Balrampur gang-rape: After Hathras incident, 22-yr-old Dalit girl drugged and killed in Uttar Pradesh city

Balrampur: Amid the widespread outrage over the alleged gang-rape and murder of a Dalit teen from Hathras in Uttar Pradesh, an yet another scheduled caste woman died in Balrampur district of the state while being rushed to a hospital after her rape by two youths.

Balrampur Superintendent of Police Dev Ranjan Verma said the incident happened in the Gaisari area of the district, where a 22-year-old Dalit woman, working in a private firm, failed to return home in time on Tuesday evening, prompting her parents to start looking for her.

The woman's parents said she did not respond to calls on her mobile phone, triggering panic among family members, the police said.

The woman, however, returned home shortly later in an autorickshaw with an intravascular cannula, medically known as Vigo and used for administering injection, glucose or other fluids in the body, inserted in her hand, the police said, quoting her parents.

The girl looked dazed and in a serious condition, prompting her parents to rush her to a nearby hospital, but she died on the way, said the SP.

When the matter was reported to the police from the hospital, the parents alleged that their daughter was gang-raped, SP Verma said.

Acting on the parent's complaint, police identified the accused as Shahid and Sahil and arrested them, the SP said.

Reacting to the incident, Samajwadi Party supremo Akhilesh Yadav said, "After Hathras, now a daughter was harassed and gang-raped in Balrampur. The victim died in serious condition. Condolences!"

"The BJP government should commit no laxity in this case as was done in Hathras and arrest the accused immediately," he added with a hashtag #Balrampur... #NoMoreBJP" on his Tweeter handle.

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By insisting on 1959 LAC, China seeks to justify recent intrusion, put pressure on India to accept redrawing of border

We were getting used to the uneasy calm, a sort of edgy interlude that occurs between high-tension conflicts as Indian and Chinese troops, along with all their arms and armaments, breathe down on each other’s necks in a tense deadlock on the Himalayan terrain. The onset of a brutal winter promised some respite and a fledgeling hope that a diplomatic solution could still be hammered out. China’s latest needling of India, however, shows that it is ready to raise the stakes even more.

The calm that prevails for now looks ominous. The IAF chief recently called it a “no war, no peace” situation and reiterated that defence forces are prepared for “any eventuality”. We have seen recent reports that troops on the ground have been given clear instructions to open fire if the PLA tries to pull any stunt.

As far as deployments go, India has reportedly rolled out 500km-range Brahmos missiles or the long-range indigenous subsonic missile Nirbhay to neutralise the threat of Chinese SAM (surface-to-air missile) deployment in Tibet. Video clips of Indian Army’s tank formations — T-90 and BMP vehicles — in Chumar-Demchock have also been leaked to the press.

The massive buildup of troops and the escalatory spiral leading to a deadly clash in Galwan has been described by S Jaishankar, India’s external affairs minister, as the “most serious situation since 1962”. Reports have emerged that the PLA had raised its combat readiness to the second-highest level following a serious firing incident on the northern bank of Pangong Tso just ahead of Jaishankar-Wang Yi meeting in Moscow.

It is by now clear that the decades-old architecture of patrolling protocols, CBMs and multi-layered talks and core principles to maintain peace and tranquillity at the border have collapsed and in need of urgent replacement in keeping with the revised geopolitical realities.

However, it is equally true that both nations have so far shown an unwillingness to let the escalatory spiral descend into a full-blown military conflict. The consultative mechanism is broken but both India and China have still persisted with it, though their motivations vary. For Beijing, a kinetic action is unnecessary. It would rather use the time provided by “talks” to consolidate its hold on the territory it occupies post April-May.

As this columnist pointed out previously, a protracted stalemate favours China because it is the aggressor and has managed to change the status quo with its stealth encroachments. Conversely, India’s options are either to accept China’s fait accompli or launch a military offensive to evict the PLA from the territory that India considers as own.

However, since India has on more than one occasion reiterated that a solution to India-China border row “has to be found in the domain of diplomacy”, it has given rise to a belief that both countries will “muddle through” the crisis and eventually arrive at a solution even if it takes time, as former foreign national security advisor Shivshankar Menon said at a recent webinar.

So, if the precarious, fragile calm has held so far, it is largely due to a combination of China’s lack of motivation for kinetic action at this stage and India’s pacifist stance. It seemed that the border crisis would persist in the foreseeable future but would deescalate from a flashpoint to a battle of attrition. In this context, China’s recent statements in reference to its fictitious 1959 claim line and dismissal of India’s sovereignty over Ladakh are provocative, unsettling and make for disturbing conclusions.

In a statement to Hindustan Times newspaper, Chinese foreign ministry defined its perception of the LAC as proposed by former Chinese premier Zhou Enlai to Jawaharlal Nehru in 1959.

“Firstly, China-India border LAC is very clear, that is the LAC on November 7, 1959. China announced it in the 1950s, and the international community including India are also clear about it,” Beijing reportedly told the newspaper. China blamed Indian troops for “illegally crossing the border (and) unilaterally expanding the scope of actual control” and tied down disengagement to “India’s withdrawal of all illegal cross-border personnel and equipment,” according to the report.

If this marked the first time in recent years that China has sought to unambiguously redefine the LAC in accord with its 1959 claim line, a demand that India has consistently rejected, Chinese foreign ministry upped the ante further on Tuesday when it called into question India’s sovereignty over Ladakh.

At a press conference, spokesperson Wang Wenbin said: “China doesn't recognize the so-called ‘Ladakh Union Territory’ illegally set up by India and opposes infrastructure building aimed at military contention in disputed border areas.” Asked about China’s building of massive infrastructure along the LAC, Wang predictably claimed that “Chinese border troops have long been on the Chinese side of the LAC and strictly complying with bilateral agreements with India.”

China’s provocative statements have elicited a sharp response from India. In its statement, the Ministry of External Affairs has rejected China’s unilateral definition of 1959 LAC, reiterating that China is fully aware of India’s position. The statement also pointed to various bilateral agreements signed in 1993, 1996 and 2005, where “both India and China have committed to clarification and confirmation of the LAC to reach a common understanding of the alignment” and “the two sides had engaged in an exercise to clarify and confirm the LAC up to 2003, but this process could not proceed further as the Chinese side did not show a willingness to pursue it.” Therefore, stated the MEA, “the insistence now of the Chinese side that there is only one LAC is contrary to the solemn commitments made by China in these agreements.”

India’s response is on predictable lines, but it leaves open a few unanswered issued raised by China’s latest provocation. Why is China doing this? What to make of the timing, tone and tenor of Chinese statements? A few points may be made.

1. Putting pressure on India ahead of talks

Notably, Chinese claims were made just ahead of the 19th meeting of the Working Mechanism for Consultation and Coordination (WMCC) on border affairs and the sixth virtual conference since the crisis unfolded in April-May. Nobody seriously expected a breakthrough when Naveen Srivastava of the external affairs ministry and his counterpart Hong Liang met to discuss “how to implement the five-point consensus reached in Moscow (on September 10)” but Chinese pressure tactics would have precluded any possibility of achieving even notional progress.

How does that help China? As has been noted, it is in China’s interest to maintain the stalemate at the border and resist a diplomatic resolution and buy time for its troops to further reinforce their “new facts on ground”. This modus operandi has served China well in various theatres from the Himalayas to the South China Sea. There is no logical reason why Beijing would abandon this profitable tactic.

It isn’t surprising to note, therefore, that the statement released by MEA post the WMCC meeting indicated the lack of even a hint of progress. Both sides “had frank and detailed discussions on the developments since the last meeting of the WMCC on 20 August”. They agreed that “agreement between the two Foreign Ministers should be sincerely implemented.” They stressed on “strengthening communication, especially between the ground commanders” and “agreed to continue to maintain close consultations at the diplomatic and military level.” The template feels repetitive and pointless.

2. A hardening of Chinese stance

Chinese motivations are hard to read and decision-making process even harder but a general toughening of stance vis-à-vis India on the unresolved border issue has been evident for some time. Even if we disregard the consistently provocative statements in Global Times, the nature of a US-India security alliance and the challenges that it poses for China has got renewed attention since the Donald Trump administration put India at the front and centre of its Indo-Pacific policy.

Leave aside pervasive trolling from CCP’s attack dog newspaper that relies on unhinged rhetoric for eyeballs, serious Chinese scholars are debating whether India has already “accepted a de facto alliance with the US” and the increasing consensus seems to be that “the benefits that the US has offered in material and diplomatic terms have already emboldened New Delhi to pursue risky policies vis-à-vis Pakistan in addition to a more assertive negotiating posture towards China,” as Yun Sun of Stimson Center pointed out in her piece titled China’s Strategic Assessment Of India in War on The Rocks.

More recently, such a trend has been noticed and commented upon in Indian strategic circles. A report in The Hindu points out that Chinese scholars are calling for a hardline ‘reset’ of ties with India based on an assumption that New Delhi is little more than a US lackey.

Scholar Liu Zongyi of Renmin University in Beijing is quoted as saying, “India and the US have formed a de facto military alliance. Under the current situation, we must re-assess our understanding of the US-India alliance and reset our India strategy,” which according to Liu should be a more toughened posture to discourage what he calls India’s opportunistic behavior and “offensive-defensive policy” on the border. The fact that this assessment was published in a mainstream media outlet and Liu had visited the border areas for a “survey” points to the fact that this may have been vetted by the authorities, notes the report.

