Two terrorists killed in Kashmir's Sopore

June 1, 2017

New Delhi, Jun 1: Two terrorists were killed in a brief encounter with security forces in Sopore town of north Kashmir's Baramulla district on Thursday, police said. The gunfight took place around 3: 30 am.

Kashmir

Officials said that a joint party of police and Army's 21 Rashtriya Rifles launched a search operation after inputs about presence of terrorists in Natipora village of Sopore, some 70 km from Srinagar.

"The terrorists who were holed up in a house, opened fire on the security forces who then retaliated,"officials said.

"Two terrorists were killed in the operation," a senior police official said, adding, "identity of the terrorists is yet to be acertained."

Meanwhile, Army has cordoned the area and combing operations are underway.

Terrorists yesterday hurled grenade at a Police party near Jammu and Kashmir Bank in Sopore.

As many as four police personnel were injured in the incident.

Since the end of October 2016, armed robbers have struck at various branches of banks in Jammu and Kashmir, looting nearly Rs. 92 lakh in 13 separate attacks.

There have been four incidents in four days this month, beginning with the bloody attack on a cash van on May 1 during which militants shot dead five policemen and two bank security guards, and including two attacks in two hours in adjacent villages in Pulwama.

The incidents coincide with the spike in militancy and mass protests that followed the killing of Hizbul Mujahideen militant Burhan Wani last July.

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News Network
March 16,2024

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New Delhi: The 2024 general election for 543 Lok Sabha seats will be held in seven phases from April 19, Chief Election Commissioner Rajeev Kumar said today, announcing the largest democratic exercise in the world. Results will be announced on June 4.

The seven phases: 
April 19
April 26
May 7
May 13
May 20
May 25
June 1

Simultaneous election for Lok Sabha and assembly will be held in four states -- Sikkim, Odisha, Arunachal Pradesh and Andhra.  

By-elections will also be held for 26 assembly seats across multiple states, including Bihar, Gujarat, Haryana, Jharkhand, Maharashtra, Rajasthan and Tamil Nadu.

Mr Kumar, announcing the dates, sent out a strong message on fake news on social media, saying political parties should ensure responsible social media behaviour -- "verify before you amplify".

"Fake news will be dealt with severely as per existent laws.. Section 79 (3)(B) of the IT Act empowers nodal officers in each state to remove unlawful content," he said.

The other strong message was on violation of model code in terms of hate speeches. "There should be issue-based campaign, no hate speeches, no speeches along caste or religious lines, no criticism of anyone's personal lives," he said.

The media must clarify when they carry political adverts, those cannot masquerade as news, he said. Individual messages regarding this would be sent to the candidates, he added.

The commission has employed 2,100 advisors to keep an eye on these issues and strong action will be taken regarding this, he said.

Voters above the age of 85 years and persons with disabilities, with 40 per cent disability can vote from home, Mr Kumar said. Around 82 lakh voter are above the age of 85, he said.

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News Network
March 15,2024

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New Delhi, Mar 13: The Supreme Court on Friday took exception to the State Bank of India (SBI) for not disclosing complete details of Electoral Bonds, including unique alfa numeric numbers, furnished to the Election Commission for uploading on the website.

A five-judge Constitution bench led by Chief Justice of India D Y Chandrachud issued notice to the SBI seeking its response on Monday after the court was informed that the issuing bank for the Electoral Bonds has not disclosed unique alfa numeric number of each bond.

"They have not disclosed the bond numbers. It has to be disclosed by the State Bank of India. All details have to be provided by the SBI," the bench, also comprising Justices Sanjiv Khanna, B R Gavai, J B Pardiwala and Manoj Misra, noted.

Senior advocate Kapil Sibal said as per the Constitution bench judgment of February 15, 2024, all details were to be disclosed.

Solicitor General Tushar Mehta submitted since the SBI was a party to the judgment, notice may be issued to it.

The court said the counsel for SBI should have been here.

"If you see the judgment, we have specified that bond numbers have to be provided," the bench said.

Advocate Prashant Bhushan appeared for the main petitioner Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR).

On an application by the EC, the bench said the details of Electoral Bonds furnished by the poll panel before the top court should be scanned and returned to it for the purpose of uploading on the website.

The Election Commission through advocate Amit Sharma filed a plea in the Supreme Court seeking a direction to release data on electoral bonds furnished to the top court in terms of previous orders of April 12, 2019 and November 2, 2023.

