Maha-K'taka border row: Coordinating ministers to visit Belgaum on Dec 3, hold talks
Mumbai (PTI): Maharashtra ministers Chandrakant Patil and Shambhuraj Desai will meet activists of the Madhyavarti Maharashtra Ekikaran Samiti in Belgaum on December 3 and hold talks with them on the decades-old border dispute with Karnataka.
Patil and Desai have been appointed as the coordinating ministers for the border row with a mandate to coordinate with the legal team regarding the court case on the border dispute between the two states.
Taking to Twitter, Patil said there was a demand from the Madhyavarti Maharashtra Ekikaran Samiti to hold discussions on the border issue.
"Accordingly, coordinating minister Shamburaj Desai and I will visit Belgaum on December 3 and hold discussions. Let's meet up. Discussions surely will lead to a way," the minister tweeted with a letter from the Samiti seeking a meeting with him and Desai.
As per a recent government resolution, the ministers will be responsible for coordination with the Samiti that roots for merging of the Marathi-speaking areas in Karnataka with the state.
Patil and Desai will also look into the problems faced by residents of 865 villages in Karnataka over which the Maharashtra government has staked its claim in this decades old issue, the resolution said.
Patil is a senior state BJP leader, while Desai is a member of the Balasahebanchi Shiv Sena faction of the Shiv Sena. Both hail from western Maharashtra.
Maharashtra, since its inception in 1960, has been entangled in a dispute with Karnataka over the status of Belgaum (also called Belagavi) district and 80 other Marathi speaking villages, which are in the control of the southern state.
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India-bound LPG tanker clears Hormuz
New Delhi (PTI): A tanker carrying liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) for India has sailed out of the Strait of Hormuz and is now headed towards the country, an official statement said on Sunday.
The Marshall Islands-flagged LPG carrier MT Sarv Shakti, loaded with 46,313 tonnes of LPG and staffed by 20 crew, including 18 Indians, cleared the key shipping chokepoint on May 2 and is expected to reach Visakhapatnam on May 13, it said.
The cargo -- enough to meet half a days requirement of the country -- will partly tide over supply constraints being faced since the start of the West Asia conflict more than two months back.
Ship-tracking data showed its position in Oman Gulf on Sunday evening.
The very large gas carrier has previously made runs between the Persian Gulf and Indian ports, has been chartered by state-owned Indian Oil Corporation (IOC).
Sarv Shakti is the first India-linked tanker to cross the war zone since a weeks-old US blockade of ships tied to Iran began, pushing transits through Hormuz back down to almost zero.
There are as many as 14 Indian flagged or India-owned vessels still stranded on the west side of the Strait of Hormuz.
The statement said no incident involving Indian-flagged vessels has been reported in the past 24 hours. The Ministry of Ports, Shipping and Waterways is working closely with the Ministry of External Affairs, Indian missions and maritime stakeholders to ensure crew welfare and uninterrupted operations.
The Directorate General of Shipping (DG Shipping) control room has handled 8,373 calls and more than 17,965 emails since activation, including 38 calls and 127 emails in the last 24 hours.
India has also facilitated the repatriation of more than 2,953 seafarers so far, including 31 in the past day from across the Gulf region.
Port operations across the country remain normal with no congestion reported, the statement added.
