Nasheman News : The Lucknow and New Delhi residences of retired IAS officer Net Ram, a close aide of former Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati, were raided by the Income Tax department on Tuesday, officials said.
IT officials said the raids were unleashed for suspected tax evasion running into several crores of rupees. More than a dozen locations were searched in all.
Considered close to the Bahujan Samaj Party chief, the 1979-batch IAS officer was part of a group of powerful bureaucrats who ran the show when Mayawati was the Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister.
He was Principal Secretary (Home) in 2007-12 and later rose to became Mayawati’s Principal Secretary. Post retirement, he advised Mayawati and was reportedly contemplating the Lok Sabha polls on BSP ticket.
Long weekend may affect voter turnout in city
Bengaluru, the tech city, will hold the Lok Sabha elections on April 18. The polling date, however, is wedged between holidays — Mahaveer Jayanti on April 17 and Good Friday on April 19. It is a long weekend too.
Despite the election commission’s awareness campaigns to bring more voters to polling booths, the city is known for its poor voter turnout during elections. In the 2018 assembly election, only 54.76% of residents voted in the city.
Now, the election commission will be creating awareness among people, so that the residents avoid going away on long picnics, therefore ensuring they do not skip the voting.
“The whole country is going to an election in seven phases and the dates have been fixed accordingly. To improve voter turnout, we will be conducting various awareness programmes and campaigns,” BBMP commissioner N Manjunath Prasad, the district election officer.
“We have planned radio talk shows, TV shows and street plays to create awareness including a demonstration on voting to encourage the public to participate in the electoral process,” he added.
Veenapani, member of the Voters Forum said: “During these dates, there are school holidays. There is a chance of people planning picnics. This will affect the voter turnout in the city.”
There are 88,81,066 voters in Bengaluru, said Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) Commissioner, N Manjunath Prasad. The commissioner, who is also the district election officer (DEO), told reporters that out of the total voters in the city, 46,32,900 are male and 42,48,166 are female.
The commissioner, who is also the district election officer (DEO), told reporters that out of the total voters in the city, 46,32,900 are male and 42,48,166 are female.
Three Lok Sabha constituencies – Bengaluru North, Bengaluru Central, and Bengaluru South comes under the ambit of the DEO. “The polling in the three constituencies will be held on April 18. The residents can enroll themselves till March 16,” Prasad a…
“Citizens can call toll-free number ‘1959’ regarding any issue relating to the election,” he added. The city police will monitor the law and order. “We have taken action against 400 rowdy sheeters so far. Licensed firearms should be deposited at the police stations soon. We had registered 300 cases in the last election and 299 cases have been disposed of,” said T Suneel Kumar, city police commissioner.
Agencies
Businessman Dies After Hair Transplant.
In a bizarre turn of events, a businessman from Mumbai’s Saki Naka died nearly two days after a hair transplant, as reported by a leading daily. The exact reason behind the death still remains a mystery as the autopsy findings are inconclusive.
However, doctors at the hospital where the hair transplantation was performed said the death was likely due to a strong allergic reaction.
43-year-old Shrawan Kumar Chaudhary reached Powai’s Hiranandani Hospital on Friday with breathing difficulty and swelling on his face and throat. Apparently, the doctor-on-duty had identified the signs like that of a life-threatening allergic reaction called anaphylaxis.
On reaching the hospital, Chaudhury went into a state of shock and a cardiologist was also summoned to revive his heart, but he passed away on Saturday around 6.45 AM. According to police, Chaudhary was implanted with 9,500 hair grafts in a procedure that lasted for over 15 hours.
A similar incident took place in the year 2016 when a final year medical student in Chennai, died after getting a hair transplant. 22-year-old Santosh died within two days after the surgery. The victim’s mother had said her son developed a fever immediately after the 10-hour-procedure that involved around 1,200 hair transplants.
Agencies
Woman dragged by robbers on bike on Women’s Day
A 53-year-old woman who was waiting on a roadside in Delhi’s Janakpuri area was dragged by two men on their bike as she tried to stop them from snatching her purse, a video of which has gone viral.
On Friday around 4 pm, Shobha Kanwar was waiting outside a residential colony in Janakpuri area after getting down from a cab.
While she was on phone, confirming the address she had to visit for a meeting, two men came on a bike and tried to snatch her purse, police said.
As Kanwar held on to the bag, she fell down and was dragged for about 20-25 metres.
However, the bike-borne men managed to flee with the bag, which had about Rs 20,000 in cash, police said.
