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Archives for May 2019

EC asks Twitter India to remove all tweets related to exit polls

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The Election Commission is learnt to have asked Twitter to take down an exit poll-related tweet.

The EC’s move came after it received certain “complaint”, sources aware of the development said Thursday, adding that the user later removed the tweet.

The sources, however, did not specify the complaint.

“There is no such general order issued by ECI today. Only one case was reported to us today which the user himself removed,” a senior functionary said.

The move came a day after it issued a show-cause notice to three media outlets for allegedly publishing a survey “predicting results” of Lok Sabha elections.

Section 126A of the Representation of the People Act states that “no person shall conduct any exit poll and publish or publicise by means of the print or electronic media… The result of any exit poll during such period… In case of a general election, the period may commence from the beginning of the hours fixed for a poll on the first day of poll and continue till half an hour after closing of the poll in all the states and union territories.”

The section also prescribes that any person, who contravenes the provisions of this section, shall be punishable with imprisonment for a term which may extend to two years or with fine or with both.

Polling for the seventh and last phase of Lok Sabha elections will be held on May 19.

Agencies

India gifts two Mi 24 attack helicopters to Afghan Air Force

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India on Thursday handed over two Mi 24 attack helicopters to Afghan defence minister Asadullah Khalid at the Kabul Air Force base.

Indian envoy to Afghanistan Vinay Kumar handed over the helicopters. The helicopters are replacement of the four attack helicopters gifted previously by India to Afghanistan in 2015.

A release by the Indian mission in Afghanistan said, “helicopters shall boost the capability of the Afghan Air Force” and enhance the “effectiveness of the Afghan national fefence and security force in combating the scrouge of terrorism” 

During Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Afghanistan on 25th December 2016, New Delhi had gifted four Mi 25 attack helicopters to the Afghan Air Force. It was during this visit PM Modi had inaugurated the Afghan Parliament, which was built by India.

Former Indian envoy to Afghanistan, Amar Sinha speaking to WION on the development said, “India’s supply of two more Mi 24 helicopters is in line with our policies and commitments to Afghanistan.”

Explaining further Sinha said, “It is also a symbol of trilateral cooperation with Belarus as the third country which made these available for use by ANSF”

Amar Sinha was the Indian ambassador to Afghanistan in 2016 when the four Mi 25 attack helicopters were gifted to the landlocked South Asian country.

India is currently providing assistance to Afghan National Defence and Security forces (ANSF) by training the personnel and in the past has trained Afghan pilots as well.

Agencies

Clashes in Kashmir after three rebels, one civilian killed

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Police say a gun battle broke out in a neighborhood in southern Pulwama town early on Thursday.by Rifat Fareed.

Security forces launched a crackdown on the rebels following a suicide attack on a convoy of Indian forces in February [Andalou]
Security forces launched a crackdown on the rebels following a suicide attack on a convoy of Indian forces in February [Andalou]

Srinagar, Indian-administered Kashmir – Five people, including three rebels, a civilian and one Indian army personnel, have been killed in a pre-dawn gunfight in Dalipora village of Pulwama in the southern part of Indian-administered Kashmir.

Chandan Kohli, a senior superintendent of police from Pulwama, told Al Jazeera that the gunfight started in the early hours of Thursday after a search operation was launched.

“In the gunfight, three Jaish-e-Muhammad members and one army personnel were killed,” said Kohli before adding that “one civilian also died in the crossfire while they were being evacuated from the target house”.

Thousands protest in Kashmir over rape of three-year-old

The civilian was identified as Rayees Ahmad Dar, in his early 20s, who suffered injuries to his chest and neck.

“He was brought dead to the hospital. His brother also suffered a bullet injury in his leg and is being treated in the hospital,” Dr Abdul Rasheed Para, the superintendent of Pulwama district hospital, told Al Jazeera.

Kohli said that two of the fighters were local and one of them was a foreigner “who was wanted in many cases”.

