The BJP today attacked Congress leader Rahul Gandhi saying he would like people to believe that the faith of Hindus can be manipulated but no one wants him to interpret how they should practice their beliefs.

The Ram temple is a deeply felt emotion by Hindus in every corner of the country, Union minister and BJP leader Rajeev Chandrasekhar said after Rahul Gandhi accused the BJP of turning the January 22 consecration ceremony at Ayodhya into a party event.

With the former Congress president targeting the BJP over the Ram temple issue and also slamming the Modi government for its handling of the economy, Mr Chandrasekhar hit back at him at a press conference in Delhi.

“Rahul Gandhi lives in a la-la world. He thinks everything he says is predicated on nobody understanding the truth and he can get away with these atrocious lies,” Mr Chandrasekhar said.

“He tried so in 2014 and 2019 and is trying again. The people of India are wise enough. They understand the truth and what his politics is about,” he added.

The minister cited the performance of the Congress government in Karnataka which he blamed for “corruption and farmers’ distress” in the state.

Rahul Gandhi had earlier said in Nagaland that it is difficult for his party’s leaders to attend the January 22 ceremony as the BJP and the RSS have turned it into a “political event” centred around Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

His remarks at a press conference during the Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra here came days after the Congress top brass declined the invitation to the event at the Ram temple in Ayodhya in Uttar Pradesh.

With a NITI Aayog report saying that over 24.82 crore people moved out of multidimensional poverty in nine years till 2022-23, Mr Chandrasekhar lauded PM Modi’s pro-poor and welfare policies for development and accused the Congress of misleading the poor with empty slogans of ‘Garibi Hatao’.

The Modi government has reversed the “anyay” (injustice), he said in a swipe at Rahul Gandhi’s Nyay Yatra.

The Congress played on the poor for decades, he said. The Modi government has made a transformational impact, he said.

Since 2015, more than 1 lakh start-ups and 112 unicorns have come up, the BJP leader said, adding that a parliamentary report in 2012 had noted that nine groups had cornered 97 per cent of the net worth in the banking system.

Capital availability for the young innovators was then scarce but now they are rising due to a supportive system, he added.

There will be 10 lakh start-ups and 10 thousand unicorns in the next 10 years, he claimed, asserting that India has become a technology-producing country from a technology-consuming country.

It has led to a steady decline in the unemployment rate, he added.
 

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Cathay Pacific said Tuesday that one of its planes was “struck” by a taxiing Korean Air airliner at a Japanese airport, with both airlines saying there were no injuries.

Cathay Pacific said the incident took place while its aircraft was parked at New Chitose Airport in Sapporo. 

“Our aircraft, which was stationary at the time with no customers nor crew onboard, was struck by a Korean Air A330 which was taxiing past,” the airline said in a statement.

Breaking: a Korean Airlines plane accidentally hit a parked Cathay Pacific plane while preparing for takeoff at Sapporo’s New Chitose Airport. No injuries have been reported. pic.twitter.com/5VGfB1PP1b

— Jeffrey J. Hall 🇯🇵🇺🇸 (@mrjeffu) January 16, 2024

Korean Air also confirmed there were no injuries on board its plane. 

“A Korean Air aircraft came into contact with a Cathay aircraft during pushback at New Chitose (Sapporo) Airport when the third-party ground handler vehicle slipped due to heavy snow. There were no injuries and the airline is cooperating with all relevant authorities,” the carrier said.

The incident comes two weeks after a near-catastrophic collision at Tokyo’s Haneda Airport when a Japan Airlines plane collided as it landed with a smaller coast guard plane. 

All 379 people on board the airliner escaped but five of the six people on the smaller aircraft died.
 

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Another cheetah died on Tuesday afternoon in the Kuno National Park in Madhya Pradesh – the 10th such death since their reintroduction in India in 2022. The Namibian cheetah was named Shaurya and the cause of death will be known after the post-mortem, said an official statement.

So far, seven adults and three cubs have died at the national park – deaths that have been attributed to various infections.

“Today, on 16th January, 2024 around 3:17 PM, Namibian Cheetah Shaurya passed away. Around 11 AM in the morning, incoordination and staggering gait was observed by the tracking team following which the animal was tranquilized and weakness was found,” said the statement by the Additional Principal Chief Conservator of Forest and Director, Lion Project.

“Following this, the animal was revived but complications arose post revival and the animal failed to respond to CPR. Cause of death can be ascertained after post mortem,” it added.

The last and the ninth cheetah death in Kuno was reported August 2 last year. The government had in the parliament cited infections caused by insects during monsoon season as the cause for the last two deaths.

Cheetahs were declared extinct in India in 1952. As many as 20 of adult big cats were brought from abroad to the Kuno park again in 2022. The cheetahs were imported in two batches – from Namibia (2022) and South Africa (2023).

The initiative began on September 17 last year when Prime Minister Narendra Modi released a group of cheetahs brought from Namibia into an enclosure in Kuno. Four cubs were born in the park since, but three of them and six other adults died in a span of five months ending last August.

The 10th death was reported today.

The multiple deaths issue had even reached the Supreme Court last year, which said there was no reason to question the central government on the moves being made to reintroduce cheetahs in India.

Project Cheetah head SP Yadav had told PTI another batch of cheetahs will be imported from South Africa for their introduction in the Gandhi Sagar Wildlife Sanctuary.