Chandigarh, June 7 (IANS) Just ahead of the visit of Congress leader Rahul Gandhi to Punjab, the Vigilance Bureau on Tuesday arrested former minister Sadhu Singh Dharamsot under the Prevention of Corruption Act.
Dharamsot, who was the Forest Minister in the previous Congress government led by Capt Amarinder Singh, is accused of being involved in illegal felling of over 25,000 trees.
Acting on the interrogation of earlier arrested Divisional Forest Officer (DFO) Guramanpreet Singh and contractor Hummy, the police took Dharamsot into custody for the wrongdoings in the Forest Department.
The former minister had links with the arrested forest officials, said officials.
Along with him, a local journalist Kamaljit Singh, who was allegedly working as an aide, was also arrested.
India and Australia penned a landmark agreement for reciprocal access to military bases for logistics support besides firming up six more pacts to further broaden ties after Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Australian counterpart PM Scott Morrison held an online summit.
Siddharta Vashishtha, also known as Manu Sharma, the convict in the Jessica Lal murder case was released from Tihar Jail on Tuesday. Sandeep Goel, Director-General of Tihar Jail, said: “He was released on the recommendations of the Sentence Reviewing Board meeting. The entire process has been carried out.”
A swarm of locusts on Wednesday and Thursday devastated crops in Uttar Pradesh’s Sonbhadhra district, which shares borders with Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Madhya Pradesh. The pest has damaged crops in six states, leading to the Centre issuing a locust warning to 16 states.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced Rs 1,500 crore for the relief and rehabilitation of people affected by Cyclone Amphan in West Bengal and Odisha, and assured the states of more support after conducting separate aerial surveys with chief ministers Mamata Banerjee and Naveen Patnaik on Friday.
US President Donald Trump tweeted that the US would donate ventilators to India in the fight against COVID-19. "We stand with India and Prime Minister Narendra Modi during this pandemic,".
Fugitive liquor lord Vijay Mallya Thursday lost his application to appeal against extradition proceedings in the England Supreme Court, setting off the 28-day “mandatory period” for the 64-year-old businessman to be extradited to India on charges of fraud and money laundering related to unrecovered loans to his now non existent Kingfisher Airlines.
