In India, the Modi government of the Center has acknowledged that farmers are unable to find the minimum support price for their crop. Agriculture Minister Radha Mohan Singh said in an oral reply to a question related to support price during Question Hour in the Rajya Sabha on Friday, "It is true that farmers are not getting the minimum support price for their crops, though farmers will be get fair prices of crops, measures are being taken at the country level.''
Congress member Vipalav Thakur asked that despite the increase in the minimum support price of the crops, the farmers are unable to get the price of crops. Radha Mohan Singh said on this question that according to the recommendations of the Agriculture Cost and Value Commission, the paddy, jowar, bajra Including 22 crops for the year 2017-18, the minimum support price was kept at 50 percent cost advantage.
He said, "In spite of this, my experience says that farmers of paddy cultivation within a radius of 100 km across Delhi from Kolkata are not getting the minimum support price." Radha Mohan Singh said that the government keeping a close watch on procurement of crops in the states, so that farmers can get fixed price of yield. Radha Mohan Singh said that the government is deliberating with the NITI Commission and the States in the direction of a permanent solution to this problem, which would lead to better arrangements.
As a solution to this problem, Radha Mohan Singh described the price support scheme as a better option for the farmers producing wheat and other crops of paddy. Under this, if the cost of yield is below the minimum support price, the state government should procure the crop. Whenever the proposals come from the state governments about this, the Central Government issues additional funds under this scheme. In this scheme, the Central Government has procured 8 lakh metric tonnes of pulses and cotton etc. from the states.
In India, the central government released the first estimate of GDP for the fiscal year 2017-18 on Friday. According to the Central Statistics Office (CSO), in this financial year, in the growth rate will be see deficiency. The growth rate will be around 6.5 percent. However, last year it was 7.1 percent. At the same time, the growth rate in 2015-16 was close to eight percent. It was 7.5 percent in 2014-15.
Explain that the second estimate of GDP with three quarter data will be released on February 28. The whole year's figures will be released in 2018. Due to poor performance of agriculture and manufacturing sector, the growth rate of GDP will be at the lower level of 6.5% in the current year of 2017-18. This will be the lowest growth rate during the tenure of the Narendra Modi government. The Narendra Modi government took charge in May 2014. experts are looking at it as a shock to India on the economic front.
"The growth rate of GDP in the current financial year is estimated to be 6.5 percent, which was 7.1 percent in the previous financial year," the CSO said on the GDP. On the basis of real gross value addition (GVA), growth in 2017-18 is estimated to be 6.1 percent, that was 6.6 percent in the previous year.
Economic activity is declining in the current financial year, due to the notes ban and after that implementation of goods and services tax (GST). According to the CSO data, the growth rate of agriculture, forest and fisheries sector is expected to come down to 2.1 percent in the current financial year, from 4.9 percent in the previous financial year. Apart from this, the growth rate of manufacturing is also expected to come down to 4.6 per cent, which was 7.9 per cent in 2016-17.
The results of Gujarat elections have come. BJP is now looking for the new Chief Minister, but the BJP, which is going to form the sixth time government in the state, has given a tough fight by the Congress in these elections. In the initial phase of election campaign, the Congress had drawn a long line from the BJP, but till the last round, the BJP again made a decisive lead on the Congress.
While Rahul Gandhi had maintained a front of the Congress, on behalf of BJP, Prime Minister Narendra Modi was camping continuously in his home state. Both parties started preparing almost simultaneously in Gujarat. Congress had come to Gujarat with a good strategy compared to the last few assembly elections. So, he had challenged BJP for 22 years in power, but in the last phase, BJP succeeded in winning the game.
If you look at the data of CSDS, the Congress, which has been consistently sticking to the BJP in Gujarat politics, was left behind to win the confidence of the people in the last minute. In this survey of CSDS, it can be seen clearly that in the last two weeks of campaigning, BJP has taken a tremendous success in making an edge over the Congress.
According to the survey, before the start of the campaign in the Gujarat assembly elections, 48 percent of the people were standing with the Congress, while 46 percent of the public's confidence was on the BJP. That is, the Congress was benefitting 10 percent, while the ruling BJP lost eight percent. According to the survey, 6 percent of the people appeared standing with others.
According to the survey, in the initial round of election campaign, 42 out of 100 people had made the Congress and 47 people had the intention to vote in favor of BJP. In the initial round of election campaign, Congress was benefitting 7 percent, while BJP lost 4 percent. But in the last two weeks, the Congress suffered a setback and the voters quietly shifted to BJP.
