Earthquake tremors felt in Delhi-NCR

Bhopal, May 20: Two months after Deepak Bundele, an advocate and former journalist, was brutally assaulted by the Madhya Pradesh’s Betul Police on March 23, an Assistant Sub-Inspector of Kotwali Police Station in Betul district, BS Patel, approached the victim to record his statement. However, he allegedly tried to convince Bundele to withdraw the case saying that the cops had mistaken him for a Muslim since he has a long beard and assaulted him. But, the cop added, they were ashamed of the incident after they came to know that they had beaten their ‘Hindu brother’.
Bundele was on his way to the government hospital for diabetes treatment, a day before the countrywide lockdown was announced, when the assault occurred. Miffed with the incident and after the district police denied to register the case, he wrote to the State Human Rights Commission; Chief Justice of Madhya Pradesh High Court; Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan; Vivek Johri, Director General of Police, Madhya Pradesh; and SP Betul to register an FIR against the police officials and take punitive action against them.
In the wake of COVID-19 pandemic outbreak, section 144 had been imposed in Betul district and public movement was restricted when the incident had occurred. 
Talking to Bundele, ASI Patel had said, “We seek an apology on behalf of those officials [who assaulted Bundele]. We are truly embarrassed because of the incident. If you want, I can bring those officials and make them apologise in person to you. They mistook you as a Muslim and assaulted you, since you had a long beard. And the man (who assaulted you) is a kattar (staunch) Hindu…In Hindu-Muslim riots whenever a Muslim is arrested, they beat them up brutally, always,” the police official can be heard saying in an audio recording shared by the victim.
In the 14 minutes long audio, he further said, “I request to you to withdraw the complaint. Please agree to our request; understand that we are living in Gandhi’s country; we are all Gandhi’s children…I have at least 50 friends from your caste.”
The cop continued, “All those people are ashamed that they did something like this to a Hindu brother without knowing his identity. We do not have any enmity against you. Whenever there is a Hindu-Muslim riot, police always supports the Hindus; even Muslims know this. But whatever happened with you was because of ignorance. For that, I have no words.” 
Refuting ASI Patel’s claim, Bundele claimed that there was no Hindu-Muslim riot that day, and asked whether he was beaten for being wrongly identified as a Muslim. The police officials agreed, and said: “Yes, exactly.”
“When I constantly declined to withdraw the compliant, he indirectly threatened me saying, ‘Agree to our request, else you and your advocate brother will face consequences’,” Bundele claimed. 
When contacted Betul SP DS Bhadoriya said, “I’m not aware of this audio clip. I will taken strict action, if I receive any such complain.”
Bundele said that he has written to the DGP and other senior police officials with details about the incident.   
THE ASSAULT
On March 23 evening, when Bundele was on his way to a hospital for the treatment, Betul Police allegedly thrashed him. The 32-year-old advocate had worked as a journalist for various dailies in Madhya Pradesh’s state capital for a decade. He moved to Betul in 2017 and started practising in the district court with his brother. “I have been a patient of diabetes and blood pressure for the last 15 years. On March 23, since I was not feeling well, I decided to visit the hospital and get some medicines. But I was stopped by the police midway,” Bundele had said. 
Even though the advocate, who sports a beard, said that he explained to police personnel that he had to get his medicines but one of them slapped him without trying to listen to what he was saying. “When I protested and said that police have no right to beat the public, they got anxious and within no time, many police officials came and started beating me up with sticks,” he added. 
"I need constant medication and lifesaving medicines to survive and I told the policemen everything while they were assaulting me. But, they kept hitting me, even after I fell,” he said, adding, "I bled for almost a 2-3 days after the incident.”
Bundele, sustained multiple injuries and his ear bled for almost two days after the incident, but, Betul police denied to file an FIR in the incident.
‘WILL MOVE TO THE HIGH COURT’
“Even after two months of the incident, no FIR has been registered and it seems that police is trying to sweep the matter under the carpet,” Bundele said, adding, “I have talked to the Supreme Court’s veteran advocate Vivek Tankha and Etasham Hashmi and will take this matter to the court.”
He also raised serious concerns about the communal angle of the incident, saying, “It’s a matter of grave concern that the police is turning communal and targeting a particular community.”

