Month: June 2022

A massive protest took place at Delhi’s Jama Masjid over inflammatory remarks by suspended BJP leader Nupur Sharma and expelled leader Naveen Jindal on Friday.

Delhi Police said they have removed the protestors and the situation is under control now.

“No call for protest given by Masjid. We don’t know who are the ones protesting, I think they belong to AIMIM or are Owaisi’s people. We made it clear that if they want to protest, they can, but we will not support them,” Shahi Imam, Jama Masjid told media persons.

The controversy erupted after Nupur Sharma’s remarks against the minorities. Some Gulf countries have lodged their protest.

However, India on Thursday reiterated that the controversial remarks concerning Prophet Mohammad do not reflect the views of the Government and added that action has been taken by concerned quarters against those who made the comments.

Ministry of External Affairs Spokesperson Arindam Bagchi, while addressing a media briefing on Thursday, said, “We have made it pretty clear that the tweets and comments do not reflect views of the government. This has been conveyed to our interlocutors as also the fact that action has been taken by concerned quarters against those who made the comments and tweets.”

Meanwhile, Delhi Police registered two FIRs– one against former BJP spokesperson Nupur Sharma and the other against 31 people, including AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi and controversial priest Yati Narsinghanand – for allegedly spreading hate and hurting religious sentiments, officials said on Thursday.

Former Delhi BJP media unit head Naveen Kumar Jindal, who was expelled from the party over alleged remarks against Prophet Mohammad, and journalist Saba Naqvi, are among the people named in the second FIR. (ANI)

Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Friday appealed to historians in the country to resuscitate the glory of the past for the present, saying that it will help in building a bright future.

The Home Minister made the appeal while launching a book ‘Maharanas: A Thousand Year War For Dharma’ written by a practising ENT Surgeon Omendra Ratnu, who has a keen interest in the history of Rajasthan and has written several articles on the history of Mewar.

Wishing the author for writing the book, which claims to reveal the truth of the greatest Dynasty of India ‘the Sisodias of Mewad’ who fought invaders non-stop for 1,000 years and refused to surrender even when their kingdom was encircled by enemies on all sides, the Home Minister also advised him to write about the struggles like this occurred across India as a ‘Sandarbh Granth’ and appealed all historians in the country to dig out India’s glory from past and reproduce it in present so that the new generation could know the facts which were not surfaced so far.

“From this dias, I want to tell all the brothers and sisters of my country engaged in writing history that the task of history is to resuscitate the glory of the past for the present. I have full faith that if you resuscitate the glory of the past for the present, it will help in building a bright future,” Shah said while speaking in Hindi.

The Home Minister said that the book outlines the glory of Maharanas of Mewar and the great fighters of the Sisodia dynasty who protected the country from invaders by sacrificing their lives and many things.

The Home Minister also said that his purpose to attend the event is to give his tributes to those crores of people who sacrificed their lives while protecting the glory, tradition and honour of the country from invaders, and those who led us to live a life filled with proud.

Shah said the history of the Sisodia dynasty will really help those in knowing the sacrifice of Maharanas who neither cared about themselves nor their family for the country.

The Home Minister said that history does not depend on government and that “truth comes into existence if historians start writing correct facts about those who could not get proper space in the history so far”. (ANI)

Amid the prevailing tension in the Bhaderwah area of Jammu and Kashmir’s Doda district, a curfew has been imposed along with the suspension of internet services and heavy security deployment in the town as precautionery measures.

“We had imposed section 144 last night, keeping in view the rumours that were being spread over a social media post yesterday. No untoward incident from any district reported so far. I appeal to the people to maintain peace,” said Ashok Sharma, Kishtwar Deputy Commissioner.

The tensions flared up on Thursday after a purported video went viral in which instigating announcement was being made from a mosque in Baderwah, Jammu. Following this, a case was registered at Bhaderwah Police Station.

Police Media Centre Jammu said, “Action has been taken under the law. A case has been registered at Police Station Bhaderwah. Anyone who takes the law into their hands will not be spared.”

Two separate FIRs have been registered. According to officials, the situation is under control.

Union Minister Jitendra Singh made an appeal to maintain peace and said he is in constant touch with officials.