Interestingly, a few days ahead of the Chinese foreign ministry statement that referred to the 1959 LAC, Yun Sun of Stimson Center (mentioned above) in an interview to The Print had predicted that China in its redrawing of the LAC is aiming for the 1959 claim line. “There are different signals from Beijing. We can see that China is probably aiming for their LAC back in 1959… What happened between 1959 and 1962 according to Chinese perception was an Indian ‘forward policy’ that advanced towards the Chinese territory, which eventually led to the 1962 war.”

Taken together, these point to a systemic change in China’s approach towards India based on a reassessment post the 2017 Doklam standoff that finds expression in greater aggression and hardening of stance on the border issue. A normal state would have fallen back on talks to thrash out the differences, but China isn’t a normal state. Led by a paranoid Chinese Communist Party that needs a perpetual enemy to sustain its control China’s rise is underpinned by a siege mentality that leads to a revanchist posture.

3. Collusion with Pakistan

The close conjunction between Pakistan’s declaration of tighter administrative control over the Gilgit-Baltistan region — that India claims as its sovereign territory — and China’s announcement that it “doesn't recognize the so-called ‘Ladakh Union Territory’ illegally set up by India” is not coincidental. In its ‘new political map’ — an example of cartographic fantasy — Pakistan had left the China “frontier undefined”, suggesting China’s invisible influence.

More recently, Pakistan’s move to elevate the disputed territory’s status to a full-fledged province gives covering fire to China’s cartographic revanchism in Ladakh and also insulates China’s significant investments in the region.

As professor Harsh V Pant of King’s College, London, was quoted as saying in South China Morning Post, “by trying to legalise its stranglehold over Gilgit-Baltistan, Pakistan is trying to not only remove the roadblocks to Chinese investors in CPEC, but also giving Beijing greater access. It also made the two-front war scenario very realistic.”

The synchronized steps between Pakistan and China on the Himalayan frontiers should certainly worry India, and Beijing’s provocative statement on Ladakh should be seen in this context.

4. India’s upgradation of border infrastructure

This has long been Beijing’s pet peeve, and with Narendra Modi government’s stress on the upgradation of border infrastructure to match China’s road-and-bridge network along the LAC, Chinese irritation seems to have hardened into more aggressive behaviour. Wang Wenbin made a clear reference to this during Tuesday’s press conference and in their assessments, both Yun Sun and Liu Zongyi have referred to India’s development of “infrastructure at an accelerated pace since 2014”.

In her piece China’s Strategic Assessment of Ladakh Clash, Yun writes: “For the Chinese, the infrastructure arms race in the border region has enabled the repeated incursions and changes to the status quo, and therefore needs to be stopped. Otherwise, all the things China fought for in the 1962 war would have been in vain.”

This points to a causal relationship between India’s building of roads and China’s attempt to lock in the comparative advantage by encroaching on Indian territory.

5. 1959 claim line as an excuse to justify encroachment

This is by far the most compelling explanation of China’s recent rhetorical flourish. Two points are worth noting upfront. One, China’s 1959 claims have always been wishy-washy to the extent that these have never been seriously considered during bilateral agreements. Two, China has been well aware of India’s clear and consistent objection to this claim.

Former NSA Menon, who played a pivotal role in the 1993 border agreement, writes in his book Choices, “In both 1959 and 1962 India had rejected the concept of a Line of Actual Control, arguing that the Chinese concept was a disconnected series of points on a map that could be joined up in many ways; the lines should omit gains from aggression in 1962 and therefore should be based on actual position on September 8, 1962, before the Chinese attack.”

Ashok Kantha, former India’s ambassador to China who was involved in negotiations for the 1996 Agreement on CBMs in the military field described the 1959 LAC as a “notional and fictional line with no basis in facts” in a Hindustan Times report. “They have tried this in the past, and this notional LAC has been rejected by India, including during the 1993 negotiations,” Kantha is quoted, as saying.

More than five months into the crisis, if China is suddenly insisting on a fictional claim line that has never been agreed upon by the other side in border agreements, it points to a conclusion that China needs to justify PLA’s recent occupation of Indian territory and it has no intention of scaling back from the areas that Chinese troops trespass upon. Beijing’s maximalism points to an inflexible attitude in border negotiations and suggests that the precarious road to a diplomatic solution became harder still.

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India’s COVID-19 tally breaches 63-lakh mark, over 86,000 infections recorded in a day; recovery rate at 83.53%

New Delhi: India's COVID-19 caseload breached the 63-lakh mark with 86,821 infections being reported in a day, while 52,73,201 people have recuperated so far from the disease, according to the Union Health Ministry data updated on Thursday.

The recovery rate stands at 83.53 percent.

The total coronavirus cases mounted to 63,12,584, while the death toll climbed to 98,678 with the virus claiming 1,181 lives in a span of 24 hours, the data updated at 8 am showed.

There are 9,40,705 active cases of coronavirus infection in the country which comprises 14.90 percent of the total caseload, the data stated.

The COVID-19 case fatality rate due to the coronavirus infection has dropped to 1.56 percent.

India's COVID-19 tally had crossed the 20-lakh mark on 7 August, 30 lakh on 23 August and 40 lakh on 5 September. It went past 50 lakh on 16 September and crossed 60 lakh on 28 September.

According to the ICMR, a cumulative total of 7,56,19,781 samples have been tested up to 30 September with 14,23,052 samples being tested on Wednesday.

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Uddhav Thackeray directs withdrawal of cases against citizens who protested tree felling in Mumbai's Aarey Colony

Mumbai: Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray on Wednesday directed the state Home department to withdraw cases registered against protesters in 2019 for opposing felling of trees for a proposed metro car shed in Aarey Colony, a prime green lung of the city. The decision was taken at the state cabinet meeting.

A tweet from the Chief Minister's office said Thackeray has directed the state home department to begin the process of withdrawing the cases.

The request for withdrawal of cases was made at the cabinet meeting by state Environment Minister Aaditya Thackeray, which was supported by deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar and other ministers.

"I thank all the cabinet colleagues of the MVA government for prioritising and realizing the importance of sustainable development and green governance and supporting such issues," Aaditya tweeted.

He said the protesters were citizens standing up for future of the planet.

"To hold them from stopping desired work was one thing but to press police charges was another. We can't have cases against those who stand up for environment and forests," he said in another tweet.

Uddhav Thackeray had announced withdrawal of cases against green activists last December, days after he took oath as chief minister.

Cases were registered after clashes broke out between the police and green activists opposing axing of trees by the Mumbai Metro Rail Corporation Ltd (MMRCL) in Aarey Colony last October for construction of a metro car shed for the Metro-3 line.

Police had booked at least 38 protesters under IPC sections 353 (assault or criminal force to deter public servant from discharging duty), 332 (voluntarily causing hurt to deter public servant from duty) and 143 (unlawful assembly).

Earlier in August, the chief minister had asked the Mumbai Metro and Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) officials to examine whether the proposed metro car shed can be shifted to Pahadi Goregaon area near Oshiwara.

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After Hathras incident, 22-yr-old Dalit girl drugged and allegedly gang-raped, dies in UP's Balrampur

Balrampur: Amid the widespread outrage over the alleged gang-rape and murder of a Dalit teen from Hathras in Uttar Pradesh, an yet another scheduled caste woman died in Balrampur district of the state while being rushed to a hospital after her rape by two youths.

Balrampur Superintendent of Police Dev Ranjan Verma said the incident happened in the Gaisari area of the district, where a 22-year-old Dalit woman, working in a private firm, failed to return home in time on Tuesday evening, prompting her parents to start looking for her.

The woman's parents said she did not respond to calls on her mobile phone, triggering panic among family members, the police said.

The woman, however, returned home shortly later in an autorickshaw with an intravascular cannula, medically known as Vigo and used for administering injection, glucose or other fluids in the body, inserted in her hand, the police said, quoting her parents.

The girl looked dazed and in a serious condition, prompting her parents to rush her to a nearby hospital, but she died on the way, said the SP.

When the matter was reported to the police from the hospital, the parents alleged that their daughter was gang-raped, SP Verma said.

Acting on the parent's complaint, police identified the accused as Shahid and Sahil and arrested them, the SP said.

Reacting to the incident, Samajwadi Party supremo Akhilesh Yadav said, "After Hathras, now a daughter was harassed and gang-raped in Balrampur. The victim died in serious condition. Condolences!"

"The BJP government should commit no laxity in this case as was done in Hathras and arrest the accused immediately," he added with a hashtag #Balrampur... #NoMoreBJP" on his Tweeter handle.

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Education interrupted: COVID-19 throws spanner in works of enrolments at Mumbai's public schools

Mumbai: The COVID-19 pandemic and resultant problems like mass migration, job losses and even lack of digital access clearly seem to have impacted the education of poor students of Mumbai, who are dependent on the municipal schools. The BMC schools have seen a six percent drop in enrolments this year with only 2,48,277, as compared to the 2,63,180 enrollments last year — a difference of 14,903 students.

