Andhra Pradesh bags top honour at National Tourism Awards
New Delhi, Sep 27: Andhra Pradesh bagged the top honour at the National Tourism Awards 2017-18, which were presented by Vice President Venkaiah Naidu on Friday.
A total of 76 awards were given under various categories this year.
Andhra Pradesh bagged the Best State award for overall growth in tourism category.
Goa and Madhya Pradesh were the joint winners in the Adventure Tourism category and Uttarakhand won the award for the Best Film Promotion-Friendly State.
Telangana won the award for the Best State for the innovative use of IT.
Speaking at the awards ceremony at Vigyan Bhawan here, Naidu said doing business in India has become easier and more tourists are visiting the country.
Earlier businesses were caught in red tape. Now tourists get a red carpet welcome in India, he said.
Union Minister of State for Tourism and Culture Prahlad Singh Patel and Secretary-General of World Tourism Organisation Zurab Pololikashvili were also present on the occasion.
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Congress using hijab issue to pacify minority anger, alleges Karnataka LoP R Ashoka
Bengaluru: Leader of Opposition in the Assembly R. Ashoka has accused the Congress government of using the hijab issue to placate what he described as discontent among minority voters after the Davanagere by-election.
In a post on X on Wednesday, Ashoka alleged that the state government, instead of addressing issues such as price rise, corruption, farmers’ distress and law and order, was attempting to retain its minority vote base by reviving the hijab issue.
Referring to the 2022 dress code introduced by the BJP government, which prohibited hijab in schools and colleges, Ashoka said the Karnataka High Court had upheld the policy and emphasised the importance of discipline in educational institutions.
He questioned the Congress government’s move to revisit the issue and asked whether setting aside the court-backed policy to benefit one community could be described as secularism.
Ashoka further alleged that while the government was willing to permit hijab, it continued to prohibit saffron shawls.
He accused the government of dividing students on religious lines rather than treating schools and colleges as spaces of equality.
Drawing a comparison with Mamata Banerjee’s government in West Bengal, Ashoka claimed that excessive appeasement politics had harmed the state and warned that the Congress in Karnataka could face a similar political response.
He said voters in Karnataka would teach the Congress a lesson for what he termed “vote-bank politics” and for compromising constitutional and judicial principles.