Singh, who represents the Udhampur constituency in Lok Sabha, said that District Collector Doda and Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Doda are presently camping in Bhaderwah and monitoring the situation. (ANI)

Taliban security forces in northern Afghanistan’s Panjshir province have unlawfully detained and tortured residents accused of association with an opposition armed group, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said on Friday.

Since mid-May 2022, fighting has escalated in the province as National Resistance Front (NRF) forces have attacked Taliban units and checkpoints. The Taliban have responded by deploying to the province thousands of fighters, who have carried out search operations targeting communities they allege are supporting the NRF.

During search operations in other provinces, Taliban forces have committed summary executions and enforced disappearances of captured fighters and other detainees, which are war crimes.

“Taliban forces in Panjshir province have quickly resorted to beating civilians in their response to fighting against the opposition National Resistance Front,” said Patricia Gossman, associate Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “The Taliban’s longstanding failure to punish those responsible for serious abuses in their ranks puts more civilians at risk.”

A human rights advocate who has interviewed several former detainees and a source with direct information about Taliban detentions spoke to Human Rights Watch about the Panjshir situation.

Former detainees in early June reported that Taliban security forces detained about 80 residents in Panjshir’s Khenj district and beat them to compel them to provide information about the NRF. After several days, the Taliban released 70, but have continued to hold 10 people whose relatives they accuse of being members of the group, a form of collective punishment.

Former detainees said the district jail held nearly 100 others who have alleged links to the NRF. None had access to their families or lawyers. Others have been held in informal detention facilities.

According to the New York-based rights group, people taken into custody must be promptly charged with a criminal offence or released.

“The protections of international human rights law also apply. Denying detainees access to lawyers and family members is prohibited and increases the risk of torture and enforced disappearance. Collective punishment – the punishment of individuals for alleged actions of others – is a violation of the laws of war and a war crime,” the HRW said.

The NRF, headed by Ahmad Massoud, is the principal armed opposition group in Panjshir and neighboring provinces. It includes some fighters who had served in the former Afghan National Security Forces. (ANI)

Polling to elect members of the Upper House of the Parliament on 16 Rajya Sabha seats spread across four states – Maharashtra, Karnataka, Rajasthan and Haryana- began on Friday morning.

Polling that began at 9 am will conclude at 4 pm. Forty-one candidates from Uttar Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Odisha, Madhya Pradesh, Punjab, Chhattisgarh, Uttarakhand, Jharkhand and Telangana were elected unopposed after the biennial elections to 57 Rajya Sabha seats were announced recently.

However, polling for 16 seats spread across states like Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Haryana and Karnataka are being held today.

Some prominent leaders, whose fates will be decided at 5 pm when the counting of the votes will take place, include Union Ministers Piyush Goyal and Nirmala Sitharaman, Congress leaders Jairam Ramesh, Randeep Surjewala and Mukul Wasnik.

Notably, discontent had surfaced in the Congress party after the announcement of nominees for the Upper House.

In Maharashtra, the Congress party has fielded Imran Pratapgarhi for the polls while Praful Patel has been fielded from the NCP. Shiv Sena’s Sanjay Raut and Sanjay Pawar have been given a run in the polls.

The MVA has shifted all its MLAs to a hotel in Mumbai fearing horse-trading. The alliance, however, is expressing confidence in bagging four seats from the state.

The BJP has fielded Dr Anil Bonde, Piyush Goyal and Dhananjay Mahadik from the state. Interestingly, there will be seven candidates in the fray for the six seats in the state.

Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray exuded confidence in all the four candidates of the Maha Vikas Aghadi of winning the Rajya Sabha polls.

In Haryana, polling is being will take place for two seats. Both BJP alliance and Congress legislators were shifted to resorts to slash possibilities of poaching.

While the BJP-JJP alliance has lodged their MLAs to a resort in Chandigarh, the Congress leaders were moved to a resort in the city.

The Congress party has nominated senior leader Ajay Maken while the BJP has fielded former minister Krishan Lal Panwar.

It is noteworthy that a senior leader of the state, Kuldeep Bishnoi is already upset with the party’s recent decisions. Besides this, another problem for the party has come in the form of the candidature of Kartikey Sharma whose father and father-in-law are former Congress leaders and are known to have influence in the state politics.

In Karnataka, JD(S) has fielded entrepreneur and social worker Kupendra Reddy as its first candidate in the Rajya Sabha election.