“He was one of the top commanders of the outfit present in the region,” the official said, adding that the gun battle lasted five hours.

After news of the operation spread in the volatile villages of southern Kashmir, hundreds of people came out on the roads raising anti-India slogans. The protests lead to stone-throwing clashes between youth and the forces.

“Even in the holy month of Ramadan, they can’t let the people live peacefully. We are forced to carry the coffins of our children,” said Fayaz Ahmad Mir, a Pulwama resident.

India’s BJP denies human rights violations in Kashmir

Authorities suspended internet services in the district and imposed a curfew in the adjacent villages.

Security forces in the region have launched a crackdown on the rebels following a suicide attackon a convoy of Indian forces on the south Kashmir national highway in February where 42 paramilitary troopers were killed.

Responsibility for the attack was claimed by JeM. The attack strained relations between India and Pakistan and triggered military escalations between the two countries.

Indian authorities have taken several measures to tighten the spaces of dissent in the region. They banned two top separatist outfits, Jamaat-e-Islami and Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF), and jailed hundreds of their leaders.

The Indian government has also warned students from the disputed territory against pursuing their studies in colleges in Pakistan-administered Kashmir, saying the Indian government does not recognise those degrees.

Aljazeera

Strong winds, thundershowers lash parts of city in Bengaluru

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Bengaluru, May 15: The state of Karnataka is experiencing a mix of weather since the last few days. Bengaluru is known for its pleasant weather conditions round the year. However, the month of May till now has been the hottest for the state capital. The residents of Bengaluru witnessed a sudden change of weather on Wednesday afternoon after thundershowers accompanied with strong winds hit the city due to the influence of an upper air trough is extending from Telangana to Comorin areas across South Interior Karnataka.

The day temperatures would remain between 32 to 35 degrees, while night temperatures will remain between 22 to 24 degrees. Apart from these, the sky conditions will remain partly cloudy to cloudy over most parts.

Strong winds, thundershowers lash parts of city in Bengaluru

As per KSNDMC’s data, from March till date, the state should get 62 mm of rainfall on an average. However, the state received only 36 mm.

Also, Heavy rains lashed various parts of North India including states of Punjab, Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh on Tuesday.

IMD has issued a warning for rainfall and thunderstorm over northwest and adjoining central India till May 15. Apart from the warning about heavy rainfall, IMD has also alerted the formation of a cyclonic circulation over West Rajasthan.

Meanwhile, the IMD on Wednesday announced that the monsoon in Kerala is likely to hit on June 6, which is a slight delay by four days.

“This year, the statistical model forecast suggests that the monsoon onset over Kerala is likely to be slightly delayed. The southwest monsoon onset is likely to set over Kerala on 6th June with a model error of ± 4 days,” it said.

The normal onset date for monsoon over Kerala was June 1, which also marks the start of the rainy season over the region and relief from scorching summer temperatures.

BJP’s Kerala candidate has 240 criminal cases

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New Delhi, May 15 : K. Surendran, the Bharatiya Janata Party’s candidate from Kerala’s Pathanamthitta parliamentary constituency, has declared 240 criminal cases against himself, topping the list of those with criminal records contesting the general elections.

Hailing from Kasaragod, he is one of the state BJP General Secretaries.

According to the National Election Watch and Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), 129 of the charges in these cases are of serious nature.

The second highest number of criminal cases was declared by the Congress candidate Dean Kuriakose from the Idukki constituency in Kerala.

He has 204 criminal cases pending against him, in which he faces 37 charges of serious nature.

Atiq Ahmad, who is contesting as an Independent from Varanasi, came in the third place with 80 serious charges in the 59 cases against him and BJP’s Bapu Rao Soyam, contesting from Adilabad in Telangana, is fourth with 55 serious charges in the the 52 cases he faces.

With 19 serious charges in the 42 cases against him, the Congress’ Telangana candidate Anumula Revanth Reddy is fifth in the list.