Kanwar alleged that no one came to her help despite the incident happening in a posh residential area of the national capital in broad daylight.
A CCTV footage of the incident has gone viral on social media websites.
In the video, several onlookers could be seen unmoved by the incident even as the woman gets dragged on.
Police have registered a case and is on lookout for the accused, who have been identified.
Kanwar, who runs a pre-nursery school in Najafgarh, claimed she lost a few essential documents, which were in the bag.
She sustained severe injuries on knees, hands, waist and face, officials said.
However, she immediately dialled police helpline number 100 and also lodged an e-FIR.
A case of theft was initially registered.
However, the e-FIR was later converted and sections of robbery have also been added, Sameer Sharma, Additional Deputy Commissioner of Police (west) said.
Police said the woman was initially hesitant in filing a case thinking of the process that it takes.
After 10 years, India no longer world’s top weapons importer
India is no longer the world’s largest importer of weapons, a position it held for over a decade, with Saudi Arabia topping the global share of arms imports between 2014 and 2018, a leading Stockholm-based think tank that measures weapons imports over five-year periods said in a new report on Monday.
Saudi Arabia accounted for 12% of the global share of arms imports in that period, followed by India in second place with a 9.5% share, reveals the new data published by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (Sipri). With imports pegged at 4.2% of the global share, China is the world’s sixth-largest buyer of weapons.
Indian arms imports fell 24% between 2009-13 and 2014-18, the report said, adding that this was partly because of delays in deliveries of fighter jets and submarines produced under licence from Russian and French original equipment manufacturers.
While India has been trying to reduce its reliance on imported weapons, experts said the development could be considered noteworthy only if India stopped importing a particular weapon system because it was being manufactured locally under the Make in India initiative.
“The rider that imports may have fallen due to delayed deliveries can’t be ignored. It will be a little premature to start believing that the indigenous defence manufacturing activity has taken off,” said Air Vice Marshal Manmohan Bahadur (retd), additional director general, Centre for Air Power Studies.
Russia’s arms exports to India fell 42% between 2009-13 and 2014-18, the report said. Russia, the country’s top arms supplier, accounted for 58% of India’s arms imports during the last five years, compared to 76% in the previous five-year period (2009-13), according to the report. Russia accounted for 70% of Chinese arms imports in 2014-18.
Russia’s arms sales to India have fallen in recent years with India looking to diversify its arms purchases and also seeking specialised weaponry. India has also started buying more from the US as strategic relationships between the two countries have improved.
Sipri said the US, Israel and France increased their arms exports to India in 2014-18.
Pakistan recorded a 39% dip in arms imports in 2014-18 compared to 2009-13, with the US becoming “increasingly reluctant” to provide military aid or sell arms to Pakistan, the report said. “US arms exports to Pakistan fell 81% between 2009-13 and 2014-18. Pakistan has instead turned to other suppliers. For example, in 2018 it ordered four frigates and 30 combat helicopters from Turkey,” it said, adding that Pakistan was the main recipient (37%) of arms from China during the last five years. China has become the primary exporter of unmanned combat aerial vehicles, it said.
Agencies
Lok Sabha poll : 600 all-women polling booths to be set up
A total of 600 polling booths out of the 58,186 voting stations to be set up for the Lok Sabha elections in Karnataka on April 18 and 23 will be managed by women personnel, an election official said on Monday.
“As part of ensuring gender equality and constructive participation of women in the electoral process, the Commission has directed to set up ‘all-women managed polling stations’,” said a statement from the state’s Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Sanjiv Kumar’s office.
These booths will have women as polling staff, police and security personnel.
The state will have 58,186 voting stations for election to the 28 Lok Sabha seats in two phases — on April 18 for 14 seats and on April 23 for another 14 seats. Vote count will be held on May 23.
The southern state has a total of 5.03 crore registered voters.
The number of voting stations to be set up has been increased by 7%, from 54,265 polling booths in 2014 general elections, the statement said.
While this initiative has been taken to ensure participation of women in the electoral process, it should be noted that not many have been actively engaged in politics. Seeking reforms to the way political parties distribute seats, women from the state had taken to protests at Freedom Park on Friday demanding that political parties be mandated to reserve 50% of seats for women candidates. The protest was organised by ‘Shakti’ a non-partisan political collective, created to empower and enable more women to foray into politics.
The women took to sitting on one knee during the protest to highlight the lack of female representation in parliament, with several noting that women do not have 50% representation.
