Jaipur:

The Rajasthan government has effected a major bureaucratic reshuffle – including assigning four women with strong track records and a clean image to head critical departments, such as urban development for capital city Jaipur, which will host a major investors in early December.

The changes indicate that Chief Minister Bhajan Lal Sharma – a surprise pick by the ruling BJP to replace Congress veteran Ashok Gehlot after last year’s election – has bedded into his new role.

The message, sources told NDTV, is that this government “is not taking timid steps”.

The changes also come after a dig by Mr Gehlot, who said the IAS officers running his Congress government were also running that of the BJP.

The ‘big four’ postings are Anandi, who will now head the Jaipur Development Authority; Arti Dogra, who is the new Chairperson of the state’s electricity discoms; Gayatri Rathore, who will take charge as Health Secretary; and Shuchi Tyagi, who will be the Transport Commissioner.

The four women take charge at crucial junctures for each government body.

The Jaipur Development Authority was raided by the state anti-corruption bureau last month, after which several officers were arrested and over 100 transferred. The JDA faces a major challenge in getting the city ready for the investors’ summit, particularly after the monsoons.

Sustained electricity supply and reliable public transportation will also be in the spotlight during the summit, underlining expectations against Ms Dogra and Ms Tyagi.

And, following heavy rains and flooding, fears of vector-borne diseases will mean Ms Rathore, who was earlier the Tourism Secretary, will have her hands full.

Overall, 108 IAS officers have been shuffled around, also including eight new Collectors for Jaipur, one of whom is Jitendra Soni, who received plaudits for his work during the Jalore floods and for a programme to give shoes to children in the district.

Also, the state’s Jal Jeevan Mission, which was under scrutiny over alleged financial irregularities during the previous government, has been given a new chief – Bhasker Sawant.

Among other transfers is a new Collector for Barmer – Tina Dabi, the high-profile bureaucrat whose wedding to fellow IAS officer Pradeep Gawande last year made headlines.

Ms Dabi rose to fame in 2015 as the first Dalit to top the competitive Civil Services examination. She was earlier the District Collector for Jaisalmer.

Kota:

A 28-year-old was arrested for allegedly raping his mother in an inebriated state in Bundi district, police on Wednesday said.

According to the police, the incident occurred on Friday, when the accused was returning home at a village with his 52-year-old mother, they said.

After the incident, the victim, along with her younger son and daughter, reached Dabi Police Station and lodged a complaint against her son, police said.

Police arrested the accused, who during initial interrogation confessed his crime. He was produced before a court and was sent to jail.

According to the police, the victim with her son had gone to her brother’s house. When both were walking back, he raped his mother at an isolated place.

“We have arrested the accused and further investigation is underway. the accused was produced before a court which sent him to judicial custody,” Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) Tarunkant Somani said.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Jaipur:

Two people were arrested for allegedly tying a woman to a tree and beating her with a stick in Rajasthan’s Sanchore district, police said on Thursday.

The accused were identified as Mangalaram and Hiraram, relatives of the victim, police said.

A purported video of the incident surfaced online showing the accused, beating the woman with a stick, who was tied to a tree.

The incident occurred on Rakshabandhan in Narsana village, police said.

Based on the victim’s complaint, a case was registered and the accused were arrested. Further investigation is underway, police added.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Jaipur:

A 20-year-old Pakistani national who crossed the border and was caught by the BSF in Rajasthan’s Barmer has told police that he had crossed the border to evade the family members of his girlfriend.

The man, who identified himself as Jagsi Koli, was caught by the BSF on August 25 in Barmer and was handed over to the local police for interrogation on Monday.

SP Barmer Narendra Singh Meena said that during preliminary interrogation, the Pakistani national claimed that he was trying to escape the family members of his girlfriend and crossed the border.

“The man said that he had gone to meet his girlfriend in the Tharparkar district of Pakistan but her family members spotted him so he escaped from there with a scarf of the girl. He said that he also attempted to die by suicide but could not succeed and crossed the border,” the SP said.

He said the accused was being interrogated, adding that a joint interrogation by intelligence agencies will continue.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Jaipur:

The Rajasthan assembly may have witnessed unruly scenes in the past, but this is the first time a sitting MLA has been accused of biting inside the Vidhan Sabha. The BJP has accused the Congress MLA from Ladnu, Mukesh Bhakar, of biting two security personnel – one of them a woman — inside the Vidhan Sabha on Monday evening. 

The fracas happened when Mr Bhakar tried to raise the issue of a legal post given to a minister in the Bhajan Lal government. The Speaker objected to gestures Mr Bhakar made while being seated. 

The situation escalated and the Congress leader was asked to leave the House. 