Agencies

Modicare and Mohalla Clinics: Assessing India’s two health models

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As India’s general election winds down, Al Jazeera reports on two most talked-about health initiatives in the country.by Nadim Asraran hour ago

New Delhi is one of the three Indian states that refused to join BJP's Modicare scheme [Vijay Pandey/Al Jazeera]
New Delhi is one of the three Indian states that refused to join BJP’s Modicare scheme

New Delhi, India – Vinod Prasad Jaiswal had lost all hopes of recovery after he was diagnosed with oesophagal stricture, a condition in which the oesophagus gets narrow and makes swallowing of food difficult.

The 57-year-old scrap dealer needed immediate surgery but didn’t have the money. It was then that somebody suggested he should make use of the Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (PMJAY, more popularly known as “Modicare”) scheme, a part of the federal government’s Ayushman Bharat health programme.

It was in Jaiswal’s hometown Ranchi, the capital of Jharkhand state in eastern India, that Prime Minister Narendra Modi had launched his flagship PMJAY health insurance scheme in September last year.

‘Modicare’

Billed as the world’s biggest healthcare insurance programme, PMJAY provides free health cover of Rs 500,000 ($7,100) a year for serious ailments to 100 million poor families or about 500 million people. The federal government bears 60 percent of the premium while the state governments bear the remaining 40.

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“We didn’t have any health insurance, so we got the Ayushman health card made,” Jaiswal’s son Gaurav Kumar told Al Jazeera. “We had a lot of faith in that card.”

That faith made Jaiswal travel over a 1,000km to New Delhi’s privately-owned Sir Ganga Ram Hospital, where he became the first person to be admitted under the “Modicare” scheme. The surgery was conducted last month and he is now recovering.

Incidentally, Jaiswal was the first beneficiary of the PMJAY health insurance scheme at Sir Ganga Ram Hospital, which in turn is the first multi-speciality hospital in New Delhi to join the Ayushman Bharat panel.

New Delhi along with Telangana and Odisha states did not sign up for the Ayushman Bharat scheme. As a result, hospitals in the national capital could only treat people from outside the city.

West Bengal state, which is ruled by a regional party opposed to Modi, pulled out after initially signing up to the scheme.

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“We went beyond our mandate to join the Ayushman Bharat scheme,” Sir Ganga Ram Hospital’s additional director of medicine Dr Satendra Katoch told Al Jazeera. “At least three other hospitals in Delhi have made queries after we admitted our first patient.”

The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) spokesperson GVL Narasimha Rao told Al Jazeera that more than 1.5 million people so far have benefited from the PMJAY scheme.

“It will take year or two to get completely streamlined because more and more hospitals are joining the scheme,” he said, calling it a “roaring success”.

Two models of primary healthcare

Apart from the PMJAY scheme, the federal government’s Ayushman Bharat programme also has a primary healthcare component called the Health and Wellness Centres (HWCs).

Health experts say while the HWCs are a more comprehensive healthcare model, the money put in the programme is inadequate.

“The HWC is a gradual expansion of the existing healthcare system. It is a more integrated system because it is trying to strengthen not only clinical care but also other elements like preventive measures and diagnostics,” Indranil Mukhopadhyay, who is an associate professor at OP Jindal University on the outskirts of New Delhi, told media.

Mukhopadhyay argued that spending on a scheme such as PMJAY makes little sense since the thrust of the expenditure should be on primary healthcare.

India’s universal healthcare plan ‘failing’ the poor

“Spending more money on primary healthcare will save more money in the long run. If you look at morbidity and deaths which were preventable, you would realise a good screening programme or access to basic medicines could reduce dependence on tertiary institutions.”

The poll manifesto of the BJP, which is hoping to be re-elected in the ongoing general election, said 17,150 HWCs have become functional across India while there are plans to upgrade 150,000 health sub-centres into HWCs by the year 2022. 

