When Biden spoke of distant relatives living in Mumbai
Mumbai: When US President-elect Joe Biden was in India's financial capital in 2013, he had told an audience that his distant relatives live in Mumbai.
Biden reiterated his claim two years later at an event in Washington, saying there are five Bidens living in Mumbai.
With the 77-year-old Democrat set to take oath as the 46th US President in just over two months, nobody in Mumbai has so far turned up to claim that he is Biden's relative.
Decades after he received a letter from someone by the last name of Biden from Mumbai, soon after becoming a senator, Biden learned that his "great, great, great, great, great grandfather" had worked in the East India Company.
"There are five Bidens in Mumbai, India," Biden, then Vice President, told a Washington audience in 2015 at an event organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry and Carnegie Endowment for International Peace on the occasion of the 10th anniversary of India-US civil nuclear deal.
In 2013, when Biden travelled to Mumbai on his maiden vice presidential trip to India, he spoke about this letter he received when he became the senator for the first time several decades ago.
In his address to the Bombay Stock Exchange on July 24, 2013, Biden narrated his story of the 'Biden from Mumbai'.
"It's an honour to be back in India and to be here in Mumbai.
Off script for a second here, I was reminded I was elected to the United States Senate when I was a 29-year-old kid back in 1972, and one of the first letters I received and I regret I never followed up on it.
"Maybe, some genealogist in audience can follow up for me, but I received a letter from a gentleman named Biden - Biden, my name - from Mumbai, asserting that we were related," Biden had told the Mumbai audience seven years ago.
In his 2015 speech in Washington, Biden had claimed that his "great, great, great, great, great grandfather" George Biden was a Captain in the East India Trading company and after retirement, decided to settle in India and married an Indian woman.
Biden had also said someone provided him with the details including the phone numbers of the Bidens in Mumbai. He had informed the audience that he was yet to call his Mumbai kin but was planning to do so.
It is not clear if Biden did manage to contact them as the five Bidens he spoke of have not 'surfaced' yet.
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Another North Goa nightclub sealed; Kejriwal says corruption led to fire tragedy
Panaji (PTI): As part of a crackdown against tourist establishments violating laws and safety norms in the aftermath of the Arpora fire tragedy, Goa authorities on Saturday sealed a renowned club at Vagator and revoked the fire department NOC of another club.
Cafe CO2 Goa, located on a cliff overlooking the Arabian Sea at Vagator beach in North Goa, was sealed. The move came two days after Goya Club, also in Vagator, was shut down for alleged violations of rules.
Elsewhere, campaigning for local body polls, AAP leader Arvind Kejriwal said the fire incident at Birch by Romeo Lane nightclub at Arpora, which claimed 25 lives on December 6, happened because the BJP government in the state was corrupt.
An inspection of Cafe CO2 Goa by a state government-appointed team revealed that the establishment, with a seating capacity of 250, did not possess a no-objection certificate (NOC) of the Fire and Emergency Services Department. The club, which sits atop Ozrant Cliff, also did not have structural stability, the team found.
The Fire and Emergency Services on Saturday also revoked the NOC issued to Diaz Pool Club and Bar at Anjuna as the fire extinguishers installed in the establishment were found to be inadequate, said divisional fire officer Shripad Gawas.
A notice was issued to Nitin Wadhwa, the partner of the club, he said in the order.
Campaigning at Chimbel village near Panaji in support of his party's Zilla Panchayat election candidate, Aam Aadmi Party leader Kejriwal said the nightclub fire at Arpora happened because of the "corruption of the Pramod Sawant-led state government."
"Why this fire incident happened? I read in the newspapers that the nightclub had no occupancy certificate, no building licence, no excise licence, no construction licence or trade licence. The entire club was illegal but still it was going on," he said.
"How could it go on? Couldn't Pramod Sawant or anyone else see it? I was told that hafta (bribe) was being paid," the former Delhi chief minister said.
A person can not work without bribing officials in the coastal state, Kejriwal said, alleging that officers, MLAs and even ministers are accepting bribes.