But the Congress decided to sit in the Well of the House in protest. When the martials were called in to physically lift the MLAs and put them outside, Mukesh Bhakar bit two security personnel, the BJP has alleged. 

At a press conference held later, BJP chief whip Jogeshwar Garg said the ruling party tried to broker truce with the protesting Congress MLAs, they were asked to accept the suspension of Mukesh Bhakar and then apologise to break the deadlock. But the Congress refused to budge.

“The way Mukesh Bhakar behaved in the House was unpardonable. He bit two security personnel one of them a woman… she has her hand in a bandage right now,” said a BJP leader.

Mr Bhakar, who has been suspended for six months, has denied the allegation.

“Look at my teeth,” he said. ‘Can they bite? I am ready for a medical checkup. They are biting themselves and making up stories,” he said.

Jumping to his defence, Leader of the Opposition Tikaram Jully said, “They are saying Mukesh bit someone. We don’t know who bit whom, but look at the way the martials behaved with elected representatives. They cannot push and shove the MLAs. They can carry them out but they misbehaved with our MLAs, especially the women members”.

The biting incident has also left a bitter taste as the Rajasthan Vidhan Sabha adjourned today until further notice. 

The Congress have refused to attend the screening of a film on BJP icon VD Savarkar, organised by Chief Minister Bhajan Lal. The Chief Minister had invited all MLAs to watch the film at the end of the Vidhan Sabha session. But it appears that for the Congress, it is a case of once bitten twice shy. 

Jaipur:

Rajasthan has received a major industrial park in the first Budget of the BJP-led government at the Centre, with the state receiving Rs 7,000 crore more as a share of Central taxes this time.

Among the 12 new industrial parks being announced by Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, the Jodhpur Pali Marwar Industrial Area has been sanctioned for Rajasthan under the National Industrial Corridor Development Programme.

The park stands significant for the industrial development in western Rajasthan as around 40,000 people will get direct employment out of it.

The project will be developed near the Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor and is located at an equal distance (30 km) from Jodhpur and Pali City.

This project will be developed on 1,578 acres with an estimated cost of Rs 922 crore.

Sources said that the notification for the acquisition of 1,000 acres of land for this project has also been issued.

In the Rajasthan Budget 2024, the Bhajan Lal Sharma government has approved Rs 275 crore for the water infrastructure of this project.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Jaipur:

Three persons lost their lives in Jaipur due to heat stroke on Tuesday, the health department said, adding that the total number of heat stroke cases climbed to 3965 on Monday.

Those who died were from Agra and Delhi, health officials said.

Meanwhile, two newborn babies admitted to the Government Community Health Centre in Jhalawar district died on Tuesday.

The parents alleged negligence of the hospital management for the deaths, saying that there were no coolers or doctors in the ward.

Block Medical Officer Raees Khan reached the hospital and issued instructions to install four coolers in the ward and appoint doctors for 24-hour duty at the hospital.

Mr Khan said that a probe will be conducted to find out if the newborns died due to extreme heat.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Watch | 50 years ago, India conducted its first ever nuclear test

Fifty years ago, India conducted its first nuclear test in Pokhran, code-named Operation Smiling Buddha. With this India had entered the league of nations with nuclear capabilities.

An article dated May 19th, 1974, says India successfully conducted an underground test with plutonium device in 10-15 kiloton range. It also adds that the then Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission Dr H.N Sethna and Director of The Bhabha Atomic Research Centre DR R Ramanna, who supervised the test, flew to Delhi even without a wash or change to give a full account to Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.

India said that it undertook this programme to develop its own technology for peaceful use of nuclear energy and it had no intention of going in for nuclear weapons. The groundwork for testing nuclear energy was laid even earlier by renowned Indian scientists Homi J Bhabha and Vikram Sarabhai. In 1954, the Department of Atomic Energy was founded, with Bhabha as director.

With Smiling Buddha, India became the first nation to conduct a nuclear test apart from the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council. After the nuclear test, there were criticisms that it was an attempt to divert people’s attention from the economic crisis the country was facing in the 1970s.

However, the Atomic Energy Commission chairman said that it was his decision and that there was no political motive,
Even a New York Times article said that “such great talent of resources has been squandered on the vanity of power, while 600 million Indians slip deeper into poverty”.

India also faced significant criticism from many countries including Pakistan, USA, and Canada. Pakistan said that it would never succumb to “nuclear blackmail” or accept “Indian hegemony or domination over the subcontinent”.

India did not carry out further nuclear tests until 1998. In 1998, under the leadership of Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, India conducted a series of nuclear tests in Pokhran once again, code-named Operation Shakti.

With this, India declared itself a full-fledged nuclear state.