Source: https://www.google.com/amp/s/m.thewire.in/article/communalism/madhya-pr…

New Delhi, May 27: India’s fourth recession since Independence, first since liberalisation, and perhaps the worst to date is here, according to rating agency, Crisil.

CRISIL sees the Indian economy shrinking 5 per cent in fiscal 2021 (on-year), because of the Covid-19 pandemic. The first quarter will suffer a staggering 25 per cent contraction.

About 10 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP) in real terms could be permanently lost. "So going back to the growth rates seen before the pandemic is unlikely in the next three fiscals", Crisil said.

Crisil has revised its earlier forecast downwards. "Earlier, on April 28, we had slashed our prediction to 1.8 per cent growth from 3.5 per cent growth. Things have only gone downhill since", it said.

While we expect non-agricultural GDP to contract 6 per cent, agriculture could cushion the blow by growing at 2.5 per cent.

In the past 69 years, India has seen a recession only thrice as per available data in fiscals 1958, 1966 and 1980. The reason was the same each time a monsoon shock that hit agriculture, then a sizeable part of the economy.

"The recession staring at us today is different," it added. For one, agriculture could soften the blow this time by growing near its trend rate, assuming a normal monsoon. Two, the pandemic-induced lockdowns have affected most non-agriculture sectors. And three, the global disruption has upended whatever opportunities India had on the exports front.

Economic conditions have slid precipitously since the April-end forecast of 1.8 per cent GDP growth for fiscal 2021 (baseline), Crisil said.

On the lockdown extension, it said that the government has extended the lockdown four times to deal with the rising number of cases, curtailing economic activity severely (lockdown 4.0 is ending on May 31).

The first quarter of this fiscal will be the worst affected. June is unlikely to see major relaxations as the Covid-19 affliction curve is yet to flatten in India.

"Not only will the first quarter be a washout for the non-agricultural economy, services such as education, and travel and tourism among others, could continue to see a big hit in the quarters to come. Jobs and incomes will see extended losses as these sectors are large employers," Crisil said.

CRISIL also foresees economic activity in states with high Covid-19 cases to suffer prolonged disruption as restrictions could continue longer.

A rough estimate based on a sample of eight states, which contribute over half of India's GDP, shows that their 'red zones' (as per lockdown 3.0) contributed 42 per cent to the state GDP on average regardless of the share of such red zones.

On average, the orange zones contribute 46 per cent, while the green zones where activity is allowed to be close to normal contribute only 12 per cent to state GDP.

The economic costs are higher than earlier expectations, according to Crisil. The economic costs now beginning to show up in the hard numbers are far worse than initial expectations.

Industrial production for March fell by over 16%. The purchasing managers indices for the manufacturing and services sectors were at 27.4 and 5.4, respectively, in April, implying extraordinary contraction. That compares with 51.8 and 49.3, respectively, in March.

Exports contracted 60.3 per cent in April, and new telecom subscribers declined 35 per cent, while railway freight movement plunged 35 per cent on-year.

"Indeed, given one of the most stringent lockdowns in the world, April could well be the worst performing month for India this fiscal," it said.

Added to that is the economic package without enough muscle. The government recently announced a Rs 20.9 lakh crore economic relief package to support the economy. The package has some short-term measures to cushion the economy, but sets its sights majorly on reforms, most of which will have payoffs only over the medium term.

"We estimate the fiscal cost of this package at 1.2 per cent of GDP, which is lower than what we had assumed in our earlier estimate (when we foresaw a growth in GDP)," it said.

"We believe a catch-up to the pre-crisis trend level of GDP growth will not be possible in the next three fiscals despite policy support. Under the base case, we estimate a 10 per cent permanent loss to real GDP (from the decadal-trend level), assuming average growth of about 7 per cent between fiscals 2022 and 2024," Crisil said.

