Omar Abdullah, Mehbooba out under house arrest; internet snapped in Kashmir

News Network
August 5, 2019

Srinagar/New Delhi, Aug 5: Three of Jammu and Kashmir's most prominent politicians Mehbooba Mufti, Omar Abdullah and Sajad Lone were put under house arrest late Sunday night amid a massive security-built up in the state.

Internet services and mobile services were suspended in several places and all public gatherings were banned in Srinagar district as section 144 was imposed from midnight.

Jammu and Kashmir National Conference Vice President Omar Abdullah had on Sunday evening tweeted saying that he has been informed that an "unofficial curfew" was about to begin in Kashmir and mainstream leaders were going to be detained or kept under house arrest.

"If officers in the state government are to be believed mobile internet is going down now, an unofficial curfew is going to start and mainstream leaders are going to be detained. No idea who to believe and where this is heading," he tweeted.

"I believe I’m being placed under house arrest from midnight tonight & the process has already started for other mainstream leaders. No way of knowing if this is true but if it is then I’ll see all of you on the other side of whatever is in store. Allah save us," the NC leader said.

Abdullah had further said that government's decision to stop Amarnath Yatra, citing security concerns and intelligence inputs about the possibility of terror attacks, was exposed. "So we can debunk the stories that were being fed to the channels about everything that's been happening in Kashmir over the last few days, including the yatra stoppage, happening because of Pakistan," he added.

Earlier on Sunday, leaders of the mainstream political parties in Kashmir held an all-party meeting in Srinagar to discuss the prevailing situation in the Valley.

Kashmir remained on edge as authorities stepped up security deployment at vital installations and sensitive areas amid heightened terror threat and flare up of hostilities with Pakistan along the Line of Control (LoC).

After the Jammu and Kashmir administration curtailed the Amarnath Yatra and asked pilgrims and tourists to leave the valley at the earliest on Friday, anxious residents continue to throng markets to stock on essentials and serpentine queues have been visible outside shops and fuel stations.

Former India all-rounder Irfan Pathan, the mentor of Jammu and Kashmir state teams who was in Srinagar to oversee the trials for the U-16 (Vijay Merchant Trophy) and U-19 (Cooch Behar Trophy) squads, has left Srinagar, along with the young players. "We have for the time being postponed the second phase of junior team trials...since there has been a government advisory, I had a meeting with Jammu and Kashmir Cricket Association...Accordingly, it was decided that boys need to be sent back home," Pathan was quoted as saying by news agency PTI.

Various educational institutions also directed their students to vacate hostels.

Additional paramilitary forces, which arrived here last week, have been deployed across the city and in other vulnerable areas of Kashmir Valley, the officials said.

The strength of the security personnel has been increased around vital installations such as the civil secretariat, police headquarters, airport and various central government establishments in the city, they said. Barricades have been erected on many arterial roads, including the entry and exit points to Srinagar, the summer capital of the state. Riot control vehicles have also been kept on standby in some areas where apprehension of law and order disturbances is more, the officials added.

Meanwhile, Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan said that it was the right time for US President Donald Trump to mediate on Kashmir turmoil.

Pakistan further warned India that it is ready to respond to any "misadventure or aggression" by the Indian forces, as the country's top civil and military leadership discussed the sudden spike in tensions with New Delhi during a meeting of the National Security Committee.

The meeting criticised "Indian actions which would have adverse implications for regional and international peace." Pakistan reiterates that Kashmir is a long standing unresolved international dispute which needs peaceful resolution. Pakistan therefore urges India to come forth to resolve the issue in accordance with the aspirations of the Kashmiri people, it said. It said that the recent "buildup of forces" is adding "fuel to fire".

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News Network
January 18,2020

New Delhi, Jan 18: Lieutenant Governor (LG) Anil Baijal has granted the power of detaining authority to the Delhi Police Commissioner under the National Security Act (NSA), according to a notification. The NSA allows preventive detention of an individual for months if the authorities feel that the individual is a threat to the national security, and law and order, sources said.

In exercise of the powers conferred by sub-section (3) of section 3, read with clause (c) of Section 2 of the National Security Act, 1980, the Lt Governor is pleased to direct that during the period January 19 to April 18, the Delhi Police Commissioner may also exercise the powers of detaining authority under sub-section (2) of the section 3 of the aforesaid Act, the notification stated.

The notification has been issued on January 10 following the approval of the LG.

It comes at a time when the national capital has been witnessing a number of protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and the National Register of Citizens (NRC).

However, the Delhi Police said it is a routine order that has been issued in every quarter and has nothing to do with the current situation.

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Agencies
January 12,2020

Lucknow, Jan 12: The controversy over renowned Pakistani poet Faiz Ahmad Faiz's iconic poem 'Hum dekhenge' may have caused an upheaval in the literary world but it has also helped in resurrecting the famous poet for the young generations.

