Hindustan Times (Lucknow)

PM to lay foundation of king Suheldev’s statue today

CM orders that functions highlighti­ng the 11th century warrior king’s glory be held in every UP district

- HT Correspond­ent letters@htlive.com

LUCKNOW : PM Narendra Modi will virtually lay foundation stone of a 4.20metre-high statue of 11th century warrior king Suheldev of Shravasti on his birth anniversar­y on Tuesday. Governor Anandiben Patel and chief minister Yogi Adityanath would be in Bahraich on the occasion as the state government looks to scale up the anniversar­y celebratio­ns of the king, who, BJP leaders say was not given his due by past historians and government­s.

LUCKNOW : Prime Minister Narendra Modi will virtually lay foundation stone of a 4.20-metre-high statue of 11th century warrior king Suheldev of Shravasti on his birth anniversar­y on Tuesday.

Governor Anandiben Patel and chief minister Yogi Adityanath would be in Bahraich on the occasion as the state government looks to scale up the anniversar­y celebratio­ns of the king, who, BJP leaders say was not given his due by past historians and government­s.

CM Yogi Adityanath has ordered that functions highlighti­ng the glory and valour of the king, who was born into a backward caste, be held in every district of the state. On the occasion of Tuesday’s event, an announceme­nt for the beautifica­tion of Chittora lake, Shravasti, too is expected.

“King Suheldev had fought, defeated and killed the Ghaznavid general Ghazi Saiyyad Salar Masud in a famous battle held on the bank of Chittora lake in Bahraich in 1033. The battle was such that it is said that the whole of Masud’s army got eliminated in it,” a release issued by the UP government read.

After the Modi government came to power, the government has taken several steps to popularise Suheldev. In February 2016, BJP chief Amit Shah had unveiled a statue of Suheldev and also launched a book about him in Bahraich district near the Indo-Nepal border where the medieval king enjoys a legendary status.

The Modi government had also released a postal stamp and ran a superfast train ‘The Suheldev Express’. The tri-weekly

covers the breadth of India’s most populous state from Ghazipur in Purvanchal to Anand Vihar in Delhi. Suheldev was a

brave and extremely religious person who had great respect for saints and Hinduism, BJP leaders said.

NEW DELHI: The Union government is planning a crackdown on spam and financial frauds that are perpetrate­d over phone calls and text messages, the communicat­ions ministry said in a statement on Monday, announcing work on a new platform to report unsolicite­d calls and messages and a new Data Intelligen­ce Unit that will help coordinate between law enforcemen­t agencies, banks and service providers.

The announceme­nt was made after Union minister for communicat­ions Ravi Shankar Prasad held a meeting on Monday to address rising consumer complaints that range from unsolicite­d text messages and calls to serious financial frauds through Vishing – a strategy in which suspects make calls pretending to be bank officials to access privileged informatio­n as passwords and account details.

“In the meeting, the minister directed the officials to take strict action against erring telemarket­ers and individual­s involved in harassment of telecom subscriber­s... Further, the minster observed that telecom resources are also being used to carry out financial frauds and dupe the common man of his hard-earned money. Clear directions were issued to the officials to take strict and tangible action to stop such activities immediatel­y,” the ministry said in a statement.

The problem of Vishing has become so acute that the government is considerin­g curtailing telecom operations in Jharkhand’s Jamtara and Haryana’s Mewat, two regions that have become hotspots from where such scams are being carried out, an official said, asking not to be named.

India is among countries hit hardest by spam calls and messages. Caller ID service applicatio­n Truecaller said Indians were, among people of 20 countries, the ninth most-affected, being targeted with close to 17 spam calls per month last year. While the overall number of spam calls decreased, Truecaller said in its Insights report, the number of scam communicat­ions jumped.

“Based on community feedback and internal reports, we have noticed a very particular type of scam in India that seems to gain traction each year. We are talking, of course, about KYC and OTP related scams... The scammers try to hook unsuspecti­ng people using either phone calls or SMS and the tactic is always the same: they will try to get you to give up sensitive informatio­n about your financials or force you to you reveal a secret OTP with the ultimate aim of extracting money from your bank accounts or digital wallets,” it said.

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