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Union road transport and highways minister Nitin Gadkari on Friday took a swipe at the trend of frequent maintenance and relaying of roads due to bad quality of construction. He said frequent maintenance brings “a lot of satisfaction” to everyone, including politicians, officers and contractors for the reason known to all in a remark tinged with sarcasm.

“Maintenance is a subject that makes everyone — politicians to officials and contractors — happy. Frequent maintenance work brings a lot of satisfaction, though the public is the only loser. Contractors get upset when decisions are taken for durable roads as they feel they will lose their business,” Gadkari said while addressing an event organised by industry body, FICCI.

The Supreme Court on Tuesday shifted conman Sukesh Chandrashekhar and his wife from Tihar Jail to Delhi’s Mandoli jail and decided not to deal with his allegation of extortion against jail officials, as it noted the matter ought to be left to the concerned authorities to handle.

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) claimed the extortion amount Chandrashekhar alleged was paid as bribes to win over jailers at Tihar who have since been suspended.

“We have not consciously gone into the allegations made by the petitioner as no clap occurs unless there are two hands,” the bench of justices S Ravindra Bhat and Sudhanshu Dhulia said.

Rebel Shiv Sena MLA Sanjay Shirsat rued the alleged lack of respect for seniority in politics after a BJP MLA with whose father he claimed he had worked earlier was made a cabinet minister in the Eknath Shinde government in Maharashtra.

Speaking at a public function connected to road works here on Sunday, Shirsat, who had joined the Shinde camp in the early days of the Sena rebellion in June, sounded disgruntled at not being made a minister. Incidentally, state Cooperative Minister Atul Save, of the BJP, was the chief guest.

The war of words between Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao's Telangana Rashtra Samiti and Bharatiya Janata Party has now intensified as KCR's daughter K Kavitha on Monday threatened the BJP to file a defamation suit adding that the saffron party is trying to mess with the wrong people. The political slugfest between the BJP and TRS began after the central ruling party accused KCR's party of being involved in the multi-crore liquor policy scam in Delhi.

KCR, who was earlier an ally of the BJP-led NDA alliance, recently took an egregious U-turn with the Telangana Chief Minister openly attacking PM Modi and his policies. KCR also catalysed his efforts to form a joint opposition against the BJPfor 2024.

The IRCTC has introduced another special tour package for South India. This tour package will include places like Kanyakumari, Kochi, Kumarakom, Madurai, Munnar, Rameshwaram, and Trivandrum. The Rameshwaram Madurai with Kerala tour package is for 7 nights and 8 days. This travel package will include visits to various temples such as Meenakshi Amman Temple, and Sri Kanya Kumari Bhagwati Amman Temple.

IRCTC has led the following plan- Jaipur – Madurai – Rameshwaram – Kanyakumari – Trivandrum – Kumarakom – Munnar – Kochi – Jaipur hence 7 nights and 8 days and one night at each destination.