Mumbai : BJP leader Naveen Rana’s meeting with Nationalist Congress Party president Sunitra Pawar has sparked fresh debate in political circles. There are speculations that the meeting was held to deliberate on the Rajya Sabha seat that fell vacant after Sunitra Pawar resigned as an MP. After Vikram Kakde, who is outside the party, was nominated for the Pune Local Authority constituency of the Legislative Council, preparations are being made to send Naveen Rana, who has now joined the BJP, to the Rajya Sabha, a debate that has angered several senior leaders in the NCP.

Rajya Sabha seat: Chhagan Bhujbal is interested Senior party leader Chhagan Bhujbal is interested in this Rajya Sabha seat. However, after the discussion of Navneet Rana’s name started, an open discussion has started that the influence of MP Partha Pawar’s group on the decision-making process in the party has increased. It is also being said that Praful Patel is not very active in the party after his name was removed from the post of National Executive President. It is also being said that Sunil Tatkre is also angry and the number of angry leaders in the party is increasing. The last date for filing nominations for this Rajya Sabha seat is June 8, so various leaders in the party have started lobbying for this seat and efforts to get nomination are going on rapidly. After all, the focus of political circles is on who will give the party a candidate.

Navneet Rana, who was elected as an independent candidate with the support of the Nationalist Congress Party in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, joined the BJP in 2024. However, there are talks about her political revival after her defeat in the Lok Sabha elections. It is also said that she has recently contacted some senior BJP leaders. However, it is known that she was advised to contact them because the vacant Rajya Sabha seat is in the NCP quota. It is believed that she met Sunita Pawar only after that.

Elections have been announced for 24 vacant Rajya Sabha seats and by-elections. This includes 4-4 from Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat and Karnataka, 3-3 from Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh, 2 from Jharkhand and one each from Manipur, Meghalaya, Arunachal Pradesh and Mizoram. Apart from this, by-elections for one seat each from Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu will also be held on the same day. Voting will be held on June 18 and the results will be announced on the same day. Meanwhile, there is an important development. It is being told that former MP Naveen Rana is trying to get the Rajya Sabha nomination. The Rajya Sabha nomination from the Nationalist Congress Party quota will be announced soon. For this, Naveen Rana met Sunita Pawar and Partha Pawar on Wednesday. Yesterday, Naveen Rana and Ravi Rana also met Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis. Therefore, it is being said that an attempt is being made to nominate Navneet Rana on the NCP quota seat. However, will Navneet Rana give up his quota seat for the NCP? This is also a question. So, will this meeting result in Navneet Rana being nominated in place of Sunitra Pawar? This will become clear in the coming days.

Rajya Sabha Seat: Amul Matkari’s social media post is under discussion, Amul Matkari has posted in this regard and said that the vacant Rajya Sabha seat of Smt. Sunitra Vahini belongs only to NCP! No one else should claim this and put up a front. The name of the NCP party is “Ajit Dada”. Therefore, the decision taken by Smt. will be final. This party is a party that is under the sway of Ajit Dada. That’s all for now.

Chennai, June 6 : Pattali Makkal Katchi (PMK) president Dr Anbumani Ramadoss has urged the Tamil Nadu government to immediately announce a comprehensive Kuruvai package and extend financial and infrastructural support to farmers, warning that the delayed release of water from the Mettur Dam could severely affect paddy cultivation across the Cauvery delta region.

In a statement issued on Saturday, Anbumani said the steadily declining water level in the Mettur reservoir, coupled with the absence of any significant southwest monsoon activity in the Cauvery catchment areas, has made it increasingly unlikely that water will be released from the dam on June 12, the traditional date for the commencement of Kuruvai cultivation.

Every year, water from the Mettur Dam is released into the Cauvery River to support paddy cultivation in more than 10 irrigation districts, including Thanjavur, Tiruvarur, Nagapattinam and Mayiladuthurai. However, the reservoir currently holds only 41.60 TMC of water, with the water level standing at around 79 feet, far below the level considered ideal for irrigation release.

Anbumani noted that for a sustained release of water throughout the Kuruvai season, the reservoir level should exceed 90 feet and receive at least 1.5 TMC of inflow daily. He said a minimum of 12 TMC of additional storage and inflows of around 18,000 cusecs into the reservoir would be required to ensure uninterrupted irrigation.

The PMK leader also pointed out that Karnataka’s major Cauvery basin reservoirs currently hold only a fraction of their combined storage capacity. According to him, the Krishna Raja Sagar, Kabini, Harangi, and Hemavathi reservoirs together contain only 33.45 TMC of water, representing just 29.08 per cent of their total capacity of 114.57 TMC. Given these low storage levels, he said Karnataka is unlikely to release substantial quantities of water downstream.

Anbumani warned that if the Mettur Dam is not opened on schedule, the area under Kuruvai cultivation could fall below 3 lakh acres this year, compared to 6.13 lakh acres cultivated during the previous season. Such a decline, he said, would result in significant income losses for farmers and reduce employment opportunities for agricultural labourers.

To mitigate the impact, he called on the state government to encourage farmers to utilise groundwater resources and immediately roll out a Kuruvai package covering subsidised seeds, fertilisers and micronutrients.

He further demanded uninterrupted 24-hour three-phase power supply for agricultural operations and an input subsidy of Rs 5,000 per acre to support farmers facing uncertainty ahead of the cultivation season.

Report Islamabad, June 6 At least 432 cases of sexual assault and kidnapping were registered by Pakistani police in Islamabad between January and May this year, local media reported. Citing police sources, Pakistan’s leading daily, Dawn, reported that a total of 55 cases of sexual assault were recorded during the reporting period. Among the 55 sexual assault cases, 15 were registered in the Soan Zone, followed by 13 in the Sadar Zone, 12 in the Rural Zone, 9 in the Industrial Area Zone, and 6 in the City Zone. Additionally, a zone-wise breakdown of the 377 kidnapping cases revealed that the Sadar Zone recorded the highest number at 99, followed by the Soan Zone with 89, the Rural Zone with 76, the City Zone with 44, and the Industrial Area Zone with 29 cases. Of the kidnapping cases, one involved a victim who was reportedly kidnapped from Islamabad and was later found murdered in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. In a separate incident, three persons allegedly raped a boy in the area of Pindorian on February 28 and recorded the heinous act.

The data further revealed a series of sexual assaults across Islamabad. In one incident, a girl was reportedly gang-raped by five persons in the area of I-16 on March 19, while another case involved sexual assault of a boy by three persons in Sihala on March 31. In another 24 cases of sexual assault registered during the period, the victims included 15 girls, three women, and a boy. It added that the 15-year-old boy was assaulted at gunpoint by two persons in Mehrban Town on April 15, Dawn reported. Reports suggest that police registered 69 cases under Section 365, which pertains to kidnapping or abduction with the intent to secretly and wrongfully confine a person.

The cases involved 64 male and five female victims. In one such incident, a man was allegedly abducted from outside his residence in Sector F-6/1 on May 4, and his body was recovered from Mardan the following day. Last month, a report highlighted that the sexual assault of a young 19-year-old mother in Pakistan’s Rawat area in Islamabad was not an isolated incident but reflected a broader pattern, raising concerns about systemic challenges in addressing gender-based violence in the country. It stressed that the case had brought attention to these interconnected issues, underscoring how structural weaknesses continue to shape the safety and security of women. According to the report in ‘Asian News Post,’ the persistence of sexual violence in Pakistan is closely connected to the “perception of impunity”, where perpetrators believe they can escape without facing consequences.