The Congress had fielded Mansoor Ali Khan as its second candidate to corner the JD(S) and its bid to send Kupendra Reddy to the Rajya Sabha.

Six candidates are in the fray for the Rajya Sabha poll to four seats for the June 10 Rajya Sabha polls from Karnataka.

A day ahead of the polling, former state chief minister and Janata Dal (Secular) leader HD Kumaraswamy on Thursday urged the Congress to give its second preferential votes to JDS, if it really wanted to defeat the Bharatiya Janata Party.

Similarly in Rajasthan, resort politics took the driving seat as the Congress MLAs were tossed between Udaipur and Jaipur. (ANI)

Fitch Ratings on Friday revised its outlook on India’s long-term foreign currency Issuer Default Rating (IDR) to “Stable” from “Negative” citing diminished downside risks to medium-term growth.

The rating agency has also affirmed India’s Issuer Default Rating (IDR) at ‘BBB-‘.

The Outlook revision reflects our view that downside risks to medium-term growth have diminished due to India’s rapid economic recovery and easing financial sector weaknesses, despite near-term headwinds from the global commodity price shock. We expect robust growth relative to peers to support credit metrics in line with the current rating, Fitch Ratings said in a statement.

High nominal GDP growth has facilitated a near-term reduction in the debt-to-GDP ratio, but public finances remain a credit weakness with the debt ratio broadly stabilising, based on our expectation of persistent large deficits. The rating also balances India’s external resilience from solid foreign-exchange reserve buffers against some lagging structural indicators, it said.

Fitch Ratings noted that the recovery has put the Indian economy on a stronger footing. India’s economy continues to see a solid recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic shock. GDP recovered by 8.7 per cent in the fiscal year ended March 2022, and we forecast GDP growth to remain robust at 7.8 per cent in 2022-23 compared with the 3.4 per cent ‘BBB’ median, it said.

However, this is a downward revision from our 8.5 per cent forecast in March as the inflationary impacts of the global commodity price shock are dampening some of the positive growth momentum, the rating agency said.

India’s strong medium-term growth outlook relative to peers is a key supporting factor for the rating and will sustain a gradual improvement in credit metrics. “We forecast growth of around 7 per cent between FY24 and FY27, underpinned by the government’s infrastructure push, reform agenda and easing pressures in the financial sector. Nevertheless, there are challenges to this forecast, given the uneven nature of the economic recovery and implementation risks for infrastructure spending and reforms,” Fitch Ratings said.

The rating agency noted that the conditions in the financial sector were a key growth impediment before the COVID-19 pandemic but it has improved in recent years.

The improved condition of the financial sector would facilitate better credit allocation and investment in the medium term. Banks’ capital sufficiency will be important in determining their ability to provide more credit, even as regulatory forbearance has given them time to rebuild capital buffers. Potential asset-quality deterioration from the pandemic shock appears manageable, but there are risks as forbearance measures unwind amid heightened global macroeconomic uncertainty.

India’s debt-to-GDP ratio benefits in the near term from a sharp acceleration in nominal GDP growth. We forecast the debt-to-GDP ratio to drop to 83.0 per cent in FY23 from a peak of 87.6 per cent in FY21, but it remains high compared to the 56 per cent peer median.

Beyond FY23, however, our expectations of only a modest narrowing of the fiscal deficit and rising sovereign borrowing costs will push the debt ratio up slightly to around 84.0 per cent by FY27, even under an assumption of nominal GDP growth of around 10.5 per cent.

On fiscal deficit, Fitch Ratings said, “We forecast India’s general government fiscal deficit to remain broadly stable at 10.5 per cent of GDP (excluding divestment) in FY23, compared to 10.7 per cent in FY22. In its budget, the central government prioritised capital expenditure over more substantial fiscal consolidation. We forecast that the fuel excise-duty cuts and increased subsidies (about 0.8 per cent of GDP) announced in May to offset higher commodity prices for consumers, will push the central government deficit to 6.8 per cent of GDP compared to the budget’s 6.4 per cent target, despite robust revenue growth.” (ANI)

The cross-border bus service between Bangladesh and India resumed on Friday, two years after its suspension due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Resumption of India-Bangladesh Cross-Border Bus Services! Bus services b/w India-Bangladesh via ICP Agartala-Akhaura & ICP Haridaspur-Benapole resumed with the Dhaka-Kolkata-Dhaka bus being flagged off from Dhaka early morning today-a major step forward in enhancing affordable, people-centric connectivity,” tweeted High Commission of India in Bangladesh.

