₹15,700 crore. These comprise projects worth about ₹11,100 crore for the development of the city and its surrounding areas, and others worth about ₹4,600 crore related to other works in Uttar Pradesh. After arriving in Ayodhya, Modi held a roadshow from the airport to the railway station and was greeted by hundreds of people lining alongside the route. After inaugurating the station, the PM took a tour of the facility and was accompanied by Union Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw, Uttar Pradesh CM Yogi Adityanath and others. The Phase-I of the redeveloped station — Ayodhya Dham Junction Railway Station — has been completed at a cost of more than Rs 240 crore, officials said. The three-storey railway station building is equipped with features such as lifts, escalators, food plazas, shops for puja needs, cloak rooms, child care rooms and waiting halls. The station building is “accessible for all” and an “IGBC certified green station building”, according to officials. During the inauguration of the airport, Union Minister for Civil Aviation Jyotiraditya Scindia, Union Minister of State for Civil Aviation Gen (Retired) VK Singh and Adityanath were among those who accompanied Modi. Phase-1 of the airport has been developed at a cost of more than Rs 1,450 crore, according to officials. The airport’s terminal building will have an area of 6,500 sqm, equipped to serve about 10 lakh passengers annually. Rajasthan Cabinet formed with swearing-in of 22 Ministers at Raj Bhavan Nearly a month after the formation of the BJP government in Rajasthan, 12 Cabinet Ministers and 10 Ministers of State were sworn in at a ceremony in Raj Bhavan in Jaipur on December 30. Governor Kalraj Mishra administered the oath of office to the newly inducted Ministers, who included former Union Minister Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore and former Rajya Sabha Member Kirodi Lal Meena. Chief Minister Bhajan Lal Sharma earlier met the Governor to seek his approval for new appointments to the Council of Ministers. With this, the Council of Ministers now comprises 25 members, including Sharma and his two deputies, Diya Kumari and Prem Chand Bairwa. Among the 10 Ministers of State, five were given independent charge. Official sources said the Ministers would get their portfolios by next week, even as the Opposition Congress has been targeting the State government over the delay in the Cabinet formation. Former CM Ashok Gehlot had recently said that the governance had come to a standstill in the BJP rule. Besides Rathore and Meena, the MLAs inducted as the Cabinet Ministers were Madan Dilawar, Gajendra Singh Khimsar, Babu Lal Kharadi, Joga Ram Patel, Suresh Singh Rawat, Avinash Gehlot, Jora Ram Kumawat, Hemant Meena, Kanhaiya Lal Chaudhary and Sumit Godara. Jayal MLA Manju Baghmar was the lone woman inducted as a Minister of State. With her appointment, the Council of Ministers has two women members, the other being Kumari. Besides Baghmar, the other Ministers of State were Ota Ram Dewasi, Vijay Singh Chaudhary, K.K. Vishnoi and Jawahar Singh Bedham. The Ministers of State with independent charge were Sanjay Sharma, Gautam Kumar Dak, Jhabar Singh Kharra, Surendra Pal Singh and Heera Lal Nagar. The new Council of Ministers was perceived as a mix of castes and regions, accounting for the representation of Jats, Rajputs, Brahmins, OBCs and Scheduled Castes as part of the BJP’s social engineering exercise in the run-up to the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. Surendra Pal Singh’s induction as a Minister of State (independent charge) came as a surprise move, as he is the BJP candidate in the Karanpur Assembly seat, where election was postponed after the death of Congress candidate Gurmeet Singh Kooner. The polling will be held in Sriganganagar district’s Karanpur on January 5 and the result declared on January 8. The Congress, which has fielded Kooner’s son Rupinder Singh at the seat, took strong exception to Surendra Pal Singh’s appointment and accused the ruling BJP of violating the model code of conduct. State Congress chief Govind Singh Dotasra said his party would make a complaint to the Election Commission and demand action as this was probably the first instance in the country when a candidate had been made a Minister even before the election. Mehbooba stages sit-in in Poonch, says ‘being stopped’ from meeting victim families Former Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister and Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) president Mehbooba Mufti on December 30 staged a sit-in protest after the police stopped her from meeting the families of the three civilians, who allegedly died due to torture in custody of the Army after the December 21 militant attack in Dera Ki Gali area. Mufti reached the Pir Panchal valley on December 30 to meet the families at Topa Pir village in Poonch’s Surankote area. However, in a series of videos posted by the PDP on social media, the road to the village was barricaded with barbed wires by the police. “It seems the administration is trying to hide something. There could be no other reason to stop me. I was told even the women of Topa Pir village were harassed by the security forces and threatened to meet the same treatment as those men seen in the video,” Mufti said. The former CM has decided to stage a sit-in on the roadside, around five km away from the victims’ village, “till the authorities allow her visit” to meet these families. The administration’s move comes just a day after top BJP leaders were allowed to meet these families. “We want to meet the families to tend to their wounds, inflicted