Patiala : A Patiala court sentenced singer Daler Mehndi to two years in jail in a human trafficking case registered against him in 2003.
Mehndi, who was present in the court, was arrested. Daler Mehndi and brother Shamsher Singh had been accused of illegally sending people abroad disguised as members of his troupe by charging hefty “passage money”.
It was alleged that Mehndi brothers had taken two troupes in 1998 and 1999 during the course of which 10 people were taken to the US as group members and were “dropped off” illegally.

Daler, on a trip to the US in the company of Karisma Kapoor and the latter’s mother Babita, had allegedly “dropped off” three girls at San Francisco. The girls had been identified as Priya, Meenu Behn and Nimu, all from Gujarat.

The brothers took another troupe to the US in October 1999 in the company of Juhi Chawla, Raveena Tandon and Javed Jaffri during which three boys were “dropped off” at New Jersey.

Soon after the Patiala police registered a case against Daler and Shamsher, on a complaint filed by one Bakshish Singh; 35 more complaints came up levelling charges of fraud against the brothers.
The complainants had alleged that the brothers had taken “passage money’ from them to help them migrate to the US ‘illegally’, but had failed to do so.
The Patiala police had even raided the offices of Daler Mehndi at Connaught Place in New Delhi and seized documents, including the case file of those who had paid the Mehndi brothers ‘passage money”.

In 2006, the Patiala police filed two discharge petitions articulating Daler Mehndi to be innocent, but the court had upheld that Daler Mehndi be prosecuted as there was "sufficient evidence against him on the judicial file and scope for further investigation". 

Hisar : Mustard farmers were forced to sell off their produce below the MSP to arhtiyas as government agencies could not start procurement in the grain market of Hisar and Bhiwani districts today.
The MSP is Rs 4,000 per quintal. The state government has fixed a limit of 25 quintals to procure mustard.
The state government had announced to start mustard procurement from March 15 and designated several mandis in six districts to ensure that farmers get the MSP on their produce.
As famers arrived in the Hisar grain market with mustard oilseeds, government agencies expressed their inability to purchase due to non-preparedness.
Maha Singh of Juglan village said, “I have brought 24 quintals of mustard, but government agencies have not started the purchase. I have to sell my produce for Rs 3,550 per quintal to a trader.”
Another farmer Pradeep said the state government’s promise to ensure MSP had proved hollow on the first day itself.
Hafed official Rajender said they would prepare a roster of villages and then inform sarpanches to spread a massage about the day fixed for their village to bring produce to mandis.
Bhiwani farmers, too, were unable to get MSP in the absence of government agencies in market. The traders offered Rs 3,300 to Rs 3,500 per quintal to farmers.
Bhiwani’s Hafed manager Surender Singh said they were ready for the purchase, but the produce had moisture content above the permissible limit of 8 per cent.

Chandigarh : A day after Delhi Chief Minister and AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal apologised to former Punjab minister Bikram Singh Majithia for alleging that the latter was involved in drug trade, Punjab’s top leader Bhagwant Mann resigned from the state president's post.
Mann said that his "fight against drug mafia and corruption will continue".

"I'm resigning as a president of AAP Punjab... But my fight against drug mafia and all kind of corruption in Punjab will continue as an 'Aam Aadmi' (common man) of Punjab," Mann tweeted.

Mann represents the Sangrur parliamentary constituency in the Lok Sabha.

He was appointed the state party chief in May 2017.

Majithia had filed a defamation case against Kejriwal and others following the allegation made during campaigning in the Punjab Assembly elections.
Leader of Opposition Sukhpal Singh Khaira said, “All of us in Punjab are not very happy with Kejriwal ji apologise to Majithia. Strong evidences against Majithia have been submitted by the Special Task Force (STF) of the state government in the Punjab and Haryana High Court. We MLAs are going to discuss the issue.”  

LUCKNOW: A day after losing the two crucial by-elections in Gorakhpur and Phulpur, Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath on Thursday called the result “unprecedented” and said “both workers and party supporters got complacent as it was a ‘Yogi seat”.
Speaking on the electoral drubbing, at a Town Hall organised by The Times of India here on Thursday, Yogi said: “I was five-time MP from Gorakhpur and before me, my guruji (Mahant Avaidyanath) was the MP for four terms. Nobody thought we would lose this seat, and therefore, didn’t put in the required effort.”
BJP lost bypolls in Gorakhpur and Phulpur, which were vacated by the CM and deputy chief minister Keshav Prasad Maurya, respectively. The results were declared on Wednesday.
Yogi questioned the Opposition for its silence on EVMs. “As soon as voting started on Sunday, SP and BSP accused BJP of tampering with EVMs. They should have known that BJP would not misuse power and would work ethically. I would like to ask BSP and SP to explain this result. Why are they silent now?” the CM asked.
Elaborating on the reasons for the BJP’s “unprecedented loss” in the two “prestigious and safe” seats, Yogi said that over-confidence had done the party in.
“Whenever I went to any poll rally, I was told that we are winning. I would tell them that every election should be taken seriously and we should not be complacent. However, this is not the first time that this has happened,” said Yogi. 

“We failed to read the SP-BSP alliance and didn’t get into the kind of micromanagement that was needed,” he said.