Interestingly, after the Global Financial Crisis (GFC), a sharp growth spurt helped catch up with the trend within two years. GDP grew 8.2 per cent on average in the two fiscals following the GFC. Massive fiscal spending, monetary easing and swift global recovery played a role in a V-shaped recovery.

To catch-up would require average GDP growth to surge to 11 per cent over the next three fiscals, something that has never happened before.

The research said that successive lockdowns have a non-linear and multiplicative effect on the economy a two-month lockdown will be more than twice as debilitating as a one-month imposition, as buffers keep eroding.

Partial relaxations continue to be a hindrance to supply chains, transportation and logistics. Hence, unless the entire supply chain is unlocked, the impact of improved economic activity will be subdued.

Therefore, despite the stringency of lockdown easing a tad in the third and the fourth phases, their negative impact on GDP is expected to massively outweigh the benefits from mild fiscal support and low crude oil prices, especially in the April-June quarter. "Consequently, we expect the current quarter's GDP to shrink 25 per cent on-year," it said.

Counting lockdown 4.0, Indians have had 68 days of confinement. S&P Global estimates that one month of lockdown shaves 3 per cent off annual GDP on average across Asia-Pacific.

Since India's lockdown has been the most stringent in Asia, the impact on economic growth will be correspondingly larger.

Google's Community Mobility Reports show a sharp fall in movement of people to places of recreation, retail shops, public transport and workplace travel. While data for May shows some improvement in India, mobility trends are much below the average or baseline, and lower compared with countries such as the US, South Korea, Brazil and Indonesia.

Thiruvananthapuram, Feb 7: Kerala Finance Minister T M Thomas Isaac on Friday began presenting the fifth budget of the CPI(M)-led LDF government for the 2020-21 fiscal by making remarks against the Citizenship Amendment Act and the unanimous resolution passed by the state assembly against it.

Stating the amended act was posing a threat to the basic credentials of the Constitution, he said the country was witnessing the biggest protests ever in the post-Independence era.

Students and women are at the forefront of the anti- CAA agitations and the hope of the country lies in the youth who hit the streets vowing they would not let the country down, he said.

Coming down heavily on the BJP-led NDA government at the Centre, Isaac said a communalised government machinery, leaders who talk only about "disgust and hatred" and their party workers who consider violence as their duty was the current reality in the country.

"Generally speaking, it is the present India...The concerns triggered by Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and the National Register of Citizens (NRC) are beyond words. The fear of detention centres are hanging above the head of over 19 lakh people of Assam who have lived as Indians till yesterday," he said.

Quoting from a poem 'Fear' by a 15-year old boy from Wayanad Dhruvath Gautham who wrote 'fear is country and silence is an ornament!,' Isaac said "even the imagination of our children is now filled with fear".

Referring to the stringent opposition raised by the Left government in the state against the CAA and NRC, the finance minister lavished praise on the joint protests led by the ruling LDF and opposition UDF against the central act.

Setting aside political differences, the rival fronts in the state had joined hands to protest when the country had faced existential threat which had become a model for other states, he said.

When Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan and Leader of the Opposition Ramesh Chennithala jointly protested at the same venue against CAA, Kerala became a model to other states, the senior leader added.

The state showcased the same unity while passing a resolution requesting the centre to repeal the CAA and filing a suit in the apex court against this under the Article 130, he said.

"The country's economy is heading towards a severe economic crisis like that witnessed in 2009," he said.

Earlier, the references to anti-CAA protests had found a place in the Pinarayi Vijayan government's policy address also.

While presenting the policy address in the House, Governor Arif Mohammed Khan had read out references to anti- CAA resolution passed by the house, despite disagreeing with it.

Reading out the the anti-CAA stand of the state government, the Governor said "our citizenship can never be on the basis of religion as this goes against the grain of secularism which is part of the basic structure of our constitution.