Students and young professionals are making a beeline for books on Faiz, his biography and his poems and book sellers are ordering supplies of Faiz books.

"Earlier, we sold hardly one book in a month or on Faiz but after the controversy, people are curious to know more about the poet and his poems. We have placed orders for the entire literary range on Faiz Ahmad Faiz," said a leading book seller in Hazratganj in Lucknow.

The bookseller said that the highest demand was for books written in Devnagri script.

"Not many in the young generation can read or write Urdu so they prefer Devnagri," the book seller said.

In Kanpur, most of the leading bookshops have already run out of stocks and book stalls in the ongoing Handloom Expo are drawing huge crowds for Faiz books.

Suchita Srivastava, B.Ed student in Kanpur said, "I have never been fond of Urdu poetry because I do not understand much of the language but after the controversy, I want to read poems of Faiz to understand what he wanted to say. I am taking help of Google to understand difficult words in Urdu."

Krishna Rao, another student at the Chandra Shekhar Azad University of Agriculture and Technology, said that since books on Faiz had been sold out, he had ordered a Kindle edition and was reading them.

"Reading his poems actually widens one's perspective of things and becomes even more precious if you take into account the time and context in which they were written," he said.

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News Network
February 2,2020

Feb 2: Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s second budget in seven months disappointed investors who were hoping for big-bang stimulus to revive growth in Asia’s third-largest economy.

The fiscal plan -- delivered by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Saturday -- proposed tax cuts for individuals and wider deficit targets but failed to provide specific steps to fix a struggling financial sector, improve infrastructure and create jobs. Stocks slumped as a proposal to scrap the dividend distribution tax for companies failed to impress investors.

"Far from being a game changer, the budget provides little in terms of short-term growth stimulus,” said Priyanka Kishore, head of India and South East Asia economics at Oxford Economics Ltd. in Singapore. “While income tax cuts will provide some relief on the consumption front, the multiplier effect is low and the overall stance of the budget is not expansionary."

India has gone from being the world’s fastest-growing major economy three years ago, expanding at 8%, to posting its weakest performance in more than a decade this fiscal year, estimated at 5%.

While the government has taken a number of steps in recent months to spur growth, they’ve fallen short of spurring demand in the consumption-driven economy. Saturday’s budget just added to the glum sentiment.

Okay Budget

“It’s an okay budget but not firing on all cylinders that the market was hoping for,” said Andrew Holland, chief executive officer at Avendus Capital Alternate Strategies in Mumbai.

The government had limited scope for a large stimulus given a huge shortfall in revenues in the current year. The slippage induced Sitharaman to invoke a never-used provision in fiscal laws, allowing the government to exceed the budget gap by 0.5 percentage points. The result: the deficit for the year ending March was widened to 3.8% of gross domestic product from a planned 3.3%.

On Friday, India’s chief economic adviser Krishnamurthy Subramanian said reviving economic growth was an “urgent priority” and deficit goals could be relaxed to achieve that. The adviser’s Economic Survey estimated growth will rebound to 6%-6.5% in the year starting April.

The fiscal gap will narrow to 3.5% next year, as the government budgeted for gross market borrowing to rise marginally to 7.8 trillion rupees from 7.1 trillion rupees in the current year. A plan to earn 2.1 trillion rupees by selling state-owned assets in the year starting April will also help plug the deficit.

Total spending in the coming fiscal year will increase to 30.4 trillion rupees, representing a 13% increase from the current year’s budget, according to latest data.

Key highlights from the budget:

* Tax on annual income up to 1.25 million rupees pared, with riders

* Dividend distribution tax to be levied on investors, instead of companies

* Farm sector budget raised 28%, transport infrastructure gets 7% more

* Spending on education raised 5%

* Fertilizer subsidy cut 10%

Analysts said the muted spending plan to keep the deficit in check will lead to more downside risks to growth in the coming months.

“It is very doubtful that the increase in expenditure will push demand much,” Chakravarthy Rangarajan, former governor at the Reserve Bank of India told BloombergQuint, adding that achieving next year’s budget deficit goal of 3.5% of GDP was doubtful.

With the government sticking to a conservative fiscal path, the focus will now turn to central bank, which is set to review monetary policy on Feb. 6. Given inflation has surged to a five-year high of 7.35%, the RBI is unlikely to lower interest rates.

What Bloomberg’s Economists Say:

The burden of recovery now falls solely on the Reserve Bank of India. With inflation breaching RBI’s target at present, any rate cuts by the central bank are likely to be delayed and contingent upon inflation falling below the upper end of its 2%-6% target range.

-- Abhishek Gupta, India economist

Governor Shaktikanta Das may instead focus on unconventional policy tools such as the Federal Reserve-style Operation Twist -- buying long-end debt while selling short-tenor bonds -- to keep borrowing costs down.

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