Meanwhile, In India’s capital, a health programme – the Aam Aadmi Mohalla Clinics (AAMCs) – launched by the city government run by the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), is also being talked about and even compared with the central government’s health initiative.

The refusal of the New Delhi government to join Ayushman Bharat, it seems, is also attributed to the AAP’s confidence in its flagship AAMC programme.

Aam Aadmi Mohalla Clinics

Launched in 2014, the AAP promised 1,000 such clinics across New Delhi to cater to its 19 million residents, mainly the poor, apart from a large number of city’s floating population of migrants.

Each AAMC in New Delhi was planned within a radius of 5km, with a large number of them opening around lower-middle-class neighbourhoods and urban slums.

Mehjabeen Khatoon, 36, said she had been visiting the AAMC in New Delhi’s Okhla area for the last two years.

“The medicines we used to buy from stores are costly while we find the same medicines here free of cost and the quality remains the same,” she told media, adding that the consultancy at AAMCs was also free of charge.

India's healthcare: Private vs public sector

India’s healthcare: Private vs public sector

“The fee of any doctor is minimum Rs 200 [$3] in this area. If we include the expense for medicines, then the cost goes up to Rs 300 [about $5],” she said.

Afzal Khan, a doctor at the AAMC, said he sees at least 120 patients in a day.

“The benefits are for the patients who used to earlier go to hospitals and stand in long queues. They can now receive healthcare facilities in their own areas,” he said.

In the last four years, however, the New Delhi government has been able to establish less than 200 AAMCs as against its plan of a thousand.

India’s Hospital Train

Shaleen Mitra, private secretary to New Delhi’s health minister Satyendra Jain, said acquiring land in the national capital for the construction of AAMCs has been the biggest challenge.

“Land has been one of the most critical aspects in achieving the target set up by the New Delhi government. Whatever land belongs to the state government has already been allotted to other agencies,” he told Al Jazeera.

Mitra said the AAP government is struggling because many of the approvals are still pending with the federal government. “But the government has decided to complete the target of 1,000 clinics by the end of this year.”

‘Little political will’

However, experts such as Mukhopadhyay, who is also an activist associated with the People’s Health Movement, feel there isn’t enough “political will” in India to address the issue of healthcare.

“Currently, there is very little political will from the government to spend on healthcare in general,” he said, though he conceded that the New Delhi government is making that investment.

New Delhi’s AAP government this year allocated Rs 6,729 crore [nearly $1bn] for the health sector, which was an impressive 12 percent of its annual budget, including over Rs 400 crore [$60m] for the AAMCs.

In stark contrast, the federal government spends around one percent of its Gross Domestic Product (GDP) on health. Neighbouring Nepal spends 2.3 percent of its gross domestic product (GDP) on health while it’s 2 percent in Sri Lanka.

“No other civilised country spends 1.15 percent of its GDP on health. It should be one-tenth of the government budget or at least 3.5 percent of the GDP,” said Mukhopadhyay.

Aljazeera

EC probing cash-for-votes charge against Karnataka Min DK Shivakumar

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The Election Commission (EC) has ordered an inquiry into a charge by the BJP that Karnataka Water Resources Minister D.K. Shivakumar distributed cash to voters ahead of the May 19 by-election in the Kundagola Assembly segment in Dharwad, an official said on Tuesday.

“We have asked our District Electoral Officer M. Deepa to inquire into the allegation that the Minister was distributing cash to voters and community leaders,” Karnataka’s Additional Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) K.G. Jagadeesha told IANS here.

In a complaint to the state CEO on Monday, BJP legal cell member M. Vinod Kumar alleged that Shivakumar, staying at Hotel Cotton County near Hubli airport and campaigning for Congress candidate Kusumavati Channabasappa, was distributing cash to also local influential leaders to distribute it to the voters ahead of the polling day.