As per March 11, 2024 order, the Election Commission on Thursday uploaded the data on electoral bonds furnished to it by the SBI.

However, in an application, the poll panel said it had furnished to the Supreme Court a number of sealed envelopes, containing details on EBs encashed by the political parties, during the course of hearing in the matter.

It sought a direction for the return of those sealed envelopes to comply with the directions to upload it on the website as per order of March 11.

On Monday, the Supreme Court had told the SBI to furnish details of purchasers of Electoral Bonds and names of political parties redeemed those instruments by March 12 to the Election Commission, rejecting its plea for extension of time until June 30 for the purpose.

It had then directed the Election Commission to publish the information provided by the SBI on its website on March 15.

In its February 15, 2024 judgment, the SC had declared the Electoral Bonds scheme, introduced in 2018 for donation to political parties, as "unconstitutional" for being violative of the right to information.

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News Network
March 21,2024

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New Delhi: India has now become more unequal in terms of wealth concentration than the British colonial period as income and wealth of the top 1% of the country’s population have hit historical highs, according to a paper released by World Inequality Lab.

By 2022-23, the top 1 per cent income share in India was 22.6 per cent and the top 1 per cent wealth share rose to 40.1 per cent, with India’s top 1 per cent income share among the very highest in the world, higher than even South Africa, Brazil and the US.

Co-authored by economists Nitin Kumar Bharti, Lucas Chancel, Thomas Piketty, and Anmol Somanchi, the paper stated that the “Billionaire Raj” headed by “India’s modern bourgeoisie” is now more unequal than the British Raj headed by the colonialist forces. 

The paper said there is evidence to suggest the Indian tax system might be “regressive when viewed from the lens of net wealth”. A restructuring of the tax code is needed, the paper said, adding that a levy of a “super tax” of 2 per cent on the net wealth of 167 wealthiest families would yield 0.5 per cent of national income in revenues and create space for investments.

“A restructuring of the tax code to account for both income and wealth, and broad-based public investments in health, education and nutrition are needed to enable the average Indian, and not just the elites, to meaningfully benefit from the ongoing wave of globalisation. Besides serving as a tool to fight inequality, a “super tax” of 2% on the net wealth of the 167 wealthiest families in 2022-23 would yield 0.5% of national income in revenues and create valuable fiscal space to facilitate such investments,” the paper said. 

The paper has analysed data based on the annual tax tabulations published by the Indian income tax authorities to extract the distribution of top income earners between 1922-2020.

The share of national income going to the top 10 per cent fell from 37 per cent in 1951 to 30 per cent by 1982 after which it began steadily rising. From the early 1990s onwards, the top 10 per cent share increased substantially over the next three decades, nearly touching 60 per cent in the most recent years, the paper said. This compares with the bottom 50 per cent getting only 15 per cent of India’s national income in 2022-23.

 The top 1 per cent earn on average Rs 5.3 million, 23 times the average Indian (Rs 0.23 million). Average incomes for the bottom 50 per cent and the middle 40 per cent stood at Rs 71,000 (0.3 times national average) and Rs 1,65,000 (0.7 times national average), respectively.
The richest, nearly 10,000 individuals (of 92 million Indian adults) earn on average Rs 480 million (2,069 times the average Indian). “To get a sense of just how skewed the distribution is, one would have to be at nearly the 90th percentile to earn the average income in India,” the paper said.

In 2022, just the top 0.1 per cent in India earned nearly 10 per cent of the national income, while the top 0.01 per cent earned 4.3 per cent share of the national income and top 0.001 per cent earned 2.1 per cent of the national income.

Enlisting the probable reasons for sharp rise in top 1 per cent income shares, the paper said public and private sector wage growth could have played a part till the late 1990s, adding that there are good reasons to believe capital incomes likely played a role in subsequent years. For the shares of the bottom 50 per cent and middle 40 per cent remaining depressed, the paper said, the primary reason has been the lack of quality broad-based education, focused on the masses and not just the elites.

“One reason to be concerned with such high levels of inequality is that extreme concentration of incomes and wealth is likely to facilitate disproportionate influence on society and government. This is even more so in contexts with weak democratic institutions. After largely being a role model among post-colonial nations in this regard, the integrity of various key institutions in India appears to have been compromised in recent years. This makes the possibility of India’s slide towards plutocracy even more real. If only for this reason, income and wealth inequality in India must be closely tracked and challenged,” it said.

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