It is believed that the "lowly" statement of Congress leader Mani Shankar Aiyar on PM Modi was benefited to the BJP. In an emotionally speaking manner, Prime Minister Modi himself described as the son of Gujarat and added it to Gujarati asmita. This is the reason that in the last two weeks BJP has been successful in building an edge over the Congress. Finally, with the increase of 7 percent in the last round, 53 out of 100 people had decided to vote in favor of the BJP. The Congress suffered huge losses during this time and it was possible to support only 38 percent of the people.
70 per cent of India's healthcare infrastructure is limited to the top 20 cities. Apart from this, 30 per cent of Indians go to poverty line because of spending on health care every year.
According to a Knowledge Letter, "How MHealth Can Make a Revolution in the Indian Health Care Industry" jointly released by PWC and CII, 30 per cent of the people in India are deprived of primary healthcare facilities. It states that India alone is facing a 21 percent burden of global disease.
PWC's 14th India Health Summit was said in the Knowledge Letter said that access to basic health care is a challenge because the basic infrastructure and resources are inadequate. In the Knowledge Letter, the gloomy picture of health services inside India showed that 70 per cent of India's healthcare infrastructure is limited to the top 20 cities and 30 per cent Indians have not access to primary health care facilities.
The letter states, "There are only 0.7 doctors, 1.3 nurse and 1.1 hospital beds per 1000 population in India. This requires a type of MHealth (Mobile Health) channel. In addition, in fact, some data in the Indian Health Service Ecosystem are worrying, in which a large part of the population is still deprived of primary treatment. It is important to take advantage of new methods to make quality healthcare affordable and affordable healthcare accessible to everyone."
India has considerable potential to take advantage of MHealth (Mobile Health) as an alternative health care delivery channel and this facility can revolutionize the Indian healthcare industry. Dr Rana Mehta of PWC India Healthcare said, "If MHealth is fully adopted in India, then it can play an important role in improving the healthcare of the country."
They said, "India's population is about 1.3 billion and if we take a conservative estimate of 6-8 percent, then we can expect additional 7.9 to 10.5 crore people to access health care."
Dr. Naresh Trehan, President of CII Healthcare Council, said, "India needs new and innovative methods to provide care and compensation for the health care workers and the lack of infrastructure."
Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said on Thursday that at least 6,700 Rohingya Muslims were killed in the month before the military action against the rebels in Myanmar's Rohingya State. This action started in late August.
The figures of MSF are the most anticipated dead numbers. Violence in the Rohingya State began on August 25 and it created a major refugee crisis when more than 620,000 Rohingyas migrated from Myanmar to Bangladesh in the three months.
The United Nations and the United States had described the military action as an ethnic cleansing of Muslim minorities, but the estimated number of people killed in violence did not continue.
MSF told on Thursday that at least even estimated, 6,700 Rohingyas were killed in violence. These include 730 children under five years of age. This investigation of the group has emerged from six surveys conducted in more than 2,434 houses in Rohingya refugee camps. These surveys were done in a month.
Medical director of the group Sydney Wong said that we met and talked to the victims of the violence in Myanmar. They are living in the capacity-filled and dirty refugee camps in Bangladesh. According to the survey, in 69% of cases, death occurred due to bullet injuries, while 9% of deaths were caused by burning alive in homes. Five percent of people were beaten to death.
About 60% of children below the age of five have died due to bullet injuries.
The army of Myanmar denied refuting any kind of abuse, saying that 376 Rohingya terrorists including only 400 people died in the first few weeks of the commencement of the action.
National President of Swaraj India Party Yogendra Yadav has expressed his opinion about the Gujarat assembly elections. By tweeting with the official account, Yogendra Yadav told through a few figures that how many percent of votes and seats could be cast to the party.
In the tweets, they have also given three scenarios. With this he has posted a picture of the figures. It has also been written down that all data has been estimated by Yogendra Yadav and it does not represent any exit poll.
Apart from this, the seats which have been estimated are based on CSDS poll and are different from ABP estimates.
According to this estimate, in Gujarat this time Congress can win and BJP will have to sit in the opposition now.
Yogendra Yadav is an election analyst and has been giving his opinion on the election results even before.
According to Yogendra Yadav, in the first 'possible' scenario, BJP will get 86 seats (43 percent votes) and Congress will get 92 seats (43 percent).
In the second 'Likely' scenario, Yogendra Yadav has given BJP 65 (41 percent votes) and Congress 113 seats (45 percent).
