New Delhi, Aug 30 (IANS) Sonia Gandhi on Monday approved several committees ahead of the Assembly polls in Goa. Girish Chodankar has been retained as the state president and former Chief Minister Digambar Kamat will continue as the Congress legislative party leader while Alexio Sequeira is the Working state President.
Former Chief Minister Luizinho Falerio has been appointed Chairman of the Election coordination committee with M.K. Sheikh as convener.
Campaign committee to be headed by Reginaldo Lourenco and Sangeetha Parab as co chairperson.
Former CM Fracisco Sardinha has been made chairman of the Finance committee and Pramod Salgaocar as co chairperson. Manifesto committee is to be headed by Ramakant Khalap and Publicity committee by Chandrakant Chodankar.
The surprise missing is Francisco Xavier Pacheco, popularly known as Mickky, who was tipped to be made the working President of the Goa Congress. Mickky was in Delhi and had formally joined the Congress.
Mickky speaking on the phone from Goa on Friday had said, "I want to settle the people in the Congress who have been with me for a long time and so I will meet the Congress leaders in Delhi soon."
Sources said that Mickky had met Kamal Nath who had been instrumental in his joining the Congress and also had met P. Chidambaram, Dinesh Gundu Rao and K.C. Venugopal in Delhi.
India and Australia penned a landmark agreement for reciprocal access to military bases for logistics support besides firming up six more pacts to further broaden ties after Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Australian counterpart PM Scott Morrison held an online summit.
Siddharta Vashishtha, also known as Manu Sharma, the convict in the Jessica Lal murder case was released from Tihar Jail on Tuesday. Sandeep Goel, Director-General of Tihar Jail, said: “He was released on the recommendations of the Sentence Reviewing Board meeting. The entire process has been carried out.”
A swarm of locusts on Wednesday and Thursday devastated crops in Uttar Pradesh’s Sonbhadhra district, which shares borders with Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Madhya Pradesh. The pest has damaged crops in six states, leading to the Centre issuing a locust warning to 16 states.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced Rs 1,500 crore for the relief and rehabilitation of people affected by Cyclone Amphan in West Bengal and Odisha, and assured the states of more support after conducting separate aerial surveys with chief ministers Mamata Banerjee and Naveen Patnaik on Friday.
US President Donald Trump tweeted that the US would donate ventilators to India in the fight against COVID-19. "We stand with India and Prime Minister Narendra Modi during this pandemic,".
