Mumbai, June 23: The Shiv Sena pounced on the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Saturday, seeking to know "what action the (current) Finance Minister Piyush Goyal has taken against the RBI governor and chiefs of banks" which have been defrauded by big industrialists who have fled the country.
"How many bank chairmen who gave fraudulent loans have been sent to jail? Even the BJP President Amit Shah is the Director of Ahmedabad District Cooperative Bank... It collected Rs 745.59 crore of spiked (Rs 500 - Rs 1,000) notes within five days after demonetisation," the Sena asked.
It said that a Gujarat cabinet minister Jayesh V. Radadia is a Chairman (of Rajkot DCB), which also secured the second highest amount in the country after ADCB - Rs 693.19 crore deposits of the old currency notes.
"How could so much money be deposited in just one (ADCB) bank? This is a serious issue and must be probed in depth," the Sena said in sharp edits in the party mouthpieces 'Saamana' and 'Dopahar Ka Saamana'.
Accusing Goyal of not viewing the issue with the seriousness it deserves, the BJP's ally said that there was discrimination among the cooperative banks and different sets of rules were applied while dealing with various DCCBs in the country.
The Maharashtra DCCBs were debarred from exchanging/accepting the old notes, which was subsequently withdrawn, but it served to hit the banks' economic position very badly, the Sena pointed out.
"For instance, the Nashik DCB's deposits of Rs 341 crore was declared asuspicious' and frozen in the bank. Other DCCBs also faced similar issues at that timea Demonetization triggered massive chaos in all sectors of the economy," the Sena edit said.
"The country is today reeling under the impact of that demonetisation... The Reserve Bank of India Governor (Urjit Patel) is the biggest culprit for this mess and he should be prosecuted for it," the Sena demanded.
Recalling the former RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan's observations on the issue, the Sena reiterated that "the country has paid a heavy price for demonetisation", the unorganised sector is in complete disarray, unemployment has increased and many others lost their jobs.
The ruling ally reminded how the country was told that "terrorism would end in Jammu and Kashmir after demonetisation, but in reality, the very next day after the Prime Minister Narendra Modi's announcement on November 8, 2016, bundles of fake Rs 2,000 currencies, newly introduced, were found in that state."
The Sena said the country is experiencing an economic mess which is increasing, and even the government's financial advisor Arvind Subramaniam has quit and left the country.
"Amidst all this, the government is displaying its power to the public sector Bank Of Maharashtra (whose top officials including the CMD and ED were arrested this week)a This is cheating since the big fish have already absconded. The BoM officials and the builder D.S. Kulkarni (an accused in the case) have been caught and will not go anywhere... Congratulations for your tough action," the Sena added.
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Lucknow/Jhansi (UP), Nov 17: Nurse Megha James was on duty when the fire broke out at the Jhansi hospital and she threw herself headlong into the rescue efforts, playing a hero's role by saving several babies.
Even when her salwar got burned, she refused to give up and was able to evacuate 14-15 babies with others' help.
"I had gone to take a syringe to give an injection to a child. When I came back, I saw that the (oxygen) concentrator had caught fire. I called the ward boy, who came with the fire extinguisher and tried to put it out. But by then, the fire had spread," James said.
Ten babies perished in a fire that broke out at the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit of the Maharani Laxmi Bai Medical College in Jhansi Friday night.
Faced with an enormous blaze, James's mind worked with a frenetic speed, to the extent she cared little about burning herself.
"My chappal caught fire and I burned my foot. Then my salwar caught fire. I removed my salwar and discarded it. At that time, my mind was virtually not working," she told PTI Videos.
James just wore another salwar and went back to the rescue operation.
"There was a lot of smoke, and once the lights went out, we could not see anything. The entire staff brought out at least 14-15 children. There were 11 beds in the ward with 23-24 babies," she said.
Had the lights not gone out they could have saved more children, James said. "It all happened very suddenly. None of us had expected it."
Assistant Nursing Superintendent Nalini Sood praised James's valour and recounted bits from how the rescue operation was carried out.
"The hospital staff broke the glasses of the NICU ward to evacuate the babies. It was then Nurse Megha's salwar caught fire. Instead of caring for her safety, she stayed there to rescue the babies and handed them over to people outside," she said.
Sood said James is currently undergoing treatment at the same medical college. She said she did not know the extent of her burns.
"The rescued babies were shifted to a ward very close to the NICU ward… When I recall the scene, I feel like crying," she said.
Dr Anshul Jain, the head of the anaesthesiology department at the medical college, explained the standard rescue operation and claimed the hospital followed the protocol to the T.
"In the triage process during an ICU evacuation, the policy is to evacuate less-affected patients first. The rationale behind this approach is that patients requiring minimal support can be relocated quickly, enabling a larger number of evacuations to be completed in a shorter time.
"In contrast, patients on ventilators or requiring high oxygen support demand more time and resources for evacuation," he said.
"This principle was successfully implemented in Jhansi, playing a significant role in saving many lives," Jain said.
A newborn rescued from the fire died due to illness on Sunday, Jhansi District Magistrate Avinash Kumar said.