Around four percent of students — ie 19,736 students — have left the education system in Mumbai this academic year; the BMC has registered only 6,00,811 enrolments this year as compared to the 6,20,547 enrolments in the last academic year in primary municipal, private-aided and primary unaided schools in Mumbai.

The BMC's education officer Mahesh Palkar said that while the number of students in the primary and secondary section had reduced, the number of students enrolled in Classes 9 and 10 had actually increased from 33,472 students enrolled last year to 34,538 this year.

The BMC schools had started with online education from 15 June. The municipal corporation's own survey had revealed that around 40 percent of students do not have access to Android devices to access online education. While 64,290 students do not have Android phones, 38,122 students lack internet access. The BMC is working hard to keep education going for those students lacking digital devices. Those without internet access are sent links on WhatsApp, which can be opened at their own convenience.

"We also call up students and clear doubts on the phone for those students who don't have smartphones. We also take classes in the evening for some students who have access to phones only in the evenings after their parents return from work," a BMC teacher stated on the condition of anonymity.

The BMC is also trying to provide hard copy worksheets for students with no digital access. The BMC has already provided students with textbooks and notebooks, and students are asked to complete them at their homes. These completed worksheets are either to be submitted to the schools directly or via local community volunteer networks. Teachers visit schools a few times in a week to assess these worksheets and assess learning outcomes.

A Pratham telephonic survey conducted in July 2020 of around 11,084 students from 52 BMC schools found that about 40 percent of students were not contactable on the phone due to reasons like being out of network area, their phones not being in service or not being recharged or just wrong numbers. Also, around 1,500 students among those contacted were unable to receive digital study content from schools due to issues like non-availability of smartphones or no access to phones as parents would carry them to work, or simply no data packs.

Palkar said that the BMC was trying to track and reach out to 17,933 BMC students, who were completely out of touch and were trying to track them with the help of non-governmental organisations.

"There is a probability of many students, especially girls, having dropped out due to concerns over COVID-19 or the economic slowdown. There is a genuine concern of children being pushed into child labour or early marriages. We are working to track those students with the help of neighbourhood and community volunteers," said Farida Lambay, co-founder of Pratham, which has been working closely with the BMC on various educational issues.

NGOs like Project Mumbai are now working with BMC in an effort to  provide internet access to needy students through crowd-funding options. Founder and CEO, Shishir Joshi is in talks with mobile service providers to work out on a concessional data pack that could be sponsored for students for the rest six months of academic term left till March for needy students as identified by BMC. He acknowledges that an equally pressing need is to providing Android devices to those who do not have any devices at all.

That would require more funds and Joshi and his team "are trying to bridge the gap wherever feasible". He found that sourcing second-hand devices for students was not an ideal solution as most devices tend to be donated only after being used up past their optimum capacity and thus could fail to serve the students well. The likelihood of a second-hand phone developing faults is high and repairing them would be an additional burden, he felt.

The BMC teachers have also been asked to visit students at their homes to identify challenges in accessing online education and even to coordinate with local social activists to resolve network and device problems.

Teachers are being asked to contact students, untraceable or unreachable on phones with the help of Palak Mitra (parents or neighbourhood elders of students), Balak Mitra (siblings of friends of students), Teacher Mitra (with teachers in the locality) or even NGO Mitra (local grassroot organisations).

"How can teachers be asked to visit students at their homes in these times when the number of COVID-19 cases is on the rise in Mumbai and there is apprehension among people about entertaining visitors? Most teachers complain that students are hardly able to grasp their lessons while attending classes amidst their household disturbances. Barely 10 percent of our poor students have digital devices or the internet. The BMC is clearly interested in only showing off their attempts to teach rather than the actual teaching process. Teachers are also asked to visit schools without due sanitisation protocols being followed in schools," claimed Govind Dhavale, general secretary of the Mahapalika Madhyamik Shikshak Shikshaketar Karmachari Sena.

Currently, around 508 representatives of various NGOs are working with the BMC in various capacities to help educate students.

For students like Saroj Chorotiya, a 13-year-old student, a data pack and an additional device will be very useful. Saroj’s father works as a shoemaker and the entire family had migrated to their Rajasthan hometown soon after the pandemic spread in March. She and her two siblings in Classes 5 and 6 accessed classes in Rajasthan using their solitary phone and a 1 GB data pack.

Her father Sethuraman Chorotiya says that he leaves his phone home even when he steps out in search of work since it is always in use at home either for attending classes or doing homework by his three children. He has recharged it with around Rs 600 for over 84 days, but now doesn't know how he will manage to do so the next time around since his work at Mumbai has not yet started.  Saroj says that a single gigabyte of data a day is barely sufficient for all three siblings.

Activists like Bilal Khan of the Helping Hands Charitable Welfare and Educational Trust, who was very actively involved in helping out migrants in Mumbai, said that forcing municipal students into online education by the government is not just unfair but also illegal.

"Under the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009, the government is supposed to provide free education to students till the age of 14. Online education is a violation of this Act since providing online education without providing them with the resources to access them is also a form of denial of education. Just as the government provides studying paraphernalia like textbooks and other materials, they should also provide students with devices and internet connection to access their education now," added Khan.

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Madhya Pradesh: Minor girl allegedly raped by three men in Khargone a day after Hathras victim dies

Khargone (Madhya Pradesh): A minor girl was allegedly gang-raped by three unidentified men near Marugarh village in Khargone, police said on Wednesday.

The incident took place on the intervening night of Tuesday and Wednesday in the Chainpur police station area, they said.

The girl and her brother were sleeping inside a hut in an agriculture field in the village when the three accused arrived on a two-wheeler and dragged her out, Superintendent of Police Shailendra Singh Chauhan said.

They hit the brother with a stick when he opposed them, the SP said.

The accused then dragged the girl to another part of the field and took turns to rape her, the official said.

Meanwhile, as the brother raised an alarm and alerted the villagers, the accused fled the spot leaving the two-wheeler behind, the SP said.

Chauhan said a case under relevant sections has been registered and the minor girl's medical examination was also conducted.

The two-wheeler used by the culprits turned out to be a stolen one, the SP said, adding that further investigations are on.

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EC removes Bihar excise commissioner over inadequate COVID-19 action plan for Assembly polls

Patna: The Election Commission on Wednesday removed Bihar Excise Commissioner B Karthikey Dhanji from the post before the state Assembly polls, while the seven-member poll panel headed by CEC Sunil Arora heard representatives of political parties on arrangements for conduct of elections during COVID-19 pandemic.

The EC had announced three-phased election in Bihar, which has been billed as one of the biggest elections globally during coronavirus pandemic.

The commission ordered removal of the 2008 batch IAS officer from the post of the excise commissioner with immediate effect for not presenting an effective action plan on preventive measures, an EC release said.

The officer was also removed for the grossly inadequate preparedness during the review of enforcement agencies located in or headquartered in Bihar, an EC release said.

The poll panel which is here to fine-tune arrangements for the conduct of polls in the state amid surging COVID-19 cases met representatives of political parties. The panel also held a meeting with police officials of the state. Election commissioners Sushil Chandra and Rajiv Kumar are part of the high-level team to the state.

The EC panel will hold a press conference on Thursday evening before winding up its three-day visit to the poll-bound Bihar, an official said.

Voting for 243 Assembly seats in Bihar will be held on 28 October, 3 November and 7 November. Counting of votes will take place on 10 November.

Representatives of JD(U), BJP, RJD, Congress, CPI and LJP among others presented their views before the poll panel.

Chief Minister Nitish Kumar headed JD(U) was represented by its leader in Lok Sabha, Rajiv Ranjan Singh alias Lalan Singh, party leader in Rajya Sabha RCP Singh and two state ministers Ashok Choudhary and Sanjay Kumar Jha.

Jha told PTI that the JD(U) leaders had urged the panel that its officials should complete the formalities beforehand for voting through ballot papers by electorate over 80 years of age and divyangs as many of them, particularly in the rural areas, may not be able to complete the procedure themselves.

On EC guideline that not more than five persons would be present during the door-to-door campaigning, they said the candidates would abide by it. But if some local people flock around them in the process they should not be penalised.

Jha said they also sought clarification as to whether there is any number fixed in respect to the audience at the public meeting venues earmarked by the EC. He said they were told that officials have identified fields where public meetings could be held and the number of those attending them will be determined by the space available for observing social distancing norms.

The BJP team urged the EC that the central forces conduct flag marches a day before the conduct of the polls to instill confidence in the people. Voters should be properly identified as per their EPIC cards after removing their face masks.

They also requested that political parties should be informed about arrangements made in the containment zones.

The saffron party team comprised its state general secretary Janak Ram, state convenor of EC cell Radhika Raman and party state unit's chief of law and election SD Sanjay. Main opposition RJD represented by its national spokesman and MP Manoj Kumar Jha and state unit spokesman Chitranjan Gagan suggested that since polling is taking place when coronavirus is rampant, every voter should have insurance cover.

In the event of a voter contracting infection while casting his/her vote, the government should take care of the individual's treatment for COVID.

They urged that irrespective of the number of voters, special booths should be set up in areas where overwhelming majority of minorities, dalit, backward and weaker sections of the society live.

Lalu Prasad's party also sought arrangements of ambulance and medicare at polling booths. Congress representatives requested that permissions for holding public meeting and procession should be granted by BDOs as offices of the district and division officers in many places are located at far-off places.