J&K businessman’s property attached in terror funding case
Nasheman News The Enforcement Directorate on Monday attached Kashmiri businessman Zahoor Ahmed Watali’s immovable property in Haryana’s Gurugram in connection with its probe into the terror funding case in Jammu and Kashmir.
“We have attached a property, worth Rs 1.3 crore, of Watali in Gurugram,” a senior ED official told media, adding that was done under the sections of Prevention of Money Laundering Act.
The ED has registered a case of money laundering against several separatist leaders in Jammu and Kashmir based on the FIR filed by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) in May 2017.
According to ED officials, Watali, who was arrested in August 2017 by the NIA, “acted as fund manager to many persons to park the money received from across the border” to stoke unrest in the state.
Watali was granted bail by the Delhi High Court in September 2018.
The NIA had on January 18 last year filed a charge sheet against 12 persons including Lashkar-e-Taiba founder Hafiz Saeed and Hizbul Mujahideen chief Syed Salahuddin, seven Kashmiri separatist leaders and others in the case of alleged terror funding in the Kashmir Valley.
It had in July 2017 arrested Aftab Hilali Shah alias Shahid-ul-Islam, Ayaz Akbar Khandey, Farooq Ahmad Dar alias Bitta Karate, Nayeem Khan, Altaf Ahmad Shah, Raja Mehrajuddin Kalwal and Bashir Ahmad Bhat alias Peer Saifullah.
Altaf Ahmad Shah is the son-in-law of hardline Hurriyat leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani, who advocates Jammu and Kashmir’s merger with Pakistan. Shahid-ul-Islam is an aide of moderate Hurriyat leader Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, and Khandey is the spokesperson for the Geelani-led Hurriyat.
Blackbuck poaching case: Saif, Neelam, Tabu, Sonali Bendre issued notices
Nasheman News : The Rajasthan High Court on Monday issued notices to actors Saif Ali Khan, Neelam, Tabu and Sonali Bendre in the blackbuck poaching case.
Dushyant Singh, a local, who was allegedly accompanying the actors when the incident took place, was also issued a notice.
The notices have been issued on a plea by the Rajasthan Forest Department, which has appealed against the acquittal of the five by a Jodhpur court last year.
All five have been asked to file their replies within eight weeks.
The case dates back to October 1998, when actors Salman Khan, Saif Ali Khan, Neelam Kothari, Tabu and Sonali Bendre allegedly went on a hunting expedition in Kankani village near Jodhpur and killed two blackbucks.
Killing of blackbucks is prohibited under the Wildlife Protection Act.
Salman Khan was declared guilty in the case, but was granted bail in April last year.
His accomplices, actors Saif Ali Khan, Tabu, Sonali Bendre and Neelam as well as Dushyant Singh, were acquitted by the court, which gave them the benefit of doubt.
WhatsApp banning users using third-party app versions
[Nasheman news] San Francisco Complying to users and platform security concerns, Facebook-owned messaging app WhatsApp is banning accounts of users who have been using modified versions of the app like WhatsApp Plus and GB WhatsApp.
These altered versions of the messaging app are developed by third-parties where the company cannot validate their security practices. These unofficial apps violate the Terms of Service clause of the official app.
“If you received an in-app message stating your account is ‘Temporarily banned’ this means that you’re likely using an unsupported version of WhatsApp instead of the official app,” the company wrote in a post on Monday.
The accounts have not been banned permanently, although users have been adviced to back their chats up before making the switch.
“You must download the official app to continue using WhatsApp,” the post noted.
Google Doodle celebrates 30 years of World Wide Web
[Nasheman news] New Delhi Google on Tuesday celebrated 30 years of World Wide Web (WWW) with a doodle. English scientist Tim Berners-Lee invented the WWW in 1989 and wrote the first web browser in 1990.
Working at CERN, Switzerland, Berners-Lee laid out the basic concepts of the WWW in a proposal which included ideas like HTML, URL and HTTP.
In a document titled “Information management: a proposal”, he envisioned the use of hypertext to link documents.
The WWW, commonly known as the Web, is an information space where documents and other web resources are identified by Uniform Resource Locators (URLs).
The first web browser was released in 1991 — first to the research institutions and then to the general public on the Internet in the same year.
The WWW is the primary tool billions of people today use to interact on the Internet.
In addition to text, web pages may contain images, video, audio and software components that are rendered in the user’s web browser as coherent pages of multimedia content.
Before the WWW, remote computers communicated directly for the first time in 1969 and in 1983, TCP/IP standard was adopted.