Amid Oppn protest, Allahabad is now officially Prayagraj

We will take this process ahead and write to the central institutions to change their names. These institutions include Allahabad University, Allahabad high court and Allahabad railway station

SIDHARTH NATH SINGH, UP minister for medical and health

LUCKNOW: Ahead of Kumbh Mela2019, the Uttar Pradesh cabinet on Tuesday approved a proposal to rename Allahabad as ‘Prayagraj’ amid protests by the opposition parties.

Briefing mediapersons about the state cabinet’s decisions, UP minister for medical and health and government spokesman Sidharth Nath Singh said, “Allahabad will be known as Prayagraj from today. We will take this process ahead and write to the central institutions to change their names. These institutions include Allahabad University, Allahabad high court and Allahabad railway station.”

Chief minister Yogi Adityanath presided over the cabinet meeting that cleared the proposal for renaming of Allahabad.

Singh, who himself has been raising the issue and writing to governor Ram Naik in this connection, said various organisations and local people had been demanding that the name of Allahabad be changed to Prayagraj.

He said the CM had moved a proposal at the meeting of Kumbh Mela Margdarshak Mandal held in Sangam city on Sunday.

“A number of saints raised the demand for renaming of Allahabad. Governor Ram Naik and chief justice of the Allahabad high court justice DB Bhosale had also attended the Kumbh Mela Marg Darshak Mandal meeting,” he said.

“Allahabad was known as Prayagraj about 500 years ago. We are restoring its name now,” said Singh.

Replying to a question, Singh said Allahabad was the most important of 14 Prayags in India.

Meanwhile, the Yogi government’s move triggered a fresh round of politics with the opposition parties taking strong exception to the decision.

Hours after the decision, Samajwadi Party (SP) president Akhilesh Yadav expressed his opposition, saying, “BJP must learn to differentiate between ‘naam aur kaam (name and work)’. When will BJP end the politics of name change? It is already over a year-and-a-half, when will the BJP government in the state will begin working? When will development become part of politics? BJP must reply all these questions. People won’t benefit by the daily talks about cow-dung or brooms. BJP’S government has exhausted four-and-a-half years at the Centre and one-and-a-half year in UP. BJP is the failed political party.” NEWDELHI: Finance minister Arun Jaitley launched a fresh attack on Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday, quashing the opposition leader’s range of allegations from Rafale jet deal to non-performing assets.

Brushing aside Gandhi’s charges that a private company got an advantage ranging from ~38,000 crore to ~130,000 crore in the Rafale deal, Jaitley wrote in a blog, “Rafale aircraft and its weaponry is not being manufactured in India at all, neither by Dassault or by any other private company...” Jaitley emphasised that the government had not waived a single rupee of corporate loans. He maintained that India witnessed a successful implementation of the Goods and Services Tax. Continuing to call the Congress leader a “clown prince”, Jaitley wondered if Gandhi had a personality issue where “he lies a dozen times and then in self-delusion believes it to be true or is it a case of a ‘Clown Prince’ out-clowning himself?”

“Arun Jaitley’s desperation to stay relevant as a ‘Court Jester’ to ‘Modi Sultanate’ is making him stoop to a new level every day,” Congress chief spokesperson Randeep Surjewala said in a statement, according to PTI.

DR ANJANY RAY, D irector of the Csir-indian Institute of Petroleum

be named said.

To ensure that production of Bio-fuel doesn’t affect the land available of food-grains, Bio-fuel will be produced only from non-edible oils that grow well in arid lands. Gujarat, for instance, offered 10,000 acres arid land to produce non-edible oilseeds. Other states that are keen to produce non-edible oil seeds and put up plants to produce Bio- Fuel include Punjab, Haryana, Chattisgarh, Uttarakhand and Telangana.

If the test flight that starts from November mid-week goes as planned, IAF will showcase its capability during the Republic Day fly past on January 26, 2019, a senior IAF official said.