Besides, doctors' teams should be made available for every 10 booths in an area, they suggested.

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From driving licences, free LPG connections, to Motor Vehicles Act: Here are rules that are changing from 1 October

Come 1 October 2020, a number of rules including Motor Vehicle rules, Ujjwala scheme, health insurance, credit and debit card rules will be modified. Here's a look at what is going to change from tomorrow.

Health Insurance

From October 2020, the coverage of health insurance will become wider and more illnesses will be included under the health insurance policy. The rejection or acceptance of claims will be done within 30 days. Permanent illness outside the cover will come down to 17 which indicate that the premium may go up.

No claim will be rejected after 8 years of the policy holder paying the premium.

Also, pharmacy, implant and diagnostic will not be associated as medical expenses and a policy holder will get full claim for these.The claim amount is expected to be reduced from 1 October due to the inclusion of associated medical expenses.

If you wish to migrate to other companies’ products, the older waiting period will be included, reported Zee News.

Central Motor Vehicle Rules, 1989

From October 2020, documents of vehicle found validated through electronic means shall not be demanded in physical forms for inspection.

Details of driving licences that have been disqualified or revoked by the authority will be recorded and updated chronologically on portal.

Also, drivers are permitted to maintain the documents of their vehicle on the central government's online portal including Digilocker and m-parivahan.

It should also be noted that as per the amendments made in the Motor Vehicles Rules 1989 by the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways, mobile phones can be used only for route navigation in a manner that it does not disturb the concentration of the driver while driving.

LPG connection under PMUY scheme will no longer be free

Under the Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana (PMUY), the process of availing a gas connection for free is coming to an end on 30 September.

The Union government had in March announced three 14.2-kg LPG cylinders free of cost to about 8 crore Ujjwala beneficiaries from April to June to help them cope with the economic pain due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Income tax

As per the latest guidelines by the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT), Tax Deducted at Source (TDS) and Tax Collected at Source (TCS) for e-commerce transactions will come into effect from 1 October. The levies will be applicable on sale of products more than Rs 50 lakh, with exemption to an individual and HUF who gets less than Rs 5 lakh and furnishes PAN/Aadhaar.

An e-commerce operator will deduct income tax at the rate of 1 percent of the gross amount of sale of goods or provision of service or both, facilitated through its digital or electronic facility or platform, according to a report in The Indian Express.

5 percent tax to be levied on foreign fund transfer

Three new provisions of TCS have been introduced in the Finance Act 2020. These will come into force from 1 October 2020. A 5 percent TCS will be applied on any amounts exceeding Rs 7 lakh in a financial year for foreign remittances under the Liberalised Remittance Scheme (LRS) of RBI.

TCS of 5 percent will be applicable on purchase of overseas tour package, irrespective of its value and also TCS at 0.1 percent will be charged on sale of goods for over Rs 50 lakh in a year. The increase in rates of TCS has been prescribed for non-PAN/ Aadhaar cases.

Sweet sellers will have to display 'best before date'

As per the order by the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI), sweet sellers from 1 October 2020 will be mandated to declare the 'best before date', or expiry date, of all non-packaged or loose sweets available in their shop.

Also, the date of making of the sweets should be mentioned by the sweet shops on the label while selling.

Purchasing television to get costlier

Prices of television sets could go up from October 2020 as the 5 percent import duty concession, which was offered last year, on open cell panels ends on 30 September.

New credit and debit card rules

The RBI has issued new guidelines to secure debit and credit cards and the changes will come into force from 1 October 2020. As per the new guidelines, card users will now be able to register opt-in or opt-out of services, spend limits, among others for international transactions, online transactions as well as contactless card transactions.

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All 32 accused, including Advani, Joshi, acquitted in Babri Masjid demolition case: A timeline

Editor's note: This article was originally published on 10 November, 2019, after the Supreme Court allowed the construction of a temple at the site where the Babri Masjid once stood in Ayodhya. The article is being republished after a special CBI court acquitted all the 32 accused in the Babri Masjid demolition case, saying that the demolition was not pre-planned.

A special Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) court in Lucknow on Wednesday acquitted all the 32 accused in the Babri Masjid Demolition case nearly 28 years after the mosque was razed by a mob in Uttar Pradesh.

The court acquitted the accused, which  included BJP veterans LK Advani and MM Joshi, Union minister Uma Bharati and then UP chief minister Kalyan Singh, among others, as the evidence against them was not strong enough. It also observed that the Babri Mosque demolition incident "was not pre-planned".

The court observed that the people who demolished the mosque were “anti-national elements”. The accused people were, in fact, trying to control the crowd, the judgement added, reported News18.

The CBI, which went into the case, produced 351 witnesses and 600 documents as evidence before the court. Charges were framed against 48 people, but 16 had died during the course of the trial.

Twenty-six out of the 32 accused were present in the special court when the judgment was pronounced. Advani (92), Joshi (86), Bharti (61), Singh (88), Nritya Gopal Das, and Satish Pradhan were not present in court and attended proceedings via video conferencing on Wednesday.

The CBI court verdict has come just months after Prime Minister Narendra Modi took part in the groundbreaking ceremony for a Ram temple after the November 2019  Supreme Court verdict which paved the way for the construction of the Ram Temple at the site of the Babri Masjid.

The Supreme Court on November, 2019, settled the seven-decade-long Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid land dispute with the historic verdict of awarding a Hindu group the ownership of a centuries-old religious site. It ordered the allotment of an alternative piece of five acres of land to the Muslims for a mosque.

 

The core of Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid dispute lies in the belief that Lord Ram was born in a room located under what was the central dome of the Babri Masjid. The masjid was built on the orders of Mughal emperor Babur in the 16th century before its demolition by kar sevaks on 6 December, 1992.

Following is the timeline of events leading up to the special CBI court acquitting all the 32 accused in the planning the demolition of the Babri Masjid on 6 December 1992.

30 September, 2020: Special Judge S K Yadav delivers judgment in the mosque demolition case, all accused acquitted.

22 August, 2020: Supreme Court extends by a month the deadline for completion of trial in the Babri Masjid demolition case.

5 August, 2020: Prime Minister Narendra Modi takes part in 'Bhoomi Poojan' ceremony for the construction of the Ram Temple in Ayodhya.

4 August, 2020: Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath on Monday said that the COVID-19 protocol will be strictly followed during the bhoomi pujan ceremony for Ram temple and only those invited should come.

4 August, 2020: Iqbal Ansari, who was a litigant in the Ayodhya land dispute case, has decided to gift a ‘Ram nami’ stole and a copy of the Ramcharitmanas to Prime Minister Narendra Modi when he attends the bhoomi pujan ceremony for the Ram temple in Ayodhya on Wednesday.

3 August, 2020: Ayodhya District Magistrate Anuj Kumar Jha formally handed over the certified copy of five-acre land to the Sunni Waqf Board, as mandated by the Supreme Court for the construction of Babri mosque.

A delegation of the newly formed Masjid Trust – Indo-Islamic Cultural Foundation led by its president Zufar Faruqi and the Board's Chief Executive Officer Sayyad Mohammad Shoib met Ayodhya DM Anuj Kumar Jha at the latter's residence.

30 July, 2020: The Uttar Pradesh Sunni Central Waqf Board formed a 15-member-trust to look after the construction of a mosque on five acres of land allotted by the Supreme Court.

Zufar Ahmed Faruqi, chairman the board – which was the main Muslim litigant in the title suit – said the trust was named as Indo Islamic Cultural Foundation, which will ensure the development of the allocated land in Dhannipur village in Ayodhya.

26 July, 2020: More than five months after its announcement, the trust meant to construct a mosque in Ayodhya following the Supreme Court verdict in the Babri Masjid-Ram Janmabhoomi title suit, is yet to be constituted.

24 February, 2020:  The Uttar Pradesh Sunni Central Waqf Board decided to accept the five acres allotted to it by the state government for building a mosque in Dhannipur village in Sohawal tehsil of Ayodhya, around 25 km from the site where the Babri Masjid had stood.

The board, which was the main litigant in the case, also announced the formation of a trust to look after the construction of the mosque as well as an Indo-Islamic Centre, a grand hospital and a public library on the land.

12 December, 2019: The Supreme Court dismissed a batch of petitions seeking review of its Ayodhya land dispute case verdict. The top court, which took these review pleas for consideration in-chamber, rejected them after finding no merit.

There were 18 review petitions, out of which nine have been filed by parties who were part of the earlier litigation and the other nine were filed by “third parties”.

6 December, 2019: Four review petitions supported by the All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB) was filed on 6 December, 2019, against the Supreme Court's Ram-Janmabhoombh-Babri-Masjid land title dispute verdict.

The review petitions were filed by Maulana Mufti Hasbullah, Mohd Umar, Maulana Mahfoozur Rehman and Mishbahuddin.

Challenging the ruling, the petitioners argued that Hindus never had exclusive possession of the entire site. They added that the apex court's judgement had, in fact, given directions to clear the existing structure that remains after the Babri Masjid was demolished at the site in December, 1992.

3 December, 2019: Senior advocate Rajeev Dhavan, who appeared for Muslim petitioners in the landmark Ayodhya temple-mosque case, posted on Facebook that he had been sacked unceremoniously by the group Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind over reasons he described as "total nonsense".

