Scientist retracts caste complaint against cook
PUNE: Following public outrage, India Meteorological Department’s (IMD) Deputy Director Medha Khole on Saturday withdrew her police complaint against a cook for allegedly lying about belonging to the Brahmin caste when the latter sought a job at her home.
Khole reached Sinhagad police station on Saturday and submitted an application seeking to withdraw her complaint, senior police officials said. “My complaint was related to cheating. However, if I have hurt anyone’s feelings, I apologise and withdraw my complaint,” she said in her application. Assistant Commissioner of Police Shivaji Pawar said her application will now be submitted to the court to formally withdraw the case.
It was on September 6 that the IMD scientist had registered a case of impersonation against her cook Nirmala Yadav for allegedly hiding her caste and status as a divorcee posing as a Brahmin to get the job of a cook. Khole was incensed that the cook was not a Brahmin as she only employed people of that caste for cooking food during religious ceremonies. THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: National Award winning actor Surabhi Lakshmi would never have thought a shoot about her favourite delicacies would land her in trouble.
Lakshmi found herself at the receiving end of abuse on social media when a programme showing her eating beef at one of her favourite restaurants in Kozhikode was aired on Onam.
In the programme aired on Media One TV, the actor was seen tasting Malabar ‘parotta’ with beef curry at the restaurant in her native town.
A day after Onam, she also posted an image of the ‘sadya’ (feast) on Facebook, which included a chicken dish on a plantain leaf.
“Your activities never suit your name. Better change your name. You have certain agenda in eating beef,” a troll said on social media.
“You would do whatever dirty things for money. Take pork next time, that will suit you better,” another commented.
The abusers alleged that the actor hurt their sentiments as only vegetarian dishes were served on Onam. HYDERABAD/NEW DELHI: Federal indirect tax body, the Goods and Service Tax (GST) Council, on Saturday raised the cess on medium sized-to-large cars and SUVs in the range of 2-7 percentage points but kept the tax burden lower than pre-GST levels.
The council also reduced the GST rate on about 30 commonly used products like dosa batter and rain coats as it sought to pass on benefit of better than expected revenue receipts under the twomonth-old tax regime to the consumer. The revised rates including the cess will be effective from the date they will be notified. Dried tamarind, custard powder, disposables and rubber bands are among other items on which tax rate has been reduced.
Finance minister Arun Jaitley said there was no change in the GST cess on small petrol and diesel cars, hybrid cars or on 13-seater vehicles. The cess on mid-segment cars will go up by 2, large cars by 5 and SUVs by 7 percentage points. The effective tax burden will be less than the preGST levels, he explained.
“The council decided that it is only in large vehicles, affordability of consumers is high. Accordingly, the cess has been increased by two, five and seven percentage points. Even then, the pre-GST rate has not been restored even though we had headroom for increasing by 10 percentage points,” said Jaitley. The government