In the third and final scenario, Yogendra Yadav has written 'can't be ruled out. After this he wrote that even bigger defeat for the BJP.
Scenario 3: Can't be ruled out
Even bigger defeat for the BJP
If the matter was made by Yogendra Yadav, then according to the figures, BJP had won 44 out of 98 seats in the rural areas in 2012, the Congress had won 49 seats. In 45 semi-urban areas, BJP won 36 seats and Congress 8 seats. In the 39 constituencies of urban areas, BJP won 35 seats and Congress got only 4 seats. If you add it, then BJP has 115 seats and Congress got 61 seats. In Gujarat, elections are held in 182 assembly seats.
According to Yogendra's first scenario (ABP-CSDS vote share BJP and Congress of 43%), this time out of 98 rural seats BJP will get 28 seats and Congress 66 seats. In the semi-urban areas 45 seats, Yogendra Yadav has given BJP 26 seats and Congress 19 seats. Of the 39 seats in urban areas, BJP has been projected to get 29 seats and Congress 10 seats. That is, this time the BJP will get 83 seats and Congress 95 seats.
According to another scenario, (if 2% swings against BJP) in rural areas, BJP will get 20 seats and Congress 74 seats. BJP in semi-urban areas 18 seats and Congress 27 seats, BJP in 27 and Congress 12 in urban areas seats are estimated to be win. Add it to BJP will get 65 seats and Congress will get 113 seats.
Significantly, for the second phase of Gujarat assembly elections, it will be voted on Thursday 14th December. Voting will last from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. This phase will be voted on 93 seats.
All preparations have been completed for the second phase by the Election Commission. 25,558 polling booths have been set up for voting. In this phase, there are 851 candidates in the fray, including 782 male and 69 female candidates.
According to the Election Commission, in the second phase, there are 2 crore 22 lakh 96,867 voters. The number of male voters is 1 crore 15 lakh 47,435 and the number of female voters is 1 crore seven lakh 48,977.
India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi's website www.narendramodi.in had a story headline on December 12: PM Modi, who travels from Seaplane, is India's first passenger.
Prior to the second phase of polling on Tuesday, PM Modi traveled from Seaplane to the Dhoroi dam of Mehsana in Sabarmati river of Ahmedabad.
However, later this headline was changed.
The first seaplane tour in India was also claimed on the official Twitter handle of BJP. This is tweeted by other BJP leaders also on their own account. Various TV channels also included the same thing in their headings.
It was said that the seaplane journey will change the look of traffic in India.
But was this really the first seaplane service?
The answer is no.
According to ALT News, the first commercial seaplane service in India was started in 2010. In December of that year, Andaman and Nicobar Islands Administration and public sector helicopter company Pawan Hans jointly launched a service called Jal Hans.
India's then Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel has confirmed this by tweeting recently. The Jal Hans service has now been closed.
In Kerala, the Government of Kerala launched an initiative to launch the seaplane service in June 2013. But protesting by the local fish community failed this project. About that time, Chief Minister of Kerala, Oommen Chandy, did the tweet.
The government has not only initiated the process of bringing the seaplane service to India. Many private companies have announced to launch it in 2011-12. Seabird Seaplane Pvt Ltd was included in 2011. The company had announced to provide service to Kerala and Lakshadweep.
It was also revealed that many safety standards were not taken care of during the trip from Seaplane. You would be surprised to know that this aircraft was a single engine plane, it is clear that if the engine accidentally failed, then it could have been a big mistake.
Sources say that the issue of security standards was raised in front of PM Modi, but they ignored him and traveled by risking his life.
Brijgopal Harkishan Loya, the judge presiding over the CBI special court in Mumbai, died sometime between the night of 30 November and the early morning of 1 December 2014, while on a trip to Nagpur. At the time of his death, he was hearing the Sohrabuddin case, in which the prime accused was the Bharatiya Janata Party president Amit Shah. The media reported at the time that Loya had died of a heart attack. But my investigations between November 2016 and November 2017 raised disturbing questions about the circumstances surrounding Loya’s death—including questions regarding the condition of his body when it was handed over to his family.
Among those I spoke to was one of Loya’s sisters, Anuradha Biyani, a medical doctor based in Dhule, Maharashtra. Biyani made an explosive claim to me: Loya, she said, confided to her that Mohit Shah, then the chief justice of the Bombay High Court, had offered him a bribe of Rs 100 crore in return for a favourable judgment. She said Loya had told her this some weeks before he died, when the family gathered for Diwali at their ancestral home in Gategaon. Loya’s father Harkishan also told me that his son had told him he had offers to deliver a favourable judgment in exchange for money and a house in Mumbai.
