Express News Service
Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla’s mantra at e-Vidhan launch
With the commencing of the budget session on May 23, Uttar Pradesh Assembly will become the only second House in the country – after Nagaland – to go fully digital. The difference is, Nagaland Assembly has 60 members and UP 403.
A training programme for UP legislators was launched by Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla on Thursday. Speaking on the occasion, Birla decried the practice of MLAs trooping into the well, raising slogans and raising banners in Parliament and Assemblies.
“These practices demean the dignity of the House to which people looked with much hopes and aspirations,” he said. Finance minister Suresh Khanna will table the government’s first budget on May 26.
Health minister’s ‘surprise’ overdrive
Deputy CM and health minister Brajesh Pathak is in an overdrive. On Thursday, he raided the Medical Supply Corporation’s godown in Lucknow to find expired medicines worth Rs 16 crore.
These medicines apparently had not been supplied to government hospitals which always show paucity of life-saving drugs. A fuming Pathak ordered an inquiry from the spot itself. He wrote his order on a blank paper which was available there, signed it and put his seal.
Now the secretary of the department has been asked to file a report in three days. Earlier, in another raid, he detected medicines worth Rs 24 lakh at a government hospital. Otherwise also, he has been doing surprise inspections of hospitals across the state.
Inaam Rs 25,000 on ‘Nani’ on the run
On top of the most-wanted list is an elderly woman who is called ‘nani’. Yes, she is the grandmother of the kingpin of a recently busted gang which was expert in ‘tappebaji’ (stealing goods from vehicles and shops) and was making a killing at big fat weddings across three states.
The kingpin revealed that it was his nani, who mentored and coached this Rajgarh-based gang. After a few days of searching, when she couldn’t be located, the police announced a bounty of Rs 25,000 on the head of nani aka Beena Bai.
IG (Prayagraj range) Rakesh Singh said, “Special teams have been dispatched to ensure the arrest of Beena Bai after the police announced Rs 25,000 cash reward on her. Police are also preparing her sketch.”
