Sopore, Jul 1: Police rescued a three-year-old boy from getting hit by bullets during a terrorist attack in Jammu and Kashmir's Sopore on Wednesday.
Earlier in the day, a Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) jawan and a civilian lost their lives after terrorists fired upon a CRPF patrolling party in Sopore.
Two of the injured CRPF jawans are known to be in critical condition. Three CRPF personnel were also injured in the attack, as per CRPF.
Jan 22: India's ranking in the latest global Democracy Index has dropped 10 places to the 51st spot out of 167 owing to violent protests and threats to civil liberties challenging freedoms across the country.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government has been criticized by rights groups and western governments after shutting off the internet and mobile phone networks and detaining opposition politicians in Kashmir.
Modi’s government has also responded harshly to ongoing protests against a controversial, religion-based citizenship law. Muslims have said their neighborhoods have been targeted, while the central government has attempted to ban protests and urged TV news channels not to broadcast “anti-national” content. Some leaders in Modi’s ruling party called for “revenge” against protesters. India’s score in 2019 was its worst ranking since the EIU’s records began in 2006, and has fallen gradually since Modi was elected in 2014.
The Economist Intelligence Unit’s 2019 Democracy Index, which provides an annual comparative analysis of political systems across 165 countries and two territories, said the past year was the bleakest for democracies since the research firm began compiling the list in 2006.
“The 2019 result is even worse than that recorded in 2010, in the wake of the global economic and financial crisis,” the research group said in releasing the report on Wednesday.
The average global score slipped to 5.44 out of a possible 10 -- from 5.48 in 2018 -- driven mainly by “sharp regressions” in Latin America, Sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East and North Africa. Apart from coup-prone Thailand, which improved its score after holding an election last year, there were also notable declines in Asia after a tumultuous period of protests and new measures restricting freedom across the region’s democracies.
Asia Declines
Hong Kong, meanwhile, fell three places to rank 75th out of 167 as more than seven months of violent and disruptive protests rocked the Asian financial hub. An aggressive police response early in the unrest, when protests were mostly peaceful, led to a “marked decline in confidence in government -- the main factor behind the decline in the territory’s score in our 2019 index,” the group said.
In Singapore, which ranked alongside Hong Kong at 75th, a new “fake news” law led to a deteriorating score on civil liberties.
“The government claims that the law was enacted simply to prevent the dissemination of false news, but it threatens freedom of expression in Singapore, as it can be used to curtail political debate and silence critics of the government,” EIU analysts said.
China’s score fell to just 2.26 in the EIU’s ranking, placing it near the bottom of the list at 153, as discrimination against minorities, repression and surveillance of the population intensified. Still, in China “the majority of the population is unconvinced that democracy would benefit the economy, and support for democratic ideals is absent,” the EIU said.
New Delhi, Jan 10: An IPS officer's thumb was bitten by a woman protester when he was pushing back agitators, who were trying to march towards the Rashtrapati Bhawan here on Thursday, police sources said.
The protesters had gathered after a call was given by JNU Students' Union president Aishe Ghosh to march towards President's House to demand the removal of University's Vice Chancellor, M Jagadesh Kumar.
Ingit Pratap Singh, a 2011 batch officer, who is currently posted as the additional deputy commissioner of the southwest district, was injured in the attack.
According to sources, Singh was trying to pull a male protester when the woman, in a bid to shield her friend, bit Singh's left thumb.
Chandigarh, April 2: A 59-year-old woman and her 10-month-old granddaughter have tested positive for novel coronavirus in Chandigarh on Thursday.
According to the Chandigarh Health Department, they are family contacts of the NRI couple that tested positive for COVID-19 earlier.
With this, the total cases in the Union Territory rose to 18.
The total number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in the country climbed to 1,965 on Thursday, after as many as 328 new cases were reported, said the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. So far, at least 50 people have lost their lives due to the virus.
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