Brijgopal Harkishan Loya was appointed to the special CBI court in June 2014, after his predecessor, JT Utpat, was transferred within weeks of reprimanding Amit Shah for seeking an exemption from appearing in court. According to a February 2015 reportin Outlook, “During the CBI court’s hearings that Utpat presided over for this one year, or even after, court records suggest Amit Shah had never turned up even once—including on the final day of discharge. Shah’s counsel apparently made oral submissions for exempting him from personal appearance on grounds ranging from him being ‘a diabetic and hence unable to move’ to the more blase: ‘he is busy in Delhi.’”
The Outlook report continued: “On June 6, 2014, Utpat had made his displeasure known to Shah’s counsel and, while allowing exemption for that day, ordered Shah’s presence on June 20. But he didn’t show up again. According to media reports, Utpat told Shah’s counsel, ‘Every time you are seeking exemption without giving any reason.’” Utpat, the story noted, “fixed the next hearing for June 26. But on 25th, he was transferred to Pune.” This was in violation of a September 2012 Supreme Court order, that the Sohrabuddin trial “should be conducted from beginning to end by the same officer.”
Loya had at first appeared well disposed towards Shah’s request that he be exempted from personally appearing in court. As Outlook noted, “Utpat’s successor Loya was indulgent, waiving Shah’s personal appearance on each date.” But this apparent indulgence may just have been a matter of procedure. According to the Outlook story, “significantly, one of his last notings stated that Shah was being exempted from personal appearance ‘till the framing of charges.’ Loya had clearly not harboured the thought of dropping charges against Shah even when he appeared to be gentle on him.” According to the lawyer Mihir Desai, who represented Sohrabuddin’s brother Rubabuddin—the complainant in the case—Loya was keen on scrutinising the entire chargesheet, which ran to more than 10,000 pages, and on examining the evidence and witnesses carefully. “The case was sensitive and important, and it was going to create and decide the reputation of Mr Loya as a judge,” Desai said. “But the pressure was certainly mounting.”
Nupur Balaprasad Biyani, a niece of Loya’s who stayed with his family in Mumbai while studying in the city, told me about the extent of the pressure she witnessed her uncle facing. “When he was coming from the court, he was like, ‘bahut tension hai,’” she said. “Stress. It’s a very big case. How to deal with it. Everyone is involved with it.” Nupur said it was a question of “political values.”
Desai told me, “The courtroom always used to be extremely tense. The defence lawyers used to insist on discharging Amit Shah of all the charges, while we were demanding for the transcripts of the calls, submitted as evidence by the CBI, to be provided in English.” He pointed out that neither Loya nor the complainant understood Gujarati, the language on the tapes.
But the defence lawyers, Desai said, repeatedly brushed aside the demands for transcripts in English, and insisted that Shah’s discharge petition be heard. Desai added that his junior lawyers often noticed unknown, suspicious-looking people inside the courtroom, whispering and staring at the complainant’s lawyers in an intimidating manner.
Desai recounted that during a hearing on 31 October, Loya asked why Shah was absent. His lawyers pointed out that he had been exempted from appearance by Loya himself. Loya remarked that the exemption applied only when Shah was not in the state. That day, he said, Shah was in Mumbai to attend the swearing-in of the new BJP-led government in Maharashtra, and was only 1.5 kilometres away from the court. He instructed Shah’s counsel to ensure his appearance when he was in the state, and set the next hearing for 15 December.
Anuradha Biyani told me that Loya confided in her that Mohit Shah, who served as the chief justice of the Bombay High Court between June 2010 and September 2015, offered Loya a bribe of Rs 100 crore for a favourable judgment. According to her, Mohit Shah “would call him late at night to meet in civil dress and pressure him to issue the judgment as soon as possible and to ensure that it is a positive judgment.” According to Biyani, “My brother was offered a bribe of 100 crore in return for a favourable judgment. Mohit Shah, the chief justice, made the offer himself.”
She added that Mohit Shah told her brother that if “the judgment is delivered before 30 December, it won’t be under focus at all because at the same time, there was going to be another explosive story which would ensure that people would not take notice of this.”
Loya’s father Harkishan also told me that his son had confided in him about bribe offers. “Yes, he was offered money,” Harkishan said. “Do you want a house in Mumbai, how much land do you want, how much money do you want, he used to tell us this. This was an offer.” But, he added, his son refused to succumb to the offers. “He told me I am going to turn in my resignation or get a transfer,” Harkishan said. “I will move to my village and do farming.”