Reflecting a rift within, however, other Muslim petitioners asserted that Rajeev Dhavan remained their lawyer and had been removed only by the Jamiat Ulama-e-Hind.

2 December, 2019: Maulana Syed Ashhad Rashidi, a legal heir of original Ayodhya land dispute litigant, had filed a review petition in the Supreme Court against its ruling in favour of the Ram temple at the disputed site. This was the first review petition filed by a Muslim party against the verdict.

Rashidi said the judgment by the five-judge bench had acknowledged "few of the several illegalities" committed by the Hindu Parties but "proceeded to condone the said illegal acts and awarded the disputed site to the very party which based its claims on nothing but a series of illegal acts".

November 2019: On 9 November, the Supreme Court granted the entire 2.77 acre of disputed land in Ayodhya to deity Ram Lalla. The possession of land will remain with the Central government receiver until a trust, as mandated by the court, is formed. The Supreme Court also directed the Centre and Uttar Pradesh govt to allot 5 acre land to the Muslims at a prominent place for building mosque.

August 2019: The mediation panel failed to reach an amicable settlement. The top court began hearing the case on 6 August.

2018: In February, Kapil Sibal, who appeared for the Uttar Pradesh Sunni Central Waqf Board questioned the court about the hurry and requested that the hearing to be put off till July 2019. In September, the Supreme Court declined to refer the case to a five-judge bench. In March, SC appointed a mediation panel headed by Judge (Retd.) FMI Kallifulla for an out-of-court settlement.

2017: The Supreme Court said that the matter is sensitive and the rival parties should settle it out of court.

2011: In May, the Supreme Court stays the High Court order to split the land, stating that the status quo will remain.

2010: The Allahabad High Court ruled that the disputed land be divided into three parts—where one third will belong to Ram Lalla, represented by the Hindu Mahasabha; one third to the Islamic Waqf Board; and the remaining third to the Nirmohi Akhara. In December, the Akhil Bharatiya Hindu Mahasabha and the Sunni Waqf Board move the Supreme Court, challenging the HC ruling.

2002: In an attack on a train from Godhra in Gujarat, believed to be carrying karsevaks to Ayodhya, at least 58 people were killed. Riots erupted across the state and about a thousand people were said to have been killed during it.

The High Court ordered the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) to excavate the site and to determine if it was earlier a temple. In April, three HC judges started the hearing to determine who the site belongs to.

1992: The disputed Babri Mosque was razed to the ground by karsevaks on 6 December. This led to some of the most deadliest riots across the country which led to the deaths of more than 2,000 people. The central government, headed by PV Narasimha Rao, formed a commission of inquiry under Justice MS Liberhan.

1989: The Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) laid the foundation of a Ram temple on the land next to the Babri Masjid. Justice Deoki Nandan Agarwal, former VHP Vice-President, filed a fresh suit asking for the mosque to be shifted elsewhere.

In October, the four suits that have been pending at the Faizabad court are transferred to a special bench of the High Court.

1986: A district court ordered that the gates of the mosque be opened and Hindus be allowed to worship there, on a plea by Hari Shankar Dubey. As Muslims protested the move to allow Hindus to pray in the mosque, a Babri Mosque Action Committee is formed.

1961: The Sunni Central Board of Waqf filed a case against the placing of idols inside the mosque and claimed that the mosque and surrounding land was a graveyard.

1959: The Nirmohi Akhara filed a third suit seeking possession of the site and claimed to be the custodians of the Ram Janmabhoomi.

1950: Gopal Singh Visharad and Mahant Paramhans Ramchandra Das filed suits at the Faizabad court seeking permission to offer prayers to the idols in the janamsthan. While the inner courtyard remained locked, prayers were allowed.

1949: Lord Ram's idol appeared inside the mosque. Muslims claimed that the idol was placed by Hindu groups. Both sides file civil suits following which the government declared the area as disputed and locked the gates to the premises.

1885: Mahant Raghubir Das filed the first case, seeking permission to build a canopy on the Ramchabutra (a raised platform) outside the mosque. The plea was rejected by the Faizabad district court a year later.

1859: The officials from British colonial administration erected a fence at the site to separate the places of worships. While the Muslims were allowed to use the inner court, the Hindus were allowed the outer court.

1853: The first recorded incident of violence between Hindus and Muslims over the holy site took place during the reign of Nawab Wajid Ali Shah of Awadh. Nirmohis, a Hindu sect, claimed that a Hindu temple had been destroyed during Babur's times to build the mosque.

1528: Mughal emperor Babur's commander Mir Bagi came to Ayodhya, and is believed to have destroyed the pre-existing temple dedicated to Lord Ram  to build Babri Masjid.

With inputs from PTI

 

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'Sad day for Indian judiciary': Asaduddin Owaisi slams Babri Masjid demolition verdict, says those responsible 'politically rewarded'

Calling the acquittal of the 32 accused on the Babri Masjid demolition a denial of justice and a “black day for Indian judiciary”, Lok Sabha MP and AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi said the special CBI court’s judgment satisfied the collective conscience of the Hindutva ideology and its followers but denied justice to those wronged in 1992.

Senior BJP leaders LK Advani, Murli Manohar Joshi and Uma Bharti were among 'key conspirators' named in a CBI chargesheet filed in the case of the 6 December, 1992 demolition of the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya. However, a CBI court, ruled after 28 years that the demolition was a spontaneous act by a mob of miscreants and not part of any larger conspiracy, as alleged by the CBI.

Owaisi, while slamming the judgment, went on to say that he felt the same “humiliation and helplessness” that he felt on the day of the demolition.

He also said that the CBI court’s judgement went against the Supreme Court, which had said in a November 2019 judgment that the demolition by kar sevaks was an "egrerious violation of rule of law" and "calculated act of destroying a public place of worship".

“I am unable to understand that if this was an egregious violation of rule of law, was the mosque martyred using magic on 6 December? How were idols kept inside on the nights of 29 and 29 December, 1949? Were the locks opened using magic when Rajiv Gandhi was prime minister?" Owaisi asked.

Also hitting out at special CBI judge SK Yadav's judgement where he stated that the demolition was not not “pre-planned” and occurred at the “spur of the moment”, he said, "Now, the court says there was no conspiracy. Please enlighten me, how many days of months of preparations are required to disqualify an action from being spontaneous?."

Alleging that Advani, Joshi and Bharti were distributing sweets when the mosque was being demolished, the MP from Hyderabad said, "Violence pays politically. You can say that wherever Advani's Rath Yatra went, there was bloodshed. Innocent people were murdered, properties were burnt, families were uprooted and destroyed." However, they were rewarded by being given ministerial berths, Owaisi went on to say.

Apart from the BJP, RSS, VHP and the Congress were also at the root of the demolition, Owaisi said, adding that it was during the Congress’s rule that the idols were kept in the mosque.

Citing an eyewitness’ statement in the CBI chargesheet, he went on to say that then Uttar Pradesh chief minister Kalyan Singh had said that the Supreme Court has restricted construction and not demolition at the disputed site. "Did the CBI chargesheet not say that Advani hatched the conspiracy at Vinay Katiyar's home on 5 December? Is it not true that Advani told Kalyan Singh not to resign until the mosque is demolished so that the government is not dismissed? Did the BJP government (UP) not promise the Supreme Court that it would protect the mosque?" Owaisi asked.

Responding to questions, Owaisi further said that he hopes the CBI will appeal against the court’s decision for the sake of its independence. He also said that he would approach the All India Muslim Personal Law Board and ask them to appeal against the judgment.

Owaisi also reacted with a quote in Urdu by Malikzada Manzoor Ahmed, which roughly translates to, "The killer is the only litigant, the only court and the only judge in the case. Therefore, a lot of verdicts are one-sided."

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LK Advani chants 'Jai Shri Ram', Owaisi calls judgment 'black day': Politicos react to Babri Masjid demolition verdict

The verdict of a CBI court in the Babri Masjid demolition case was welcomed by several BJP leaders, including the acquitted accused, and condemned by sections of the Opposition.

The CBI court, in delivering its verdict acquitting all the accused, held that there was not enough evidence and that the demolition was not a planned action.

'Matter of  happiness for us'

Veteran BJP leader LK Advani, perhaps the most prominent of all the acquitted accused, said in a video message, "It is a very important decision and a matter of happiness for us. When we heard the news of the court’s order, we welcomed it by chanting Jai Shri Ram.”

Later in a statement, he said the "judgement came in footsteps of another verdict which paved way for my dream of seeing a Ram Mandir at Ayodhya".

After the court verdict, the 92-year-old BJP leader emerged from his home and greeted the gathered media by chanting the slogan of “Jai Shri Ram”.

Another senior BJP leader, Murli Manohar Joshi, said the decision of the court proved that there was no conspiracy hatched for the demolition of the mosque.

"It is a historic decision by the court. This proves that no conspiracy was hatched for the 6 December (1992) incident in Ayodhya. Our programme and rallies were not part of any conspiracy," the senior leader was quoted as saying by ANI.

"We are happy. Everyone should now be excited about Ram Mandir's construction," he added.

Former Shiv Sena MP Satish Pradhan, who was an accused in the case, welcomed the verdict.

