Karnataka Forest Minister Eshwar Khandre assures resolving PM’s hospitality bill issue amicably
Bengaluru, May 25: Karnataka Forest Minister Eshwar Khandre on Saturday said that the hospitality bill of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who arrived in Mysuru in April last year to commemorate 50 years of Project Tiger, which runs up to Rs 80 lakh, will be settled amicably.
Following media reports that the hotel where the prime minister had stayed has threatened to find legal recourse to recover his dues, Khandre said he will try to resolve the issue amicably.
"The cost of the three-day event last year was Rs 6.33 crore. Out of this, Rs 3 crore had been received and still Rs 3.33 crore are due from NTCA," Khandre’s office quoted him as saying in a statement.
The minister said the stay at the star hotel cost about Rs 80 lakh.
ALSO READ: Mysuru hotel owner threatens to take legal action for non-clearance of Rs 80 lakh bill for PM’s stay
"When this programme was held in April 2023, the Model Code of Conduct for Assembly Elections was in force and therefore the state government was not involved. Neither was the use of the state emblem. It was a complete National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) programme," he said.
The minister added that the officials of the forest department were in the committee formed locally to manage the hospitality in the wake of the prime minister's visit to the state.
He explained that NTCA had actually said that they would bear the entire cost of the programme.
"The NTCA has not paid this amount (hotel cost) even though the officials of our department have written many letters and spoke about this over the phone. Now the matter has come to my attention. I will try to resolve it amicably," Khandre said.
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Immigration judge finds that Columbia University pro-Palestinian activist Khalil can be deported
Jena (US), Apr 12 (AP): Columbia University graduate student Mahmoud Khalil can be kicked out of the US as a national security risk, an immigration judge in Louisiana has found during a hearing over the legality of deporting the activist who participated in pro-Palestinian demonstrations.
The government's contention that Khalil's presence in the United States posed “potentially serious foreign policy consequences” was enough to satisfy requirements for his deportation, Immigration Judge Jamee E Comans said at the conclusion of a hearing in Jena on Friday.
Comans said the government had “established by clear and convincing evidence that he is removable”.
Lawyers for Khalil said they plan to keep fighting and will seek a waiver. And a federal judge in New Jersey has temporarily barred Khalil's deportation.
Khalil, a legal US resident, was detained by federal immigration agents on March 8 in the lobby of his university-owned apartment, the first arrest under President Donald Trump's promised crackdown on students who joined campus protests against the war in Gaza.
Within a day, he was flown across the country and taken to an immigration detention centre in Jena, thousands of miles from his attorneys and wife, a US citizen who is due to give birth soon.
Khalil's lawyers have challenged the legality of his detention, saying the Trump administration is trying to crack down on free speech protected by the US Constitution.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has cited a rarely used statute to justify Khalil's deportation, which gives him power to deport those who pose “potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States”.
At Friday's hearing, Khalil attorney Marc Van Der Hout told the judge that the government's submissions to the court prove the attempt to deport his client “has nothing to do with foreign policy”.
Earlier this week, Comans challenged the government to share proof that Khalil should be expelled from the country for his role in campus protests against Israel and the war in Gaza. She said if evidence does not support his removal, she would “terminate the case on Friday”.
On Friday, Justice Department attorneys said in papers filed in federal court in Newark, New Jersey, that Comans would not have the authority to immediately free Khalil.
They said an immigration judge could determine if Khalil is subject to deportation and then conduct a bail hearing afterward if it is found that he is not.
Khalil isn't accused of breaking any laws during the protests at Columbia. The government, however, has said that noncitizens who participate in such demonstrations should be expelled from the country for expressing views that the administration considers to be antisemitic and “pro-Hamas,” referring to the Palestinian fighter group that attacked Israel on Oct 7, 2023.
Khalil, a 30-year-old international affairs graduate student, had served as a negotiator and spokesperson for student activists at Columbia University who took over a campus lawn last spring to protest Israel's military campaign in Gaza.
The university brought police in to dismantle the encampment after a small group of protesters seized an administration building. Khalil is not accused of participating in the building occupation and wasn't among the people arrested in connection with the demonstrations.
But images of his maskless face at protests, along with his willingness to share his name with reporters, have made him an object of scorn among those who saw the protesters and their demands as antisemitic. The White House accused Khalil of “siding with terrorists,” but has yet to cite any support for the claim.
Federal judges in New York and New Jersey have ordered the government not to deport Khalil while his case plays out in court.
The Trump administration has said it is taking at least $400 million in federal funding away from research programmes at Columbia and its medical centre to punish it for not doing enough to fight what it considers to be antisemitism on campus.
Some Jewish students and faculty complained about being harassed during the demonstrations or ostracised because of their faith or their support of Israel.
Immigration authorities have cracked down on other critics of Israel on college campuses, arresting a Georgetown University scholar who had spoken out on social media about the Israel-Gaza war, cancelling the student visas of some protesters and deporting a Brown University professor who they said had attended the Lebanon funeral of a leader of Hezbollah, another fighter group that has fought with Israel.
