Vivekananda decided Chicago address at Karnataka's Belagavi: President
Belagavi (Karnataka), Sep 15 : Visiting Belagavi for the first time after becoming President in 2017 on Saturday, Ram Nath Kovind recalled that Swami Vivekananda had got the idea of participating in the World Parliament of Religions in 1893 at Chicago in the US in this northwest city of Karnataka, about 500 km from Bengaluru.
"In 1892, Swami Vivekananda visited Belagavi. I am told the idea of his participation at the World Parliament of Religions in Chicago occurred to him here. As is well known, Swamiji made a big impact in Chicago - and we recently celebrated the 125th anniversary of his address there," said Kovind at a function in this historic city.
At the Parliament of Religions, Vivekananda had said, man is not travelling from error to truth, but from truth to truth, from lower to higher truth. This is so meaningful in the context of education, noted the President.
Inaugurating the platinum jubilee celebration of Karnatak Law Society (KLS) and Raja Lakhamgouda Law College, Kovind said Belagavi had a rich history of learning and wisdom, as it was home to Jain monks who brought spiritualism and scholarship thousands of years ago.
"Over the years, Belagavi has emerged as a symbol of our nation and a notable home for our military community, our economic assets and for our cultural and classical music traditions," said Kovind in his presidential address.
Admitting that higher education was very close to his heart and a priority for his presidency, Kovind told the huge gathering that his background had been in the legal fraternity, with law not as a profession but a passion.
"It is fitting that KLS and its college are located in Belagavi and their event is blessed with the presence of legal luminaries like state Governor Vajubhai R Vala, a lawyer by training, Supreme Court's Chief Justice of India Dipak Mishra and Attorney General K.K. Venugopal, an alumni of the college," pointed out Kovind.
Former Chief Justices of India E.S. Venkataramiah and S. Rajendra Babu are also alumni of the law college.
During the freedom struggle for Independence, Kovind said renowned nationalist Bal Gangadhar Tilak inaugurated the Home Rule League at Belagavi in 1916.
"The founding of the Society in 1939 was a part of this illustrious legacy as it was the brainchild of nationalist and socially committed lawyers who thought for the country. They created the Society and the Law College to train young minds and budding lawyers to promote the rule of law and governance by laws," observed Kovind.
The Society's founders were skilled lawyers, with lucrative practice. Yet, they devoted time to the cause of education and even taught in the Law College free of charge. Its co-founder Raja Lakhamgouda Sirdesai of Vantmuri donated Rs 1 lakh to the Society, a princely sum those days.
The Society runs 14 institutions, including an institute of technology, a medical college and a management college, among others and has 14,000 students on its rolls.
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Trump orders blockade of 'sanctioned oil tankers' into Venezuela, ramping up pressure on Maduro
Washington (AP): President Donald Trump said Tuesday he is ordering a blockade of all “sanctioned oil tankers” into Venezuela, ramping up pressure on the country's authoritarian leader Nicolas Maduro in a move that seemed designed to put a tighter chokehold on the South American country's economy.
Trump's escalation comes after US forces last week seized an oil tanker off Venezuela's coast, an unusual move that followed a buildup of military forces in the region. In a post on social media Tuesday night announcing the blockade, Trump alleged Venezuela was using oil to fund drug trafficking and other crimes and vowed to continue the military buildup until the country gave the US oil, land and assets, though it was not clear why he felt the US had a claim.
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“Venezuela is completely surrounded by the largest Armada ever assembled in the History of South America,” Trump said in a post on his social media platform. “It will only get bigger, and the shock to them will be like nothing they have ever seen before — Until such time as they return to the United States of America all of the Oil, Land, and other Assets that they previously stole from us.”
Pentagon officials referred all questions about the post to the White House.
Venezuela's government released a statement Tuesday accusing Trump of “violating international law, free trade, and the principle of free navigation” with “a reckless and grave threat” against the South American country.
“On his social media, he assumes that Venezuela's oil, land, and mineral wealth are his property,” the statement said of Trump's post. “Consequently, he demands that Venezuela immediately hand over all its riches. The President of the United States intends to impose, in an utterly irrational manner, a supposed naval blockade on Venezuela with the aim of stealing the wealth that belongs to our nation.”
Maduro's government, according to the statement, plans to denounce the situation before the United Nations.
The US buildup has been accompanied by a series of military strikes on boats in international waters in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific. The campaign, which has drawn bipartisan scrutiny among US lawmakers, has killed at least 95 people in 25 known strikes on vessels.
Trump has for weeks said that the US will move its campaign beyond the water and start strikes on land.
The Trump administration has defended the strikes as a success, saying they have prevented drugs from reaching American shores, and pushed back on concerns that they are stretching the bounds of lawful warfare.
The Trump administration has said the campaign is about stopping drugs headed to the US, but Trump's chief of staff Susie Wiles appeared to confirm in a Vanity Fair interview published Tuesday that the campaign is part of a push to oust Maduro.
Wiles said Trump “wants to keep on blowing boats up until Maduro cries uncle.”
Tuesday night's announcement seemed to have a similar aim.
Venezuela, which has the world's largest proven oil reserves and produces about 1 million barrels a day, has long relied on oil revenue as a lifeblood of its economy.
Since the Trump administration began imposing oil sanctions on Venezuela in 2017, Maduro's government has relied on a shadowy fleet of unflagged tankers to smuggle crude into global supply chains.
The state-owned oil company Petroleos de Venezuela SA, commonly known as PDVSA, has been locked out of global oil markets by US sanctions. It sells most of its exports at a steep discount in the black market in China.
Francisco Monaldi, a Venezuelan oil expert at Rice University in Houston, said about 850,000 barrels of the 1 million daily production is exported. Of that, he said, 80 per cent goes to China, 15 per cent to 17 per cent goes to the US through Chevron Corp, and the remainder goes to Cuba.
In October, Trump appeared to confirm reports that Maduro has offered a stake in Venezuela's oil and other mineral wealth in recent months to try to stave off mounting pressure from the United States.
“He's offered everything,” Trump said at the time. “You know why? Because he doesn't want to f—- around with the United States.”
It wasn't immediately clear how the US planned to enact what Trump called a “TOTAL AND COMPLETE BLOCKADE OF ALL SANCTIONED OIL TANKERS going into, and out of, Venezuela.”
But the US Navy has 11 ships, including an aircraft carrier and several amphibious assault ships, in the region.
Those ships carry a wide complement of aircraft, including helicopters and V-22 Ospreys. Additionally, the Navy has been operating a handful of P-8 Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft in the region.
All told, those assets provide the military a significant ability to monitor marine traffic coming in and out of the country.
Trump in his post said that the “Venezuelan Regime has been designated a FOREIGN TERRORIST ORGANIZATION,” but it wasn't clear what he was referring to.
The foreign terrorist organisation designation has been historically reserved for non-state actors that do not have sovereign immunities conferred by either treaties or United Nations membership.
In November, the Trump administration announced it was designating the Cartel de los Soles as a foreign terrorist organisation. The term Cartel de los Soles originally referred to Venezuelan military officers involved in drug-running, but it is not a cartel per se.
Governments that US administrations seek to sanction for financing, otherwise fomenting or tolerating extremist violence are usually designated “state sponsors of terrorism.”
Venezuela is not on that list.
In rare cases, the US has designated an element of a foreign government as an “FTO.” The Trump administration in its first term did so with the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, an arm of the Iranian government, which had already been designated a state sponsor of terrorism.