"Truth has prevailed," the 80-year-old former mayor of Thane told PTI, after attending the hearing through video conferencing.

Reactions of other leaders

The BJP and Shiv Sena, both of which were at the forefront of the Ram Janmabhoomi agitation, welcomed the verdict on Wednesday.

Defence minister Rajnath Singh said, "I welcome the decision of a special court in Lucknow, which pronounced 32 accused, including LK Advani, Kalyan Singh, Murli Manohar Joshi and Uma ji (Uma Bharti) as innocent in the Babri Masjid demolition case. This verdict has shown that justice has been done, even if it was delayed."

लखनऊ की विशेष अदालत द्वारा बाबरी मस्जिद विध्वंस केस में श्री लालकृष्ण आडवाणी, श्री कल्याण सिंह, डा. मुरली मनोहर जोशी, उमाजी समेत ३२ लोगों के किसी भी षड्यंत्र में शामिल न होने के निर्णय का मैं स्वागत करता हूँ। इस निर्णय से यह साबित हुआ है कि देर से ही सही मगर न्याय की जीत हुई है।

— Rajnath Singh (@rajnathsingh) September 30, 2020

Former Madhya Pradesh chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan took the opportunity to lash out at the Congress as he said, "Eventually, the truth has won. The then Congress government had, due to its bias, had levelled false allegations against our saints and senior leaders. The allegations have now been found to be baseless. The special court's decision has dispelled all doubts over the issue. We welcome the court's verdict."

अंतत: सत्य की विजय हुई।

तत्कालीन कांग्रेस सरकार ने पूर्वाग्रह से ग्रसित होकर जो हमारे संत,महात्मा,वरिष्ठ नेताओं पर झूठे आरोप लगाये थे, वो निर्मूल सिद्ध हुए हैं।

विशेष अदालत के फैसले से दूध का दूध और पानी का पानी हो गया। हम कोर्ट के फैसले का स्वागत करते हैं! pic.twitter.com/oBW8joQbNE

— Shivraj Singh Chouhan (@ChouhanShivraj) September 30, 2020

Among those who welcomed the verdict was Iqbal Ansari, the main litigant in the Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid land dispute.

"It is good that all have been acquitted. Whatever had to happen happened on 9 November. This case should also have ended the same day. This is the CBI's case and the court has given its ruling today. I appeal to Muslims not to take any further action in this. Just as they honoured the 9 November decision, this verdict too needs to be accepted similarly," he was quoted by PTI as saying.

"My party and I welcome the judgment and congratulate Advani ji, Murli Manohar ji, Uma Bharti ji and the people who have been acquitted in the case,"  Shiv Sena's Sanjay Raut told ANI.

On the other hand, some other political leaders strongly criticised the verdict with CPM leader Sitaram Yechury terming the verdict as a complete 'travesty of justice.'

A complete travesty of Justice.
All charged with criminal conspiracy to demolish Babri Masjid acquitted.
It self imploded?
The Constitution Bench headed by then CJI had said that demolition was an “egregious” violation of law.
Now this verdict!
Shame.https://t.co/fAeTHwhhDg

— Sitaram Yechury (@SitaramYechury) September 30, 2020

The Congress said, "The decision of special court to acquit all accused in Babri Masjid demolition case runs counter to the Supreme Court judgment and the constitutional spirit."

Congress' chief spokesperson Randeep Surjewala said every Indian who has innate faith in the Constitution and in the spirit of communal amity and brotherhood expects and urges the central and state governments to file an appeal against the decision of the special court.

All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen president Asaduddin Owaisi put out a tweet which broadly translates to — "They are the killers, the judges, and the courts, and they are the martyrs too. Many decisions now seem one-sided."

वही क़ातिल वही मुंसिफ़ अदालत उस की वो शाहिद
बहुत से फ़ैसलों में अब तरफ़-दारी भी होती है

— Asaduddin Owaisi (@asadowaisi) September 30, 2020

Owaisi was further quoted by ANI as saying, "Today is a sad day in the history of the Indian judiciary. Now, the court says there was no conspiracy. Please enlighten me, how many days or months of preparations are required to disqualify an action from being spontaneous?"

With inputs from PTI

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UPSC civil services exam 2020: South Central Railway to run special trains for candidates

South Central Railway has announced it will run special trains for candidates appearing for the Civil Services exam on 4 October. South Central Railway shared the information on their Twitter page.

Special Trains for UPSC Exam
between #Vijayawada and #Visakhapatnam @RailMinIndia pic.twitter.com/97V8yjTnRW

— South Central Railway (@SCRailwayIndia) September 29, 2020

As per the tweet, the special train will leave Vijayawada at 3 pm on 3 October and will reach Vishakhapatnam at 10 pm on the same day. After the exam concludes, the train will leave Vishakhapatnam at 8.30 pm on 4 October and reach Vijayawada at 4 am the next day.

The train that will ferry civil service aspirants from Vijayawada to Vishakhapatnam is numbered 07233, while the one bringing them back is 07234. Both trains will consist of Sleeper Class and General Second Class Coaches.

The train will stop at Eluru, Tadepalligudem, Nidadavolu, Rajahmundry, Samalkot, Tuni, Anakapalli and Duvvada stations in both the directions.

As per an NDTV report, the East Coast Railway (ECoR) too, will run special trains in Odisha and Andhra Pradesh for UPSC candidates. The UPSC special train will leave from Berhampur, Keonjhar, Khariar Road and Ichhapuram at 4 pm, from Koraput at 5 am and 1 pm on 3 October. The ECoR will also run special trains between Koraput-Cuttack, Koraput-Visakhapatnam, Rourkela-Cuttack via Jharsuguda, Baripada-Cuttack and Vijayawada-Visakhapatnam.

The Union Public Service Commission released the admit card for civil services 2020 preliminary exam earlier in the month. The exam will be held on 4 October. The exam was earlier scheduled to be conducted on 31 May but was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent lockdown.

 

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NLU Delhi releases AILET answer key 2020 and question booklet at nludelhi.ac.in; candidates can raise objections till 5 pm today

The provisional answer keys of All India Law Entrance Test (AILET) 2020 have been released by the National Law University (NLU) Delhi on its official website nludelhi.ac.in. The entrance exam was conducted by the National Testing Agency (NTA) on 26 September.

According to reports, NLU Delhi has also released the question papers of AILET 2020, along with the answer keys.

Candidates can raise objections, if any, in the preliminary answer keys by 30 September up to 5 pm. They will be required to send their suggestions/ grievances related to the answer key to the University at email address ailetadmissions@nludelhi.ac.in. To register their objections, candidates will have to mention the name of the programme, serial number of the question.

Reports also said that AILET 2020 final answer key will be released after the scrutiny of suggestions/ grievances on the provisional answer key submitted by the candidates.

The result of AILET 2020 will be made available on the official website after the release of the final answer keys.

Steps to check and download NLU AILET 2020 provisional answer keys:

Step 1: Go to the official website of NLU Delhi - nludelhi.ac.in.
Step 2: Scroll down on the homepage and under the announcement tab, opt for the link that mentions, "Notification - Question Booklets with Provisional Answer Keys (Dt. 29/09/2020)."
Step 3: You will be directed to a new page where a PDF document will open
Step 4: At the end of the document, tap on the link to check the answer key and question papers for the exam that you have appeared for
Step 5: Save the answer key and match your responses. Note the question number to raise objections if any.

Click here for the direct link to check AILET 2020 answer keys

AILET is conducted for students who want admission to BA LLB (Honours), LLM and PhD courses offered by the National Law University Delhi. The exam this year followed the computer-based test (CBT) methodology.

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WHO plans to distribute 120 mn rapid COVID-19 test kits to poorer nations at $5 each

Some 120 million rapid tests for Covid-19 will be made available to poorer countries at $5 each, the World Health Organization announced Monday – if it can find the money.

The WHO said the $600 million scheme would enable low- and middle-income countries to close the dramatic gap in testing for the new coronavirus, which has now killed more than a million people since first being recorded in China in December.

The quick tests, to be distributed across 133 countries over the next six months, are not as reliable as the regular PCR nasal swab tests but are far faster, cheaper and easier to carry out.

"We have an agreement, we have seed funding and now we need the full amount of funds to buy these tests," WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a virtual press conference.

Last week, the WHO issued the first emergency-use listing for a quality, antigen-based rapid diagnostic test (RDT), with others expected to follow.

"A substantial proportion of these rapid tests – 120 million – will be made available to low- and middle-income countries," said Tedros.

"These tests provide reliable results in approximately 15 to 30 minutes, rather than hours or days, at a lower price, with less sophisticated equipment.

"This will enable the expansion of testing, particularly in hard-to-reach areas that do not have lab facilities or enough trained health workers to carry out PCR tests."

No lab required

The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, which is co-convening the WHO-led pooled global search for Covid-19 diagnostics, is putting in $50 million from its Covid-19 response pot.

Global Fund executive director Peter Sands said the RDTs were no silver bullet but were a hugely valuable complement to PCR tests.

"Although they are a bit less accurate, they're much faster, cheaper and don't require a lab," said Sands.

"This will enable low- and middle-income countries to begin to close the dramatic gap in testing."

Sands, said that currently, high-income countries were conducting 292 tests per day per 1,00,000 people; upper-middle-income countries 77; lower-middle-income countries, 61; and low-income countries, 14.

