Here are the top 5 news updates of September 25, 2021:
Former JNU students' union president Kanhaiya Kumar and Rashtriya Dalit Adhikar Manch (RDAM) MLA Jignesh Mewani from Gujarat are expected to join the Congress party on September 28, Congress party sources told news agency ANI. Gandhi is building a team of young leaders, and Kumar and Mewani are expected to play a crucial role in this team. "Kanhaiya Kumar will serve as an important young face of the party in Bihar and will also have a national role to play," said sources. They further said that Kumar recently met Congress leader Rahul Gandhi to discuss the matter. The party is said to be strategising a national movement against the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). For this, influential youth leaders have been identified and Gandhi is constituting a team of these young leaders.
Punjab Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channi is likely to induct half a dozen new faces while four ministers who were a part of the Amarinder Singh-led- government are expected to be dropped from the cabinet. After three rounds of meeting with the Congress high command, the new cabinet of Punjab, under the leadership of Chief Minister Charanjeet Singh Channi has been finalised on Saturday, sources told ANI. Channi today met Punjab Governor Banwarilal Purohit and after the meeting announced that Punjab cabinet expansion will be held tomorrow at Raj Bhawan at 4:30 pm. Of the three meetings, two meetings were held at Rahul Gandhi's residence within a span of 24 hours.
Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray today said cinema halls and drama theatres in the state will be permitted to operate from October 22 on the condition that they follow all the protocols required to prevent the spread of coronavirus. The state government will soon issue the standard operating procedure (SOPs) in this regard, he said. Thackeray was speaking at a meeting of the COVID-19 task force, which was also attended by Shiv Sena's Rajya Sabha member Sanjay Raut, state chief secretary Sitaram Kunte, filmmakers Rohit Shetty and Kunal Kapoor, theatre personality Makarand Deshpande, Marathi actors Subodh Bhave, Aadesh Bandekar, among others. In the meeting, it was announced that cinema halls and drama theatres will be allowed to function from October 22, provided they follow all COVID-19- related health protocols.
Eminent women's rights activist, poet and author Kamla Bhasin passed away today after a battle with cancer. She was 75. Bhasin, a prominent voice in the women's movement in India and other South Asian countries, breathed her last at a hospital in the national capital. The chant of 'Azaadi' which echoed across protest sites in the country is said to have been popularised by Bhasin as a feminist slogan against patriarchy. "Kamla Bhasin, our dear friend, passed away around 3am today 25th Sept. This is a big setback for the women's movement in India and the South Asian region. She celebrated life whatever the adversity. Kamla you will always live in our hearts. In Sisterhood, which is in deep grief," Activist Kavita Srivastava said on Twitter.
Pakistan, where terrorists enjoy free pass, is an "arsonist" disguising itself as a "fire-fighter", and the entire world has suffered as it nurtures dreaded terrorists like Osama bin Laden in its backyard, India has said in a blistering retort after Prime Minister Imran Khan raked up the issue of Kashmir in his address to the UN General Assembly. "We exercise our Right of Reply to one more attempt by the leader of Pakistan to tarnish the image of this august Forum by bringing in matters internal to my country, and going so far as to spew falsehoods on the world stage," First Secretary Sneha Dubey said in the UN General Assembly. "While such statements deserve our collective contempt and sympathy for the mindset of the person who utters falsehood repeatedly, I am taking the floor to set the record straight," the young Indian diplomat said, slamming the Pakistani leader for raking up the Kashmir issue in his video address to the 76th session of the UN General Assembly.
