Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday chaired a PRAGATI meeting to review the progress of eight key projects, spread across seven states and having a cumulative worth of around Rs 31,000 crore, his office said in a statement.

PRAGATI is the multi-modal platform for Pro-Active Governance and Timely Implementation of the projects involving the Centre and states. It was the 43rd edition of the meeting.

Among the projects, four were concerned with water supply and irrigation, two related to expanding national highways and connectivity, and two more related to rail and metro rail connectivity.

“These projects have a cumulative cost of around Rs 31,000 crore and relate to 7 states: Bihar, Jharkhand, Haryana, Odisha, West Bengal, Gujarat and Maharashtra,” it said.

The prime minister emphasised that PM Gati Shakti National Master Plan Portal in conjunction with technologies such as satellite imagery can help address various issues of implementation and planning relating to location and land requirements for projects.

He said all the stakeholders executing projects in high population-density urban areas may appoint nodal officers and form teams for better coordination.

For irrigation projects, he advised that visits of stakeholders be organised where successful rehabilitation and reconstruction work has been done, the statement said.

The transformational impact of such projects may also be shown. This may motivate the stakeholders for the early execution of projects, it added.

During the interaction, he also reviewed ‘Mobile Towers and 4G Coverage under USOF Projects’.

Under the Universal Service Obligation Fund (USOF), 33,573 villages with 24,149 mobile towers are to be covered for saturation of mobile connectivity.

Modi asked officials to ensure the setting up of mobile towers in all uncovered villages within this financial year with regular meetings with all stakeholders. This will ensure saturation of mobile coverage in the remotest of the areas.

Up to the 43rd edition of PRAGATI meetings, 348 projects having a total cost of Rs 17.36 lakh crore have been reviewed, the statement said. 

A 41-year-old Indian-origin man has been fined 20,000 Canadian dollars (USD 14,484) for causing immigration fraud by misrepresenting documents to help newcomers get permits to work in the Canadian province of Manitoba, according to a media report.

Avtar Singh Sohi, who has been living in Canada since 2006 and is a father of two, pleaded guilty to misrepresentation under the Canada Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, CBC News reported on Monday.

The Provincial Court of Manitoba on Monday heard that Sohi claimed that an Indian woman –who came to Canada on a Labour Market Impact Assessment (LMIA)– was working for him as a nanny when she wasn’t.

LMIAs are issued after a need for a temporary foreign worker is demonstrated because there is no citizen or permanent resident available to do the job, the report said.

The prosecutor in the case said that the woman was illegally working elsewhere, but that Avtar provided her with pay stubs to show she was working for him from March 2019 to July 2021.

He also provided her with a number of signed documents that she used as part of her permanent residency application.

“By creating documents to undermine the immigration system, Avtar committed fraud,” federal crown attorney Matt Sinclair was quoted as saying in the report.

The crown and defence agreed to a 20,000 Canadian dollar fine for Sohi, which the judge signed off on.

Court was told the maximum penalty for this offence is a 50,000 Canadian dollars fine and/or two years in jail, the report said.

“His behaviour erodes the trust of our immigration system and must be denounced and deterred,” Sinclair said. 

BJP leader and former MP Kirit Somaiya has filed three defamation suits in the Bombay High Court against Ambadas Danve, leader of the opposition Maharashtra Legislative Council, Lokshahi news channel and one Anil Thatte, who runs a YouTube channel for uploading content pertaining to an alleged obscene video of Mr Somaiya.

Mr Somaiya has sought Rs 100 crore damages from each of the defendants claiming that they have made allegedly defamatory statements against him with regard to the video.

He also sought a direction to the respondents to take down the videos, not upload any more such defamatory videos or make statements against Somaiya in future.

Mr Somaiya also sought an unconditional apology from the defendants.

A single bench of Justice SM Modak on Wednesday directed the respondents to file their affidavits within four weeks.

Mr Somaiya’s lawyer Hrishikesh Mundargi informed the court that the Lokshahi news channel in July ran the alleged obscene video along with defamatory statements.

“The defendants (Lokshahi channel and Danve) gave scandalous opinions. Somaiya is a married man with children. He has a political standing in society. He has unearthed several scams of certain political leaders, following which these alleged videos have surfaced,” Mundargi said.

He added a police complaint has already been lodged by Somaiya and the probe is on. As per the plea, Thatte, too, in his YouTube channel published the videos which maligned Somaiya’s reputation.