The Indian Express (Delhi Edition)
In Nashik, Rahul woos farmers, says INDIA bloc will waive loans, exclude them from GST
Emphasisingindiaisstrong,stable and united because of country’s farmers, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi said Thursday that if the INDIA bloc comes to power, farmers’ loans will be waived off, the PM Fasal Bima Yojana will be restructured, and efforts will be made to ensure that farmers are excluded from the ambit of GST.
Rahul, whose Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra is passing through Maharashtra, was speaking at a farmers’rallyinchandwadtaluka of Nashik district.
“The country is strong and united because of farmers. Otherwise, it would have fallen apart. Ourdoorsarealwaysopenforyou and we will do everything possible for you unlike the BJP government which is insensitive to the plight of farmers,” he said.
Speaking at the rally, NCP (SP) chief Sharad Pawar said, “The Modigovernmentisunconcerned with the plight of farmers. The farmers are agitating, protesting and committing suicide but the Modi government in Delhi does not seem to have anything to do with farmers who feed the entire nation,” he said.
Statencpchiefjayantpatiland Shiv Sena (UBT) MP Sanjay Raut expressed support on behalf of their parties to Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra and urged Rahul to keep fightingagainstthebjp.rahulsaid, “Whenourgovernmentcomesto power, we will go all out to alleviate your miseries.”
Rahulsaid,“duringthetenure of the Manmohan Singh government, we had waived off Rs 70,000croreloansoffarmers.the Bjpgovernmenthaswaivedoffrs 16 lakh crore loans of a handful of billionaires...iftheloansofbillionaires can be waived off, why can’t the loans of farmers, workers, labourers, small shopkeepers?”
Rahul said the PM Fasal Bima Yojana will be “restructured” so that it provides necessary cover “in case of natural calamities”.
He said farmers need MSP which the Centre has failed to ensure. “The Modi government says legal MSP is not possible. We will givemspthelegalstatus,”hesaid.
Rahul said even farmers have to pay GST. “Not just GST, farmers areburdenedwithdifferentkinds of taxes... When our government comes to power, we will ensure farmers pay only one tax and we will make efforts to keep farmers away from GST ambit,” he said.
THE GOVERNMENT has blocked 18 OTT platforms for beaming obscene and pornographic content. Additionally, 19 websites, 10 apps and 57 social media accounts associated with these platforms were also disabled, the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting said in a statement.
The OTT platforms that have been blocked include Dreams Films, Voovi, Yessma, Uncut Add a, Tr iF licks, X Prime, Neon X VIP, Besharams, Hunters, Rabbit, Xtramood, Nuefliks, Moodx, Mojflix, Hot Shots VIP, Fugi, Chikooflix, and Prime Play.
The Ministry said a major chunk of the content on these platforms portrayed women in a demeaning manner. “It depicted nudity and sexual acts in various inappropriate contexts, such as relationships between teachers and students, incestuous family relationships, etc,” the statement said.
“The content included sexual innuendos and, in some instances, prolonged segments of pornographic and sexually explicit scenes devoid of any thematic or societal relevance,” it added.
The Ministry said the decision to act against the OTT platforms was taken under the provisions of the Information Technology Act, 2000 in consultation with other Ministries/departments, and domain experts specialising in media and entertainment, women’s rights, and child rights.
It said these OTT platforms extensively utilised social media to disseminate trailers, specific scenes, and external links aimed at attracting audiences to their websites and apps.
One of these OTT apps had more than one crore downloads, while two others had over 50