I contacted Mohit Shah and Amit Shah for their responses to the family’s claims. At the time this story was published, they had not responded. The story will be updated if and when they reply.
After Loya’s death, MB Gosavi was appointed to the Sohrabuddin case. Gosavi began hearing the case on 15 December 2014. “He heard the defence lawyers argue for three days to discharge Amit Shah of all the charges, while the CBI, the prosecuting agency, argued for 15 minutes,” Mihir Desai said. “He concluded the hearing on 17 December and reserved his order.”
On 30 December, around one month after Loya’s death, Gosavi upheld the defence’s argument that the CBI had political motives for implicating the accused. With that, he discharged Amit Shah.
The same day, news of MS Dhoni’s retirement from test cricket dominated television screens across the country. As Biyani recounted, “There was just a ticker at the bottom which said, ‘Amit Shah not guilty. Amit Shah not guilty.’”
Mohit Shah visited the grieving family only around two and half months after Loya’s death. From Loya’s family, I obtained a copy of a letter that they said Anuj, Loya’s son, wrote to his family on the day of the then chief justice’s visit. It is dated 18 February 2015—80 days after Loya’s death. Anuj wrote, “I fear that these politicians can harm any person from my family and I am also not powerful enough to fight with them.” He also wrote, referring to Mohit Shah, “I asked him to set up an enquiry commission for dad’s death. I fear that to stop us from doing anything against them, they can harm anyone of our family members. There is threat to our lives.”
Anuj wrote twice in the letter that “if anything happens to me or my family, chief justice Mohit Shah and others involved in the conspiracy will be responsible.”
When I met him in November 2016, Loya’s father Harkishan said, “I am 85 and I am not scared of death now. I want justice too, but I am extremely scared for the life of my daughters and grandchildren.” He had tears in his eyes as he spoke, and his gaze went often to the garlanded photograph of Loya hanging on the wall of the ancestral home.
Niranjan Takle is an electronics engineer by training and a journalist by choice. He has worked for CNN-IBN and The Week, among other organisations.
On the morning of 1 December 2014, the family of 48-year-old judge Brijgopal Harkishan Loya, who was presiding over the Central Bureau of Investigation special court in Mumbai, was informed that he had died in Nagpur, where he had travelled for a colleague’s daughter’s wedding. Loya had been hearing one of the most high-profile cases in the country, involving the allegedly staged encounter killing of Sohrabuddin Sheikh in 2005. The prime accused in the case was Amit Shah—Gujarat’s minister of state for home at the time of Sohrabuddin’s killing, and the Bharatiya Janata Party’s national president at the time of Loya’s death. The media reported that the judge had died of a heart attack.
Loya’s family did not speak to the media after his death. But in November 2016, Loya’s niece, Nupur Balaprasad Biyani, approached me while I was visiting Pune to say she had concerns about the circumstances surrounding her uncle’s death. Following this, over several meetings between November 2016 and November 2017, I spoke to her mother, Anuradha Biyani, who is Loya’s sister and a medical doctor in government service; another of Loya’s sisters, Sarita Mandhane; and Loya’s father, Harkishan. I also tracked down and spoke to government servants in Nagpur who witnessed the procedures followed with regard to the judge’s body after his death, including the post-mortem.
From these accounts, deeply disturbing questions emerged about Loya’s death: questions about inconsistencies in the reported account of the death; about the procedures followed after his death; and about the condition of the judge’s body when it was handed over to the family. Though the family asked for an inquiry commission to probe Loya’s death, none was ever set up.
At 11 pm on 30 November 2014, from Nagpur, Loya phoned his wife, Sharmila, using his mobile phone. Over around 40 minutes, he described to her his busy schedule through the day. Loya was in Nagpur to attend the wedding of the daughter of a fellow judge, Sapna Joshi. Initially he had not intended to go, but two of his fellow judges had insisted that he accompany them. Loya told his wife that he had attended the wedding, and later attended a reception. He also enquired about his son, Anuj. He said that he was staying at Ravi Bhavan, a government guest house for VIPs in Nagpur’s Civil Lines locality, along with the judges he had accompanied to Nagpur.
It was the last call that Loya is known to have made, and the last conversation that he is known to have had. His family received the news of his death early the next morning.