“As the BJP complaint was without audio or video evidence, we have asked the DEO to crosscheck with our flying squads and observers deployed in the Assembly segment to prevent any malpractice or violation of the model code of conduct,” said Jagadeesha.

The party candidate (Kusumavati) is the widow of Congress Minister for Municipalities C.S. Shivalli, whose death on March 22 necessitated the bye-poll.

The BJP had fielded S.I. Chikkanagoudar, who lost to Shivalli by just 633 votes in Assembly elections in May 2018.

Talathi in ACB net on graft charges

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A 44-year-old Talathi was arrested by the Anti Corruption Bureau(ACB) here on Wednesday on the alleged charge of accepting Rs 1,000 bribe from a person.

According to the ACB, the accused Haridas Namdev Kakde is a Talathi at the Sajja Hingangaon in Gevrai taluka of this district.

Quoting the complainant, the ACB said that the accused demanded Rs 1,000 bribe in lieu of updating the 7/12 digital land records.

On May 13,the aggrieved person registered a complaint with the ACB against the accused and based on his allegations the sleuths laid a trap at the office premises here on Wednesday.

The accused Talathi Haridas was nabbed red-handed in presence of witness as he was accepting Rs 1,000 bribe, stated the ACB.

The Gevrai Police Station have registered offence against the accused under the relevant sections of the Prevention of Corruption Act,added the ACB.

RSS has no role in selecting State BJP President: Kalladka Prabhakar Bhat

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Mysuru, May 15 : RSS Convener Kalladka Prabhakar Bhat today clarified that there will be no interference or suggestions in selecting State BJP President by the RSS.
Speaking to newsmen here on Wednesday, he further clarified that there was no role of RSS for change of BJP Karnataka President and no one from the Sangh nominated. Central BJP leadership will look after the matter.
Referring to coalition government in the State, Bhatt alleged that due to infighting among coalition partners Congress-JDS leaders there is no government at present and at any movement after May 23 Lok Sabha poll results it will collapse. When asked about sidelining veteran party leaders including L K Advani and Murali Manohar Joshi by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, he said it was creation of the media only and Modi is facing the 2019 General Election under their guidance besides no senior leaders of the party has made such statements.
Declining to comment on a statement by film actor turned politician Kamalahassan terming Naturam Godse as the first Hindu terrorist, Bhat said he will not react those who speak without knowing facts and people will describe various voices on this issue. On the violence in west Bengal during the BJP President Amit Sha’s roadshow, he said everyone has right to speak in the democracy and why the TMC government fear of BJP if they have given good governance. Earlier people voted for Mamata Banerjee as the Left party government failed, but now TMC also following the footsteps of Left , he pointed out.

Columbia Pacific Communities to set up its first international senior living community in Bengaluru

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Bengaluru, May 15 : Columbia Pacific Management, a Seattle-based international healthcare provider, plans to expand its wings into the Indian senior housing market and is embarking on a significant expansion plan in the country.
The company plans to set up its first senior living community designed to international standards and practices in Bengaluru.
Commenting on the plans for setting up its first signature project in India, Dan Baty, founder, Columbia Pacific Management and Columbia Pacific Advisors, and a pioneer in the senior living industry, said, “With our time tested expertise in planning and executing senior living projects across Asia, Canada and US, we bring a strong legacy with us in India, which holds over 40 years of rich experience. We are positive that our first ever community in the landscape will shape our entire presence, globally.”
The company successfully acquired Serene Retirement Homes in 2017 and at present serves 1600 residential homes in nine countries and is spread across five cities in South India. Mr. Mohit Nirula, CEO, Columbia Pacific Communities added, ” It gives me immense joy as we bring a new solution ? product, services and medical care to cater to the growing middle class guided by our principals’ expertise and the highest international standards.”
Columbia Pacific has more than 40 years of experience and expertise in designing, building and managing senior housing communities around the world. The team, with the expertise of principals in the United States of America and partners in India, brings together rich experience in senior housing design, development and management.

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