by these brutal killings. We are not here to create any ruckus. National Conference leaders and BJP leader Ravinder Raina are allowed but not us. Why? We are told there is some threat. I think the biggest threat indeed is these people [who are stopping us],” Mufti said. The J&K Police and the Poonch administration have neither denied nor confirmed her allegations. In Brief: The Ministry of Home Affairs designated Lakhbir Singh Landa, a Canada-based member of Babbar Khalsa International, as an “individual terrorist” under Section 35 of the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act. The Ministry said Landa, backed by a cross-border agency, was involved in the terror attack through shoulder-mounted Rocket Propelled Grenade on the building of Punjab State Intelligence Headquarter at Mohali and has been involved in the supply of improvised explosive devices, arms, sophisticated weapons, explosives from across the border to various modules for carrying out terrorist activities in Punjab. It also said that Landa and his associates have been conspiring to disrupt the peace, law and order in Punjab by carrying out targeted killings, extortions and other anti-national activities in different parts of India. Evening Wrap will return tomorrow. [logo] The Evening Wrap 30 December 2023 [The Hindu logo] Welcome to the Evening Wrap newsletter, your guide to the day’s biggest stories with concise analysis from The Hindu. [[Arrow]Open in browser]( [[Mail icon]More newsletters]( Vinesh Phogat returns Khel Ratna and Arjuna Awards, leaves them at Kartavya Path Multiple World Championship medallist [Vinesh Phogat on December 30 returned her Khel Ratna and Arjuna Award]( keeping the two awards lying in the middle of the national capital’s Kartavya Path after Delhi Police stopped her from reaching the Prime Minister’s office. In a letter to Priem Minister Narendra Modi on December 26, Phogat announced she had decided to return her Khel Ratna and Arjuna Award to the government, saying such honours have become meaningless at a time when wrestlers are struggling to get justice. On December 30, she attempted to reach the Prime Minister’s office to return her awards but the police stopped her and as a mark of protest, she left the awards at the Kartavya Path and they were later picked up by Delhi Police. Phogat, along with Olympic medallists Sakshi Malik and Bajrang Punia, had protested against the election of Sanjay Singh, a close aide of former Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) President Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh, who had been accused of sexual harassment by the three well-known grapplers. In her letter posted on X (formerly Twitter), Phogat said that their lives were not like “fancy government advertisements” that talk about women’s empowerment and upliftment. Not possible for all to reach Ayodhya on January 22; celebrate at home, visit later: PM Modi [Prime Minister Narendra Modi arrived in Ayodhya on December 30 to unveil a ‘new look’ city with an airport, a revamped train station and projects worth ₹15,700 crore ahead of the consecration of the Ram temple next month.]( “The whole world is waiting for the historic moment of the ‘pran pratishtha’ ceremony in Ayodhya on January 22,” Modi said at a rally while appealing to people to not come on the day itself. Modi said while people are eager to come to Ayodhya on January 22 for the Ram temple consecration ceremony, it is not possible for everyone to reach the holy city on the day and they should visit later on according to their convenience. Modi was addressing a public rally after inaugurating and laying the foundation stone of development projects. He also inaugurated the Maharshi Valmiki airport and the redeveloped station named Ayodhya Dham from where he flagged off two Amrit Bharat and six Vande Bharat trains, some virtually. Marking January 22 as a special day, he also asked people to launch cleanliness drives at pilgrimage sites and temples across the country from Makar Sankranti on January 14 till the temple consecration day. There was a time Lord Ram was “living under a tent”, but now he will get a concrete house like the four crore poor who got pucca houses, he said. Modi also inaugurated and laid the foundation stone of multiple development projects worth more than ₹15,700 crore. These comprise projects worth about ₹11,100 crore for the development of the city and its surrounding areas, and others worth about ₹4,600 crore related to other works in Uttar Pradesh. After arriving in Ayodhya, Modi held a roadshow from the airport to the railway station and was greeted by hundreds of people lining alongside the route. After inaugurating the station, the PM took a tour of the facility and was accompanied by Union Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw, Uttar Pradesh CM Yogi Adityanath and others. The Phase-I of the redeveloped station — Ayodhya Dham Junction Railway Station — has been completed at a cost of more than Rs 240 crore, officials said. The three-storey railway station building is equipped with features such as lifts, escalators, food plazas, shops for puja needs, cloak rooms, child care rooms and waiting halls. The station building is “accessible for all” and an “IGBC certified green station building”, according to officials. During the inauguration of the airport, Union Minister for Civil Aviation Jyotiraditya Scindia, Union Minister of State for Civil Aviation Gen (Retired) VK Singh and Adityanath were among those who accompanied Modi. Phase-1 of the airport has been developed at a cost of more than Rs 1,450 crore, according to officials. The airport’s terminal building will have an area of 6,500 sqm, equipped to serve about 10 lakh passengers annually. Rajasthan Cabinet formed with swearing-in of 22 Ministers at Raj Bhavan [Nearly a month after the formation of the BJP government in Rajasthan, 12 Cabinet Ministers and 10 Ministers of State were sworn in at a ceremony in Raj Bhavan in Jaipur on December 30.]