“His wife in Mumbai, myself in Latur city and my daughters in Dhule, Jalgaon and Aurangabad received calls,” early on the morning of 1 December 2014, Harkishan Loya, the judge’s father, told me when we first met, in November 2016, in his native village of Gategaon, near Latur city. They were informed “that Brij passed away in the night, that his post-mortem was over and his body had been sent to our ancestral home in Gategaon, in Latur district,” he added. “I felt like an earthquake had shattered my life.”
The family was told that Loya had died of a cardiac arrest. “We were told that he had chest pain, and so was taken to Dande Hospital, a private hospital in Nagpur, by auto rickshaw, where some medication was provided,” Harkishan said. Biyani, Loya’s sister, described Dande Hospital as “an obscure place,” and said that she “later learnt that the ECG”—the electrocardiography unit at the facility—“was not working.” Later, Harkishan said, Loya “was shifted to Meditrina hospital”—another private hospital in the city—“where he was declared dead on arrival.”
The Sohrabuddin case was the only one that Loya was hearing at the time of his death, and was one of the most carefully watched cases then underway in the country. In 2012, the Supreme Court had ordered that the trial in the case be shifted from Gujarat to Maharashtra, stating that it was “convinced that in order to preserve the integrity of the trial it is necessary to shift it outside the State.” The Supreme Court had also ordered that the trial be heard by the same judge from start to finish. But, in violation of this order, JT Utpat, the judge who first heard the trial, was transferred from the CBI special court in mid 2014, and replaced by Loya.
On 6 June 2014, Utpat had reprimanded Amit Shah for seeking exemption from appearing in court. After Shah failed to appear on the next date, 20 June, Utpat fixed a hearing for 26 June. The judge was transferred on 25 June. On 31 October 2014, Loya, who had allowed Shah the exemption, asked why Shah had failed to appear in court despite being in Mumbai on that date. He set the next date of hearing for 15 December.
Loya’s death on 1 December was reported only in a few routine news articles the next day, and did not attract significant media attention. The Indian Express, while reporting that Loya had “died of a heart attack” noted, “Sources close to him said that Loya had sound medical history.” The media attention picked up briefly on 3 December, when MPs of the Trinamool Congress staged a protest outside the parliament, where the winter session was under way, to demand an inquiry into Loya’s death. The next day, Sohrabuddin’s brother, Rubabuddin, wrote a letter to the CBI, expressing his shock at Loya’s death.
Nothing came of the MPs’ protests, or Rubabuddin’s letter. No follow-up stories appeared on the circumstances surrounding Loya’s death.
Over numerous conversations with Loya’s family members, I pieced together a chilling description of what Loya went through while presiding over the Sohrabuddin trial, and of what happened following his death. Biyani also gave me copies of a diary she said she maintains regularly, which included entries from the days preceding and following her brother’s death. In these, she noted many aspects of the incident that disturbed her. I also reached out to Loya’s wife and son, but they declined to speak, saying that they feared for their lives.
Biyani, who is based in Dhule, told me that she received a call on the morning of 1 December 2014 from someone identifying himself as a judge named Barde, who told her to travel to Gategaon, some 30 kilometres from Latur, where Loya’s body was sent. The same caller also informed Biyani and other members of the family that a post-mortem had been conducted on the body, and that the cause of death was a heart attack.
Loya’s father normally resides in Gategaon, but was in Latur at the time, at the house of one of his daughters. He, too, received a phone call, telling him his son’s body would be moved to Gategaon. “Ishwar Baheti, an RSS worker, had informed father that he would arrange for the body to reach Gategaon,” Biyani told me. “Nobody knows why, how and when he came to know about the death of Brij Loya.”
Sarita Mandhane, another of Loya’s sisters, who runs a tuition centre in Aurangabad and was visiting Latur at the time, told me that she received a call from Barde at around 5 am, informing her that Loya had died. “He said that Brij has passed away in Nagpur and asked us to rush to Nagpur,” she said. She set out to pick up her nephew from a hospital in Latur where he had earlier been admitted, but “just as we were leaving the hospital, this person, Ishwar Baheti, came there. I still don’t know how he came to know that we were at Sarda Hospital.” According to Mandhane, Baheti said that he had been talking through the night with people in Nagpur, and insisted that there was no point in going to Nagpur since the body was being sent to Gategaon from there in an ambulance. “He took us to his house, saying that he will coordinate everything,” she said. (Questions that I sent to Baheti were still unanswered at the time this story was published.)