Script and production: Gayatri Menon

Research: Gayatri Menon and Murali Krishnaswamy

Archive photo courtesy: M. Srinath

Voiceover: Jude Francis Weston

Jaipur:

A voter turnout of close to 58 per cent was recorded in 12 parliamentary constituencies of Rajasthan where polling was held in the first phase of Lok Sabha elections on Friday.

There was no untoward incident during polling in the state, an official said.

The voting percentage on these seats in the 2019 polls was 63.71.

Chief Electoral Officer Praveen Gupta said an estimated 57.87 percent voting (including 0.61% postal ballot) has been recorded in the 12 LS constituencies which went to polls in the first phase.

A total of 2.54 crore people were eligible to vote in the first phase and around 23,000 polling booths were set up, he said.

The officer said the final voting percentage would be available on Saturday after data from all the polling booths are received and complied.

Mr Gupta said there were long queues of voters at polling stations at many places even after 6 pm, the scheduled voting closure time.

Voters started arriving in large numbers at polling stations in urban and rural areas from 7 am onwards to exercise their franchise. There was a steady stream of enthusiastic voters at the polling stations throughout the day.

The highest voter turnout of 65.64 per cent was recorded in the Ganganagar Lok Sabha seat. In 2019 LS election, the voter turnout here was 74.39 percent.

Karauli-Dholpur saw the lowest turnout of 49.29 per cent, against 55.06 percent in 2019.

Jaipur recorded a poll percentage of 62.87. The voting percentage in Bikaner was 53.96, Churu 62.98, Sikar 57.28, Jaipur Rural 56.58, Alwar 59.79, Dausa 55.21, Bharatpur 52.69, Jhunjhunu 51.62 and Nagaur 56.89.

Fbikaner As many as 114 candidates are in the fray in the first phase of elections. There are 25 Lok Sabha seats in Rajasthan and the remaining 13 will go to poll in the second phase on April 26.

Rajasthan Governor Kalraj Mishra, Chief Minister Bhajanlal Sharma, former deputy chief minister Sachin Pilot and other leaders cast their votes in the initial hours. Mishra and his wife Satyawati Mishra cast their votes at a polling booth at C Scheme.

“Voting is not only a constitutional right but also the duty of every citizen of India. This strengthens democracy,” the governor said later.

The chief minister exercised his franchise at a polling station at Patnik Jagatpura and expressed confidence that the NDA will win over 400 seats across the country in this general election. He said the people of the state were voting for ‘guarantees’ of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

On the other hand, Pilot said people want change and this election was going to be for a change in the country.

“The BJP had a long tenure of 10 years. Now people are bored and I am convinced that the Congress will win more seats than the BJP in Rajasthan. We will win across the country and the INDIA bloc will get a majority,” he told reporters after casting his vote.

Deputy Chief Minister Diya Kumari also cast her vote in this phase.

Former BJP state president Satish Poonia cast his vote at a polling booth in Rani Sati Nagar in Jaipur during the day.

Elderly citizens and some newly married couples were also seen at the polling booths.

Shivani, a resident of Dampura village in Dholpur district, reached her polling booth before entering the wedlock. Dressed in bridal attire, she also got herself photographed at a ‘selfie point’ after casting her vote.

In Jaipur, a 95-year-old retired naval officer reached a polling station with his family members to vote. He said although he could have chosen the ‘voting from home’ option, he preferred to cast his vote at a polling station.

Newlywed Rohit and Sonia Chaudhary went to a polling station in Jaipur’ Purani Basti to cast their votes. They got married on Thursday night.

However, people in Palawala Jatan village under Dausa lok sabha constituency boycotted elections due to lack of development works in the area.

Villagers say that after delimitation, the village had to remain deprived of development.

Former village sarpanch Rameshwar Gora said that the village lacks means of transportation and other basic amenities and development. “We have been boycotting every election continuously for 4 years,” he said.

Rajasthan Director General of Police Utkal Ranjan Sahoo said tight security arrangements have been made for free, fair and peaceful voting. The Rajasthan Police, along with companies of the Central Armed Forces and Home Guard personnel, has been deployed to maintain peace and law and order.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Neat rows of vegetable and fruit plants in a portion of the 4.50-hectare agricultural land, a 3.3-KV solar power panel running pumps and other electrical appliances, slim polyethylene hoses for drip irrigation, and uniformly spaced trees form part of some innovative practices adopted by farmer Bhanwar Lal Meel at Lalasi village in Rajasthan’s Sikar district.