( Governor Kalraj Mishra administered the oath of office to the newly inducted Ministers, who included former Union Minister Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore and former Rajya Sabha Member Kirodi Lal Meena. Chief Minister Bhajan Lal Sharma earlier met the Governor to seek his approval for new appointments to the Council of Ministers. With this, the Council of Ministers now comprises 25 members, including Sharma and his two deputies, Diya Kumari and Prem Chand Bairwa. Among the 10 Ministers of State, five were given independent charge. Official sources said the Ministers would get their portfolios by next week, even as the Opposition Congress has been targeting the State government over the delay in the Cabinet formation. Former CM Ashok Gehlot had recently said that the governance had come to a standstill in the BJP rule. Besides Rathore and Meena, the MLAs inducted as the Cabinet Ministers were Madan Dilawar, Gajendra Singh Khimsar, Babu Lal Kharadi, Joga Ram Patel, Suresh Singh Rawat, Avinash Gehlot, Jora Ram Kumawat, Hemant Meena, Kanhaiya Lal Chaudhary and Sumit Godara. Jayal MLA Manju Baghmar was the lone woman inducted as a Minister of State. With her appointment, the Council of Ministers has two women members, the other being Kumari. Besides Baghmar, the other Ministers of State were Ota Ram Dewasi, Vijay Singh Chaudhary, K.K. Vishnoi and Jawahar Singh Bedham. The Ministers of State with independent charge were Sanjay Sharma, Gautam Kumar Dak, Jhabar Singh Kharra, Surendra Pal Singh and Heera Lal Nagar. The new Council of Ministers was perceived as a mix of castes and regions, accounting for the representation of Jats, Rajputs, Brahmins, OBCs and Scheduled Castes as part of the BJP’s social engineering exercise in the run-up to the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. Surendra Pal Singh’s induction as a Minister of State (independent charge) came as a surprise move, as he is the BJP candidate in the Karanpur Assembly seat, where election was postponed after the death of Congress candidate Gurmeet Singh Kooner. The polling will be held in Sriganganagar district’s Karanpur on January 5 and the result declared on January 8. The Congress, which has fielded Kooner’s son Rupinder Singh at the seat, took strong exception to Surendra Pal Singh’s appointment and accused the ruling BJP of violating the model code of conduct. State Congress chief Govind Singh Dotasra said his party would make a complaint to the Election Commission and demand action as this was probably the first instance in the country when a candidate had been made a Minister even before the election. Mehbooba stages sit-in in Poonch, says ‘being stopped’ from meeting victim families Former Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister and Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) president [Mehbooba Mufti on December 30 staged a sit-in protest after the police stopped her from meeting the families of the three civilians, who allegedly died due to torture in custody of the Army]( after the December 21 militant attack in Dera Ki Gali area. Mufti reached the Pir Panchal valley on December 30 to meet the families at Topa Pir village in Poonch’s Surankote area. However, in a series of videos posted by the PDP on social media, the road to the village was barricaded with barbed wires by the police. “It seems the administration is trying to hide something. There could be no other reason to stop me. I was told even the women of Topa Pir village were harassed by the security forces and threatened to meet the same treatment as those men seen in the video,” Mufti said. The former CM has decided to stage a sit-in on the roadside, around five km away from the victims’ village, “till the authorities allow her visit” to meet these families. The administration’s move comes just a day after top BJP leaders were allowed to meet these families. “We want to meet the families to tend to their wounds, inflicted by these brutal killings. We are not here to create any ruckus. National Conference leaders and BJP leader Ravinder Raina are allowed but not us. Why? We are told there is some threat. I think the biggest threat indeed is these people [who are stopping us],” Mufti said. The J&K Police and the Poonch administration have neither denied nor confirmed her allegations. In Brief: The [Ministry of Home Affairs designated Lakhbir Singh Landa, a Canada-based member of Babbar Khalsa International, as an “individual terrorist”]( under Section 35 of the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act. The Ministry said Landa, backed by a cross-border agency, was involved in the terror attack through shoulder-mounted Rocket Propelled Grenade on the building of Punjab State Intelligence Headquarter at Mohali and has been involved in the supply of improvised explosive devices, arms, sophisticated weapons, explosives from across the border to various modules for carrying out terrorist activities in Punjab. It also said that Landa and his associates have been conspiring to disrupt the peace, law and order in Punjab by carrying out targeted killings, extortions and other anti-national activities in different parts of India. Evening Wrap will return tomorrow. 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