It was night by the time Biyani reached Gategaon—the other sisters were already at the ancestral home by then. The body was delivered at around 11.30 pm, after Biyani’s arrival, according to an entry in her diary. To the family’s shock, none of Loya’s colleagues had accompanied his body on the journey from Nagpur. The only person accompanying the body was the ambulance driver. “It was shocking,” Biyani said. “The two judges who had insisted that he travel to Nagpur for the marriage had not accompanied him. Mr Barde, who informed the family of his death and his post-mortem, had not accompanied him. This question haunts me: why was his body not accompanied by anyone?” One of her diary entries reads, “He was a CBI court judge, he was supposed to have security and he deserved to be properly accompanied.”
Loya’s wife, Sharmila, and his daughter and son, Apurva and Anuj, travelled to Gategaon from Mumbai, accompanied by a few judges. One of them “was constantly telling Anuj and the others not to speak to anybody,” Biyani told me. “Anuj was of course sad and scared, but he maintained his poise and kept supporting his mother.”
Biyani recounted that when she saw the body, she felt that something was amiss. “There were bloodstains on the neck at the back of the shirt,” she told me. She added that his “spectacles were below the neck.” Mandhane told me that Loya’s spectacles were “stuck under his body.”
A diary entry by Biyani from the time reads, “There was blood on his collar. His belt was twisted in the opposite direction, and the pant clip is broken. Even my uncle feels that this is suspicious.” Harkishan told me, “There were bloodstains on the clothes.” Mandhane said that she, too, saw “blood on the neck.” She said that “there was blood and an injury on his head … on the back side,” and that “his shirt had blood spots.” Harkishan said, “His shirt had blood on it from his left shoulder to his waist.”
But in the post-mortem report, issued by the Government Medical College Hospital in Nagpur, under a category described as “Condition of the clothes—whether wet with water, stained with blood or soiled with vomit or foecal matter,” a handwritten entry reads, simply, “Dry.”
Biyani found the state of the body suspicious because, as a doctor, “I know that blood does not come out during PM”—post-mortem—“since the heart and lungs don’t function.” She said that she demanded a second post-mortem, but that Loya’s gathered friends and colleagues “discouraged us, telling us not to complicate the issue more.”
The family was tense and scared, but was forced to carry out Loya’s funeral, Harkishan said.
Legal experts suggest that if Loya’s death was deemed suspicious—the fact that a post-mortem was ordered suggests that it was—a panchnama should have been prepared, and a medico-legal case should have been filed. “As per legal procedure, the police department is expected to collect and seal all the personal belongings of the deceased, list them all in a panchnama and hand them over to the family as they are,” Asim Sarode, a senior Pune-based lawyer, told me. Biyani said the family was not given any copy of a panchnama.
Loya’s mobile phone was returned to the family, but, Biyani said, it was returned by Baheti, and not by the police. “We got his mobile on the third or fourth day,” she said. “I had asked for it immediately. It had information about his calls and all that happened. We would have known about it if we got it. And the SMSes. Just one or two days before this news, a message had come which said, ‘Sir, stay safe from these people.’ That SMS was on the phone. Everything was deleted from it.”
Biyani had numerous questions about the events of the night of Loya’s death and the following morning. Among them was that of how and why Loya had been taken to hospital in an auto rickshaw, when the auto stand nearest to Ravi Bhavan is around two kilometres away from it. “There is no auto rickshaw stand near Ravi Bhavan, and people do not get auto rickshaws near Ravi Bhavan even during the day,” Biyani said. “How did the men accompanying him manage to get an auto rickshaw at midnight?”
Other questions, too, remain unanswered. Why was the family not informed when Loya was taken to hospital? Why were they not informed as soon as he died? Why were they not asked for approval of a post-mortem, or informed that one was to be performed, before the procedure was carried out? Who recommended the post-mortem, and why? What was suspicious about Loya’s death to cause a post-mortem to be recommended? What medication was administered to him at Dande Hospital? Was there not a single vehicle in Ravi Bhavan—which regularly hosts VIPs, including ministers, IAS and IPS officers and judges—available to ferry Loya to hospital? The winter session of the Maharashtra state assembly was to begin in Nagpur on 7 December, and hundreds of officials usually arrive in the city well in advance of assembly sessions for the preparations. Who were the other VIPs staying in Ravi Bhavan on 30 November and 1 December? “These all are very valid questions,” Sarode, the lawyer, said. “Why was the report of the medication administered at Dande hospital not given to the family? Will the answers to these questions create problems for someone?”
Questions such as these “still keep bothering the family, friends and relatives,” Biyani said.