Mr. Meel, 41, who has studied till Class 12, has made innovations in traditional practices and adopted new techniques to turn farming on his ancestral land into a profitable venture amid the decline in the groundwater level and erratic rainfall. A pond constructed in his field last year, utilising the subsidy under the Prime Minister’s Krishi Sinchayee Yojana, provides an additional support to farming by storing rainwater.

Mr. Meel is among a bunch of farmers in Shekhawati region who have adopted new techniques for optimum utilisation of water and getting remunerative prices for agricultural produce. The expertise at the farmland has led to significant expansion in the sowing area for crops and vegetables, higher yield, and enhanced annual income per hectare of land.

A major concern

The decline in the groundwater level is a major issue for agriculturists in all four districts of Shekhawati — Sikar, Jhunjhunu, Churu, and Neem Ka Thana.

As the production of crops has declined, farmers have started cultivating vegetables, as they can get eight times the yield with just 25% labour compared with traditional farming. The sowing area of vegetables has almost doubled in the last 10 years.

Farmer Mahesh Pachar in Sikar tehsil’s Jheegar Bari village has adopted rainwater harvesting techniques on his seven-acre land and established a climate-controlled polyhouse in an area measuring 1,000 square metres for growing vegetables. “The polyhouse remains vacant only from April to June. The rest of the year, I grow a good quantity of fruits, vegetables, and flowers,” he said.

Sundaram Verma of Danta village has developed techniques to grow crops with less water and conserve water in the arid regions. He was awarded the Padma Shri in 2020 for developing ‘dryland agroforestry’, a method to help tree plantation efforts.

Bhanwar Lal of Sarwari village in Sikar’s Dhod block has established a processing plant for gooseberries grown in his fields and started producing candy, powder, and murabba (sweet fruit preserve), which fetch him an annual profit of ₹15 lakh. Similarly, Dharampal Singh in Jhunjhunu district’s Bharu village has taken up organic farming with the help of vermicompost produced in his 19-acre field.

Increase in income

Agricultural expert Chiranji Lal Maharia, who owns a 10-hectare land in Sikar’s Kudan village, pointed out that the average income of farmers in the region, which was earlier about ₹1 lakh per hectare in a year, has touched about ₹8 lakh a year as a result of the innovative practices and hi-tech applications.

The sowing area of crops has also increased by one-and-a-half times. Besides, the separate agriculture budget started by the previous Congress regime in the State had introduced subsidies for horticulture and farm mechanisation through the purchase of agricultural equipment.

Faced with paucity of water, Mr. Maharia had to take up animal husbandry as an avocation. He also encouraged other villagers to rear sheep and goats.

“I am getting the services of a veterinarian to ensure proper growth of my animals, whose number has crossed 60,” he added. The ‘bakra mandi’ (goat market) in Sikar is one of the biggest in the State, where the annual turnover is estimated at ₹600 crore.

For this year, the Agriculture Department has announced a subsidy of up to ₹1.35 lakh for construction of farm ponds, which may be used for collecting rainwater for irrigation.

Mr. Maharia has led a group of farmers to raise the demand for bringing canal waters for irrigation in the parched fields. He said if a provision of 5,000 cusecs of canal water is made for the 50-lakh acre irrigable land in the region, it will solve the problem of water scarcity and also provide enough drinking water to the 85-lakh population in Sikar division.

The Chaudhary Kumbharam Lift Canal, built under the Indira Gandhi Canal Project, supplies 1,500 cusecs of water to some areas. If the Indira Gandhi Canal is repaired on a war footing, the inflow of water may increase to 15,000 cusecs and a portion of the additional quantity may be allocated to Sikar.

If one cusec of water is allotted per 1,000 acres, the drinking water requirement may be met and fruit and vegetable production can be taken up in 50 lakh acres through drip irrigation. The rearing of sheep and goat will provide additional support, Mr. Maharia pointed out, while calling for the appointment of a panel of experts and framing of water allocation rules. These rules may be made on the lines of allocation coming to Sanchore in southwestern Rajasthan from Sardar Sarovar Dam in neighbouring Gujarat.

The Sikar Sambhag Nahar Lao Sangharsh Samiti has also pointed out some anomalies in a memorandum of understanding signed between the Haryana and the Rajasthan governments last month for ensuring the supply of the latter’s entire share of water as per the 1994 Yamuna Water Agreement.

Sangharsh Samiti chief Bhola Ram said the Rajasthan government should make an attempt to get its full share of water from Tajewala Head and arrange for its supply to Sikar division through pipelines.

In the midst of the demands for bringing water to Shekhawati, Sikar Collector Qummer-ul-Zaman Choudhary said he is encouraging farmers to adopt new cropping patterns. “The establishment of farmer-producer organisations, linkages with cooperatives, and ensuring market accessibility will enhance their income,” Mr. Choudhary said.