He said that if the poorest countries were testing at the same rate as the richest, 120 million tests would not last two weeks.

The tests could be used where PCR tests are unavailable; quickly testing contacts where a PCR test has confirmed a case; and in places with widespread community transmission.

Sands said the first orders were going in this week.

The tests are being produced by two companies: US multinational Abbott Laboratories and South Korea-based SD BioSensor.

The 120 million tests reflect 20 percent of the firms' manufacturing capacity. The other 80 percent remain available for procurement.

By 1600 GMT Monday, the respiratory disease had claimed 1,002,432 victims from 33,178,275 recorded infections, according to an AFP tally collected from official sources.

"The current numbers are likely an under-estimate of the true toll," said WHO emergencies director Michael Ryan.

He said Friday that another million deaths were "highly likely" before a vaccine comes around, unless countries and individuals take collective action to combat the spread of the virus.

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Babri Masjid Verdict: All 32 accused including Advani, Joshi acquitted; demolition 'not pre-planned', observes court

Nearly 28 years after the Babri Masjid was razed by a mob in Uttar Pradesh, a special Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) court in Lucknow on Wednesday has acquitted all the 32 accused in the case, including BJP veterans LK Advani and MM Joshi. The court said there was no "conclusive proof" against the accused.

“They have been acquitted for lack of evidence,” defence lawyer KK Mishra said.

As CBI Judge SK Yadav began reading the 2,000-page order on Wednesday, the court observed that evidence against the accused was not strong enough and the Babri Mosque demolition incident "was not pre-planned". The court observed that the people who demolished the mosque were “anti-national elements”. The accused people were, in fact, trying to control the crowds, the judgement added, reported News18.

The 32 accused persons include former deputy prime minister Advani, former Union ministers Joshi and Uma Bharti, former Uttar Pradesh chief minister Kalyan Singh, during whose tenure the structure was pulled down, besides Vinay Katiyar and Sadhvi Rithambara. Champat Rai, the general secretary of the trust in charge of constructing the temple, is also among the accused.

The CBI, which went into the case, produced 351 witnesses and 600 documents as evidence before the court. Charges were framed against 48 people, but 16 had died during the course of the trial.

Twenty-six out of the 32 accused were present in the special court when the judgment was pronounced. Advani (92), Joshi (86), Bharti (61), Singh (88), Nritya Gopal Das, and Satish Pradhan were not present in court and attended proceedings via video conferencing on Wednesday.

On 16 September, CBI judge SK Yadav had directed all 32 surviving accused to remain present in the court for the judgment. However, six of them were exempted from being present in person – including Bharti and Kalyan Singh who are in hospital due to COVID-19 – had joined the hearing on Wednesday via video conference.

In one of the first reactions to the Babri conspiracy case verdict, Bihar deputy chief minister Sushil Kumar Modi tweeted "Jai Shri Ram". "All the accused, including Advaniji, acquitted. There was no pre-planned conspiracy to demolish the Babri structure," he added.

जय श्री राम ।Advaniji सहित सभी अभियुक्त दोष मुक्त।बाबरी ढाँचा गिराने में कोई पूर्व नियोजित षड्यंत्र नहीं था।#BabriVerdict

— Sushil Kumar Modi (@SushilModi) September 30, 2020

“I was witness to the entire incident of 6 December,” the Bihar minister further added. “It was all spontaneous no conspiracy. I was conducting the meeting from dais I was surprised when some Kar Sewaks climbed the Babri structure. Advani ji was unhappy. Satyameva Jayate!”

Reacting to the verdict, the two accused BJP leaders, LK Advani and Murli Manohar Joshi also reacted to the judgement, welcoming it.  Senior BJP leader Advani said he welcomes the significant verdict. He adds that the judgement “vindicates my personal and BJP’s belief towards the Ram Janmabhoomi movement”, as per NDTV reports.

"It's a historic decision by the court. This proves that no conspiracy was hatched for December 6 incident in Ayodhya. Our program and rallies were not part of any conspiracy. We are happy, everyone should now be excited about Ram Mandir's construction," BJP leader Murli Manohar Joshi said after the verdict, news agency ANI reported.

Defence Minister and BJP leader Rajnath Singh welcomed the CBI court’s judgment, saying "It proves that justice triumphed however late it may be."

लखनऊ की विशेष अदालत द्वारा बाबरी मस्जिद विध्वंस केस में श्री लालकृष्ण आडवाणी, श्री कल्याण सिंह, डा. मुरली मनोहर जोशी, उमाजी समेत ३२ लोगों के किसी भी षड्यंत्र में शामिल न होने के निर्णय का मैं स्वागत करता हूँ। इस निर्णय से यह साबित हुआ है कि देर से ही सही मगर न्याय की जीत हुई है।

— Rajnath Singh (@rajnathsingh) September 30, 2020

Welcoming the CBI court's verdict in Babri Masjid demolition case, BJP leader Ram Madhav tweeted saying: "Truth triumphs". "CBI court’s acquittal in Babri conspiracy case was long overdue. A malicious case against some of the most respected leaders of our nation has fallen aside finally after 3 decades," said Madhav.

The mosque was pulled down on 6 December, 1992, by mobs of kar sevaks who maintained that it was built during the time of the first Mughal ruler at the spot which marked the birthplace of Ram temple.

In a landmark judgment last year, the Supreme Court allotted the disputed site in Ayodhya for the construction of a Ram temple, while calling the demolition of the mosque a violation of the rule of law.

The top court had also said that the demolition of Babri Masjid was illegal and directed the government to acquire an alternative plot of land to build a mosque.

The earlier deadline set by the Supreme Court for the special CBI court to pronounce verdict was August-end. It was extended by a month on 22 August.

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Mumbai Police summons Anurag Kashyap over alleged sexual assault case

Mumbai Police have issued summons to filmmaker Anurag Kashyap in connection with a rape case filed against him by actress Payal Ghosh, an official said on Wednesday.

Kashyap has been asked to appear before the Versova police here on Thursday, 1 October, for further probe into the case registered against him nine days back, the official said.

The Versova police registered an FIR against Kashyap on 22 September after the actress along with her lawyer Nitin Satpute approached the police, the official said.

Mumbai Police have issued summons to filmmaker Anurag Kashyap in connection with a rape case filed against him by actress Payal Ghosh: Official

— Press Trust of India (@PTI_News) September 30, 2020

In her police complaint, the actress alleged that Kashyap raped her in 2013.

On Tuesday, Ghosh and Union Minister of State for Social Justice and Empowerment Ramdas Athawale met Maharashtra Governor BS Koshyari to seek action against Kashyap.

After the meeting, Athawale told reporters that the governor said he will speak with Maharashtra Home Minister Anil Deshmukh on the issue.

On Monday, Ghosh in a joint media press conference with Athawale, president of the Republican Party of India (RPI-A), demanded that Kashyap be arrested.

Athawale on Monday met Mumbai's joint commissioner of police (law and order) Vishwas Nangare Patil along with Ghosh, seeking action against the filmmaker.

The Union minister had also said his party will stage a protest if the police do not arrest Kashyap in a week.

The Versova police last week registered the FIR against Kashyap under Indian Penal Code Sections 376 (I) (rape), 354 (assault or criminal force to woman with intent to outrage her modesty,), 341 (wrongful restraint) and 342 (wrongful confinement).

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KMAT 2020: Registration ends today, apply at kmatindia.com; aptitude test on 29 October

KMAT 2020 | Karnataka Management Aptitude Test (KMAT) 2020 will be conducted on 29 October. Candidates who wish to appear for the test conducted for admission to MBA, PGDM, MCA programmes offered by colleges in Karnataka will have to register by 30 September

The admit card for KMAT 2020 will be released by Karnataka Private Post Graduate Colleges Association (KPPGCA) in October. KPPGCA has on its website said, "In view of COVID 19, the test method and dates are subject to change."

According to a report by The Indian Express, the aptitude test will have 120 multiple-choice questions (MCQs). Candidates will get a composite time of two hours to answer the paper.

A Times Now report said that KMAT 2020 will be conducted in an online proctored mode.

The exam comprise of three sections - Verbal Ability and Reading Comprehension, Logical Reasoning, and Quantitative Ability. Each section will have 40 questions.

Steps to apply for KMAT 2020:

Step 1: Log onto KPPGCA website - kmatindia.com.

Step 2: Under Quick Link on the homepage, opt for ‘apply now’.

Step 3: You will be directed to a new page where you will have to register first.

Step 4: Head back to the registration page and login using your credentials.

Step 5: Fill the application form and upload all the relevant documents in appropriate format.

Step 6: Pay the application fee and press submit.

Step 7: Take a photocopy of the application form as a proof of acknowledgement.

Here is the direct link to apply: https://ift.tt/2G2vK6R

Candidates applying for MBA or MCA will be required to pay online application fee of Rs 800. Those who want to appear for both the MBA and MCA admission test will have to register separately for each test.

The test will be conducted in Bengaluru, Belgaum, Bellary, Bijapur, Kalaburagi, Davanagere, Hubballi, Mangaluru, Mysuru, and Shivamogga.

KMAT, an all-India exam, is conducted for admission to AICTE approved/ University affiliated Management Institutes in Bengaluru and Karnataka.