It added to their confusion that the judges who had insisted that Loya travel to Nagpur did not visit the family for “one or one and a half months” after his death, she said. It was only then that the family heard their account of Loya’s last hours. According to Biyani, the two men told the family that Loya experienced chest pain at around 12.30 am, that they then took him to Dande Hospital in an auto rickshaw, and that there, “he climbed the stairs himself and some medication was administered. He was taken to Meditrina hospital where he was declared dead on arrival.”
Even after this, many questions were left unanswered. “We did try to get the details of the treatment administered in Dande Hospital, but the doctors and the staff there simply refused to divulge any details,” Biyani said.
I accessed the report of Loya’s post-mortem, conducted at the Government Medical College Hospital in Nagpur. The document raises several questions of its own.
Every page of the post-mortem report is signed by the senior police inspector of Sadar police station, Nagpur, and by someone who signed with the phrase “maiyatacha chulatbhau”—or the paternal cousin brother of the deceased. This latter person is supposed to have received the body after the post-mortem examination. “I do not have any brother or paternal cousin brother in Nagpur,” Loya’s father said. “Who signed on the report is another unanswered question.”
Further, the report states that the corpse was sent from Meditrina Hospital to the Government Medical College Hospital by the Sitabardi police station, Nagpur, and that it was brought in by a police constable named Pankaj, of Sitabardi police station, whose badge number is 6238. It notes that the body was brought in at 10.50 am on 1 December 2014, that the post-mortem began at 10.55 am, and that it was over at 11.55 am.
The report also noted that, as per the police, Loya “died on 1/12/14 at 0615 hours” after experiencing “chest pains at 0400 am.” It stated, “He was brought to Dande hospital first and then shifted to Meditrina hospital where he was declared to be in dead condition.”
The time of death cited in the report—6.15 am—appears incongruous, since, according to Loya’s family members, they began receiving calls about his death from 5 am onwards. Further, during my investigation, two sources in Nagpur’s Government Medical College and Sitabardi police station told me they had been informed of Loya’s death by midnight, and had personally seen the dead body during the night. They also said that the post-mortem was done shortly after midnight. Apart from the calls that the family received, the sources’ accounts also raise serious questions about the post-mortem report’s claim that the time of death was 6.15 am.
The source at the medical college, who was privy to the post-mortem examination, also told me that he knew that there had been instructions from superiors to “cut up the body as if the PM was done and stitch it up.”
The report mentions “coronary artery insufficiency” as the probable cause of death. According to the renowned Mumbai-based cardiologist Hasmukh Ravat, “Usually old age, family history, smoking, high cholesterol, high blood pressure, obesity, diabetes are the causes for such coronary artery insufficiency.” Biyani pointed out that none of these were applicable to her brother. “Brij was 48,” she said. “Our parents are 85 and 80 years old, and are healthy with no cardiac history. He was always a teetotaller, played table tennis for two hours a day for years, had no diabetes or blood pressure.”
Biyani told me that she found the official medical explanation for her brother’s death hard to believe. “I am a doctor myself, and Brij used to consult me even for minor complaints such as acidity or cough,” she said. “He had no cardiac history and no one from our family has it.”
Niranjan Takle is an electronics engineer by training and a journalist by choice. He has worked for CNN-IBN and The Week, among other organisations.
Standard & Poor's (S & B) has released its rating regarding India's economy. There has been no change in India's grades in this rating on Friday. This is BBB only. Whereas, Outlook is stated to be stable.
This information has been given in many TV reports with reference to the sources. However, the official statement is yet to come.
Standard & Poor's appreciated the steps taken by the Modi Government on the front of the economy, but did not upgrade the rating.
Explain that BBB grade is the lowest category related to investment.
Earlier, Moody's had recently upgraded India's rating to BAA 2. This improvement in the rating took place after 13 years. Due to economic and institutional reforms, the prospects for a better growth in the domestic economy were improved by the agency. Earlier, in 2004, India's rating was improved to BAA 3. BAA rating is the lowest rating of the investment category. In 2015, it stabilized the rating scenario positively.
Actually, this rating is indicative of the investment environment of any country. It gives investors information about risks related to investment in a country. These risks also include political risks.
For a long time, India has been rated the lowest in the rating category BAA 3. Moody's now topped it a notch. This improvement in the rating was done at a time when only a few days ago, India's position in the World Bank Business Facilitator (Is of doing Business) report was up 30 places to 100.
But Standard & Poor's (S & B) has issued its rating regarding India's economy. There has been no change in India's grades in this rating on Friday. This is BBB only. Whereas, Outlook is stated to be stable.