Tazul Islam, chairman of Bangladesh Road Transport Corporation (BRTC), had confirmed that the service would resume to The Daily Star on Thursday.

The development comes after the rail service between the two countries resumed on May 29. The train service between the two countries was suspended since March 2020 in view of the COVID-19 pandemic. Two trains travel between India and Bangladesh, Bandhan Express operates between Kolkata and Khulna, Bangladesh while Maitree Express connects Kolkata with Dhaka.

Except for the Dhaka-Sylhet-Shillong-Guwahati-Dhaka route, service on four other routes would resume from Friday and the first bus would start from Motijheel at 7:00 am, added Islam.

Before the suspension of service, buses were operated on five cross-border routes: Dhaka-Kolkata-Dhaka, Dhaka-Agartala-Dhaka, Dhaka-Sylhet-Shillong-Guwahati-Dhaka, Agartala-Dhaka-Kolkata-Agartala, and Dhaka-Khulna-Kolkata-Dhaka, reported The Daily Star.

The discussion over the operation of the fifth route is also going on, said a BRTC official. (ANI)

India reported 7,584 new COVID cases in the last 24 hours, more than 300 cases than the previous day, according to the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare on Friday.

The active cases in the country rose to 36,267 which stood at 32,498 yesterday. The active cases are 0.08 per cent of the total caseload in the country.

With 3,35,050 tests conducted in the last 24 hours, the daily positivity rate was observed to be 2.26 per cent. The weekly positivity rate was recorded to be 1.50 per cent.

According to the health ministry, 3,791 COVID patients recovered in the last 24 hours taking the total number of recoveries from the disease since the onset of the pandemic to 4,26,44,092. The recovery rate stands at 98.70 per cent.

With the death of 24 COVID patients during this period, the death toll climbed to 5,24,747.

Over 194.76 crore vaccine doses have been administered so far under the nationwide vaccination drive.

Following a surge in COVID cases across the country, the Union Health Ministry is closely monitoring the situation in the states like Maharashtra, Kerala, Delhi and Karnataka and has asked them to follow the five-fold strategy and amp-up testing, said official sources on Thursday.

The Ministry has also asked the States to monitor clusters of new COVID cases and follow COVID appropriate behaviour, sources told ANI.

Recently, Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan wrote to the officials of five states, Kerala, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Telangana and Tamil Nadu to closely monitor emerging clusters, maintain the adequate number of testing and send samples from infected individuals for genome sequencing. (ANI)

Ministry of External Affairs on Thursday said that India is carefully monitoring the developments along its border areas including the construction of infrastructure by the Chinese side in the eastern Ladakh sector.

External Affairs Ministry Spokesperson Arindam Bagchi made this comment in response to remarks by an American military commander that some of the defence infrastructures that China is creating near its border with India in Ladakh are “alarming”.

“India carefully monitors developments along our borders areas including construction of infrastructure by the Chinese side in the western sector as well as that been undertaken further in-depth areas,” he said while addressing a media briefing.

“The government is committed to and takes all adequate and appropriate measures to safeguard territorial integrity and sovereignty as the developments in recent years have clearly demonstrated,” Bagchi said.

He said the government of India has taken various measures in recent years to develop infrastructure along the border areas to not only meet India’s strategic and security requirements but also facilitate the economic developments of the areas.

On Wednesday, US Army’s Pacific Commanding General Charles A Flynn, who is on a four-day visit to India talked about the infrastructure development by China along its borders with India in the Ladakh sector, and called the Chinese activities in that region “eye-opening”.

“As far as the current situation (in eastern Ladakh) is concerned, we have maintained continuous communication with the Chinese side both through diplomatic and military channels,” Bagchi said.

On the Chinese aggression which started in April-May last year, the Defence Ministry in its Year-End review had stated that unilateral and provocative actions by the Chinese to change the status quo by force, in more than one area on the LAC, have been responded to as an adequate measure. (ANI)