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Seeking to drive a wedge into their anti-BJP alliance, Uttar Pradesh Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Prasad Maurya said on Monday that BSP president Mayawati will be “ditched” by SP chief Akhilesh Yadav after election results are announced on May 23, “and then, only the BJP will support her”.
“The Samajwadi Party has never given due honour to Dalits. In 1995, when Mayawati was attacked at the State Guest House here by SP leaders on the directions of Mulayam Singh Yadav, the BJP had saved her. Now, his son Akhilesh will dump her after May 23 and the BJP will support her,” he told news agency PTI in an interview.
“Whenever Mayawati is in crisis, the BJP supports her and will continue to do so in the future too,” Keshav Maurya added.
Asserting that the BJP is pro-Dalit, the UP Deputy Chief Minister said, “At Kumbh, Prime Minister Narendra Modi washed the feet of sanitary workers to give them due honour. Our party leaders are always there for Dalits.”
About Congress’s prospects in the upcoming general election, he said irrespective of the tall claims of the opposition party, its strength would be reduced further after the elections. “The BJP is going to form the government under the leadership of PM Modi again, with Uttar Pradesh giving it 74 plus seats.”
The state accounts for the highest number of 80 Lok Sabha seats in the country.
Keshav Maurya’s statement came a day after he had targeted Mayawati on her remark at a Deoband rally, where she had asked the Muslim voters not to split their votes.
“Her statement clearly indicates that she has only used Dalits as a vote bank and has not respected them. She has started hating them after their tilt towards the BJP after the saffron party empowered them. She has now appealed to the Muslims to vote for her but the community knows the reality of the SP-BSP-RLD alliance,” he said.
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The Election Commission said on Monday it will make all-out efforts to implement the directions of the Supreme Court to increase random matching of EVM results with paper trail machine slips from one polling station per assembly seat to five “with immediate effect”.
The Supreme Court has directed the poll panel to increase random matching of voter-verifiable paper audit trail (VVPAT) slips with electronic voting machine results from one polling station per assembly segment to five, in the seven-phased Lok Sabha polls beginning April 11.
The top court said its direction was issued keeping in mind confidence of voters and credibility of the electoral process.
“The ECI shall make all-out efforts to operationalise and implement the directions of the Supreme Court with immediate effect,” a Commission spokesperson said.
A bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi also did not agree with the demand of 21 opposition parties that matching of EVM-VVPAT results be done in 50 per cent cases saying it will require huge manpower and will not be feasible in view of infrastructural difficulties.
The bench also comprising Justices Deepak Gupta and Sanjiv Khanna disposed of the petition filed by opposition parties, including TDP chief Chandrababu Naidu, on the issue.
After votes are cast, the polling station where VVPAT slips are matched with EVM results is decided by a draw of lots or lottery system in the presence of candidates.
Voter-verifiable paper audit trail or paper trail machine is a device which dispenses a slip with the symbol of the party for which a person has voted for.
The slip appears on a small window for seven seconds and then drops in a box. The voter cannot take it home. VVPATs are used in all polling stations. Till now, results of EVMs and VVPATs are matched in one polling station per assembly segment.
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The Bharatiya Janata Party’s poll manifesto released Monday detailed the government’s achievements these last five years, sharpened its focus on security and welfare without falling back on party core issues such as the Ram Mandir and the Uniform Civil Code.
“We will explore all options to build the Ram Mandir as soon as possible in a harmonious manner,” Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh said after the manifesto was launched in the presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, BJP chief Amit Shah and other top party leaders.
The manifesto is also committed to annulling Article 35A of the Constitution, as the “provision is discriminatory against non-permanent residents of Jammu and Kashmir”.
The manifesto or sankalp patra (document of promises) was based on the theme of a ‘Sankalpit Bharat, Shashakt Bharat’ (Determined India, Empowered India).
“Nationalism is our inspiration, we aim to reach the last man in the queue, and give the country good governance,” Prime Minister Narendra Modi said.
Modi, while emphasising the salient points of the manifesto, said it was his duty to take India on “one mission, one direction”.
“We should think how by 2047, India could become a developed country. We will work hard in the next five years, from 2019 to 2024, to build a solid foundation for that dream,” Modi said.
Speaking first, Amit Shah lauded the five-year rule of Narendra Modi, stating that he had provided India a decisive government. “India’s development from 2014 to 2019 will be written in golden words in history,” Shah said, adding, “He has dared to carry out air and surgical strikes on the very foundation of terror”.
He spoke of the development work done in the last five years. He said the party has made 75 pledges in the manifesto, promising “to fulfill all expectations of the people” by the time India turns 75.
Shah harped more on the government’s efforts to deal with terrorism, saying, “Prime Minister Narendra Modi has sent out a strong message that India cannot be taken lightly.”
After the manifesto release, Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh said the document touched upon every section and region. “It is a visionary and practical document,” he said.
A 13-member team led 15 sub panels under Singh to prepare the manifesto. Amit Shah also said the document has been prepared after consulting nearly six crore people.
Singh also said people’s faith in Narendra Modi has increased. “Development is now fast paced. We made procedural and structural changes. We gave a responsible, sensitive government with firm commitment,” Singh said.