The KMAT score is accepted in more than 189 B-schools across Karnataka.

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No winners in the first Trump-Biden presidential debate but there was a loser: The American voter

"Proud Boys, stand back, stand by. But I'll tell you what, somebody's got to do something about Antifa and the Left because this is not right-wing problem... This is a left-wing problem."

Thus spake President Donald Trump when asked by debate moderator and Fox News anchor Chris Wallace if he would condemn White supremacists. For the uninitiated, Proud Boys is a neo-fascist far-Right organisation that broke away from the Alt-Right movement in 2016. That this remark stood out most over the 98 minutes of the first presidential debate between Trump and former US vice-president Joe Biden goes some way in summing up just how disastrous the event was.

Whether or not Trump refused to condemn White supremacists and instead exhorted them to 'stand by' is immaterial.
Whether or not Biden referred to Trump on two separate occasions as a clown is immaterial. Whether or not Trump actually stated in the past that nuking hurricanes might be a solution to them is immaterial.

At the end of the day, there was very little of consequence to take away from an event that was too chaotic to deserve the status of being a 'debate'. The showdown in Cleveland, Ohio degenerated into a boorish and ill-mannered food-fight barely 10 minutes after kick-off and produced no real winners and only one big loser: The American voter. In fact, the tone and precedent for how the evening would unfold appeared to have been set by Donald Trump Jr in his media interviews before the debate.

Responding to a question about why the US should re-elect his father, Trump Jr played that well-worn "economy's the best it's ever been" tune before spiralling off into attacks on Biden's son's Hunter and his allegedly shady dealings with China, Ukraine and whoever else came to mind. Wittingly or otherwise, Junior tipped the Trump camp's hand: When in doubt, attack Hunter.

All heat, no light

In the moments after the conclusion of the debate, former New Jersey governor and a member of Trump's debate prep team noted on ABC News, "With all that heat, you lose the light." And he was absolutely right, because from the time Trump interrupted his opponent during the first question (on the Supreme Court) of the evening by intoning, "Your party wants to go Socialist... they want to dominate you, Joe", proceedings turned scrappier with every question. For the record, Biden responded with a Judge Dredd-esque "I am the Democratic Party right now".

After a maelstrom of personal attacks, denials and constant interruptions, Trump had claimed he paid "millions of dollars in taxes" in 2016 and 2017, denied well-documented remarks made by himself and found a way to dance around answering most questions by offering up his own unique brand of word salads.

Meanwhile, Biden had given in to the urge to resort to unparliamentary language aimed at Trump on international television by calling him '[Vladimir] Putin's puppy', a 'clown', a 'liar' and a 'racist', and telling him to 'shut up'.

With so much bluster on display, there was no room for sensible argument and the first debate — in terms of what we learned about policy, plans for the future or reasons to vote for one candidate over the other — can be considered a write-off. For instance, exchanges like "You're the worst president America has ever had", followed by "There's never been an administration or president who has done more than me" belong on the playground and not in a debate between two men vying to be the most powerful person on the planet (a title that, for now, appears safe from the grasp of a certain Xi Jinping).

To his credit, Wallace grew into his role as a moderator as the debate wore on, but for the first half at least, he was timid, ineffectual and unable to control the bickering between the president and his predecessor's former deputy. Eventually, Biden lost his cool and fumed, "It's hard to get a single word in with this clown." By that point, Wallace, who had begun to hit his stride, called on both candidates to observe decorum and admonished Trump in the manner of a headmaster by saying, "Frankly, you've been doing more interrupting." To which, and in the manner of a naughty schoolkid, Trump replied, "Well, he does plenty."

To return to Christie's words, it was very difficult to find any light amidst all this heat.

Sticking to the playbook

On the strength of Tuesday evening's showing, both candidates appeared to have been thoroughly coached in terms of overall strategy and they stuck to their guns throughout.

For Trump, this meant walking in with a couple of memorised anecdotes (apocryphal or otherwise) about Hunter's alleged indiscretions — ranging from claims that he received $3.5 million from the wife of the mayor of Moscow to accusations of him having been 'dishonourably discharged' from the armed forces — and attacks on Biden for doing less in 47 years of public service than Trump had done in three-and-a-half years. Armed with these, the president's modus operandi appeared to be to hammer away with one or more of them every time he felt the content of the debate was getting away from him.

Elsewhere, it looked like Trump had been coached to 'play his natural game' and focus on self-aggrandisement, no matter how banal — claiming at one point, "I brought back football; it was me and I'm very happy to do it" — and disruption. He deployed both these weapons like a champion, most likely because it comes very naturally to him, and successfully derailed most of Biden's efforts to make a point. To the president's credit, he managed to frazzle the former vice-president, forcing him to fumble his way through his arguments and appear shaky.

What Biden had likely been coached on beforehand was to transform the debate into a campaign speech and eliminate Trump from proceedings.

On no less than eight occasions, the Ray-Ban Aviators aficionado looked directly into the camera and spoke to the people watching at home. Whether it was to encourage people to vote, to ask, "Folks, do you have any idea what this clown is doing?", to warn, "This is a president who has used everything as a dog whistle to generate racist hatred, racist division" or to state, "I'm not here to call out [Trump's] lies, Everyone knows he's a liar", Biden used the opportunity to speak directly to American voters and take his opponent out of the equation.

It would also seem that he had been warned (albeit inadequately, as we would discover) that Trump would be out to bully him and that the former vice-president should handle every provocation calmly and stick to the facts. Most importantly, he was probably told, avoid anything that resembles a slanging match. And for a while, this worked. Biden did his best to at first, laugh off Trump's assertions and brickbats and later took to closing his eyes and shaking his head, in a manner most reminiscent to that of Vice-President Mike Pence's when faced with Hillary Clinton's running mate Tim Kaine in 2016. Back then, Kaine sought to bully Pence into submission with one barb after another but came across as blustery and full of hot air.

Biden's composure quickly began to wither under Trump's avalanche, but he stuck to his script. But soon after, cracks began to appear when he resorted to name-calling, raising his volume and engaging with Trump's jabs at his family.

Ahead of the second debate, all three parties — Trump, Biden and moderator Steve Scully (political editor, C-SPAN) — will need to sharpen their strategies. If you're Trump, this means bringing some substance to the table. If you're Biden, it means rehearsing how to keep your train of thought on the rails while being constantly interrupted. And if you're Scully, it means establishing your authority very early on. It was surprising to see Wallace, who had actually moderated 2016's third presidential debate between Hillary and Trump, failing to control the debate until we were a fair way into it.

Sifting through the rubble

So, what did we really learn? Anything at all? For starters, it appears Trump's debate etiquette has actually worsened over the past four years and although he held back from calling anyone "nasty" or any using any other such epithets, his behaviour was quite unacceptable for a Head of State. It was probably fine four years ago when he was just a candidate, but he should really have known better this time around. Then again, that old adage about old dogs and new tricks comes to mind.

Moving onto the content, we've always known Trump's priorities, but his tendency to speak about business, the need to open up business and how well the economy was doing certainly underlined it. He might not be very good at business, if the New York Times exposé and Biden's counters about the state of American manufacturing and the growing trade deficit with China are anything by which to go, but he loves talking about it.

We also learned that sitting in India and continuing to labour under the delusion that Trump is good for India is something that needs to stop. Immediately. That he would unfavourably refer to the country and lump it in with Russia and China, perceived to be the biggest troublemakers in his book, on two occasions should put his Ahmedabad remarks into perspective and give commentators in India a reality check.

The Hillary experience taught us that merely having public service experience and policy ideas rooted in fact is insufficient. Biden will therefore have to go back to the drawing board and come back more confident — something he appeared to be sorely lacking at significant moments in the evening — or risk losing despite being the stronger candidate on paper. After all, no one will remember his pronouncements on setting up a fleet of electrical vehicles or how he plans to change the tax code if he is seen to be lacking confidence and fumbling his way through them.

Lastly, with the benefit of hindsight and experience, we can see that much clearer today than four years ago that Trump is extremely dangerous, for the US and the world at large. Between some waffle about wanting "immaculate air and water" in response to a question on climate change, a refusal to criticise White supremacists, and a tendency to throw the likes of Dr Anthony Fauci under the bus for his remarks about masks while refusing to be held accountable for his own statements, all the president really did was to compound existing perceptions about him and strengthen the case against him. It is clear: Trump will do what he has to in order to preserve his vote bank and that includes being soft on racists, oblivious to environmental challenges (blaming 'forest management' and 'dead trees on the forest floor' when asked if he accepted that climate change was a reality) and insisting that the election is in danger of being 'rigged'.

In summation, neither candidate was successfully able to conclusively (or even adequately) put across why they were better suited to be President of the United States. Trump was just the same Trump we've seen passing strange legislation, making stranger statements and doing the strangest things with foreign relations. Biden too did little to shake off the impression of a doddering and bumbling septuagenarian who lacks the fight to take on the divider-in-chief. The American voter who watched Tuesday night's proceedings would be justified in asking for her/his 98 minutes back.

Round 2 in Miami, Florida can't come soon enough, even if only to wash away the taste of this extremely poor first course in Cleveland. Maybe then the American voter will be given a reason to take time out of her/his evening to watch it and schedule to actually go and exercise her/his franchise.

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