Explaining the BJP’s manifesto, Singh said, “With promises made in this manifesto, we are taking a step towards building a ‘New India.’ We had a zero tolerance policy towards terrorism, it will continue till terror is eliminated completely.” Singh also said strike capabilities of armed forces would be strengthened with modern equipment.
“‘Sankalp Patra’ is a vision document that lists expectations of 130 crore Indians. We launched 300 raths, 4000 ‘mann ki baat’ events and 110 samvad programmes,” said Rajnath Singh, explaining the work behind the manifesto.
Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said the manifesto was prepared with a strong national vision, not with a ‘tukde tukde’ or Ivy League mindset. “This manifesto is rooted in Indian reality,” he said, adding, “Our new policy, new doctrine of striking terror at its very origin has received global recognition.”
External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj said: “We are working for a stable and strong government, whereas the Opposition is working to form a weak collation government.”
The Congress manifesto had put major thrust on welfare measures, including a promise of giving Rs 72,000 to the poorest 20 per cent households in India.
Senior BJP leader Arun Jaitley had on Sunday unveiled campaign themes and other materials of the party’s election campaign, with ‘Phir ek baar, Modi sarkar (Modi government, once more)’ as the tag line.
Health
One in five deaths globally are linked to poor diet, experts said recently, warning that overconsumption of sugar, salt and meat was killing millions of people every year.
The United Nations estimates that nearly a billion people worldwide are malnourished, while nearly two billion are “overnourished”. But the latest study on global diet trends, published in The Lancet, showed that in nearly every one of the 195 countries surveyed, people were also eating too much of the wrong types of food and consuming worryingly low levels of healthier produce.
For example, the world on average consumes more than ten times the recommended amount of sugar-sweetened beverages and 86 percent more sodium per person than is considered safe.
The study, which examined consumption and disease trends between 1990-2017, also cautioned that too many people were eating far too few whole grains, fruit, nuts and seeds to maintain a healthy lifestyle.
Of the 11 million deaths attributed to poor diet, by far the largest killer was cardiovascular disease, which is often caused or worsened by obesity.
“This study affirms what many have thought for several years that poor diet is responsible for more deaths than any other risk factor in the world,” said study author Christopher Murray, director of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington.
“Our assessment suggests the leading dietary risk factors are high intake of sodium, or low intake of health foods.” The report highlighted large variation in diet-related deaths between nations, with the highest-risk country Uzbekistan having ten times the food-based mortality rate of the lowest-risk, Israel.
In January, a consortium of three dozen researchers called for a dramatic shift in the way the world eats. The EAT-Lancet report said that the global population must eat roughly half as much red meat and sugar, and twice as many vegetables, fruits and nuts in order to avert a worldwide obesity epidemic and avoid “catastrophic” climate change.
Authors of Thursday’s study noted that economic inequality was a factor in poor dietary choices in many countries. It found that on average, reaching the “five-a-day” fruit and vegetable servings advocated by doctors cost just two percent of household income in rich nations, but more than a half of household income in poorer ones.
“This study gives us good evidence of what to target to improve diets, and therefore health, at the global and national level,” said Oyinlola Oyebode, Associate Professor at Warwick Medical School, who was not involved in the research.
“The lack of fruit, vegetables and whole grains in diets across the world are very important, but the other dietary factor highlighted by this study is the high intake of sodium.”
Health
Poor diet leads to hundreds of deaths in India annually, according to a Lancet study which found that globally one in five people die due to the lack of optimal amounts of food and nutrients on their plates.
The report, which tracked trends in consumption of 15 dietary factors from 1990 to 2017 in 195 countries, showed that almost every region of the world could benefit from rebalancing their diets.
The study estimates that one in five deaths globally — equivalent to 11 million deaths — are associated with poor diet, and diet contributes to a range of chronic diseases in people around the world.
In 2017, more deaths were caused by diets with too low amounts of foods such as whole grains, fruit, nuts and seeds than by diets with high levels of foods like trans fats, sugary drinks, and high levels of red and processed meats.
Low intake of whole grains — below 125 grammes per day — was the leading dietary risk factor for death and disease in India, the US, Brazil, Pakistan, Nigeria, Russia, Egypt, Germany, Iran, and Turkey.
In Bangladesh, low intake of fruits — below 250 grammes per day — was the leading dietary risk. In 2017, the countries with the lowest rates of diet-related deaths were Israel, France, Spain, Japan, and Andorra. India ranked 118th with 310 deaths per 100,000 people.
The UK ranked 23rd (127 deaths per 100,000), and the US ranked 43rd (171 deaths per 100,000) after Rwanda and Nigeria (41st and 42nd). China ranked 140th, with 350 deaths per 100,000 people, researchers said in a statement. The findings highlight the urgent need for coordinated global efforts to improve diet, through collaboration with various sections of the food system and policies that drive balanced diets. “This study affirms what many have thought for several years — that poor diet is responsible for more deaths than any other risk factor in the world,” said Christopher Murray, at University of Washington in the US.
“While sodium, sugar, and fat have been the focus of policy debates over the past two decades, our assessment suggests the leading dietary risk factors are high intake of sodium, or low intake of healthy foods, such as whole grains, fruit, nuts and seeds, and vegetables,” said Murray.
The study evaluated the consumption of major foods and nutrients across 195 countries and quantified the impact of poor diets on death and disease from non-communicable diseases
