NEW DELHI : The CBI on Thursday conducted searches at six places, including the Delhi Secretariat, following alleged irregularities in spending Rs 10 crore on security of Delhi hospitals by former Health Secretary Tarun Seem, considered close to Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal.  Sources said a CBI team searched Seem’s office and his residence for documents pertaining to the contract for hiring three security agencies.  “The raid was conducted following an allegation of Rs 10 crore misappropriation of Delhi government funds,” an official said.  The probe agency has registered a case against Seem, also close to Delhi Health Minister Satyendra Jain and three security firms, the official said.  Seem, an IRS officer, was earlier appointed health secretary by the AAP government. But the decision was overturned by then Lt. Gov. Najeeb Jung because only an IAS officer can seve as a secretary to the government.  Seem was later appointed director of health services in Delhi by the Kejriwal government.  “Irregularities were committed in the engagement of three private agencies for security in the emergency areas of Delhi government hospitals,” the official said.

US President Donald Trump vowed to work as a “mediator, an arbitrator or a facilitator” to help broker peace between the Israelis and Palestinians as he welcomed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to the White House.
 “We will get this done,” Trump vowed as he met Abbas on Wednesday.  Trump reiterated the need for Israelis and Palestinians to broker a peace through direct negotiations and called on Palestinian leaders to “speak in a unified voice against incitement to violence and hate”.  “There’s such hatred, but hopefully there won’t be such hatred for very long,” Trump said, speaking alongside Abbas in the Roosevelt Room.  The Palestinian leader expressed his support for a two-state solution to the conflict and the long-held Palestinian desire for a capital in East Jerusalem, welcoming Trump’s role as a mediator in peace negotiations.   He said he had “hope” about prospects for peace with Trump in that role as he praised the President for his negotiating acumen.  “I believe that we are capable under your leadership and under your courageous stewardship and your wisdom as well as your great negotiating ability.   “I believe we can be partners — true partners to you — to bring about a historic peace treaty,” Abbas said through an interpreter. “Now, Mr President, with you we have hope.”  Trump expressed his desire to have Palestinians and Israelis draw on the Oslo Accords that Abbas signed as the Palestinian negotiator in 1993 and said he hoped the Palestinian leader would soon sign “the final and most important peace agreement”.  The Oslo Accords are a set of agreements between the government of Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO).   The accords marked the start of the Oslo process, that is aimed at achieving a peace treaty and to fulfil the “right of the Palestinian people to self-determination”.   While Trump spoke broadly about his desire for a peace deal and some of the barriers to a deal, Abbas spoke about the specific complaints and demands of Palestinians.  Abbas spoke of the importance of providing solutions that would address the situation of Palestinian refugees and those imprisoned in Israeli prisons, referring to “the suffering of my people”.  “It’s about time for Israel to end its occupation of our people and of our land,” Abbas said, referring to the Palestinian territories in the West Bank under Israeli control.  Trump did not address Israeli settlements in the West Bank, which he had asked the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to halt, nor did he address the terrorist group Hamas, which controls Gaza and earlier this week opened the door to at least a temporary deal for a Palestinian state based on the 1967 borders.  Abbas’ visit comes over two months after Netanyahu visited Trump at the White House.

Acknowledging antimicrobial resistance (AMR) a matter of great concern, India plans to address this public health challenge in a mission mode in the next five years. 
It will establish a National Authority on Containment of AMR (NACA) to provide oversight and monitoring to ensure sustained and effective national action for management of drug resistance in humans, animals and farming.    Importantly, the government intends to initiate several activities to raise awareness and knowledge about AMR, to engage and encourage behavioural change at all levels, promote evidence-based prevention, infection control and sanitation programmes in accordance with the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, Kayakalp and Swachh Swastha Sarvatra initiatives of the government. 
India has drafted a National Action Plan on Antimicrobial Resistance (2017-2021) with focus on six strategic priorities which include improved awareness and understanding of AMR through effective communication, education and training (even among professionals); strengthening knowledge and evidence through surveillance of antimicrobial resistance human, animal, food and environment; reducing the incidence of infection in health care, animal health, community and environment settings; and optimizing the use of antibiotics in humans, animal and food with focus on strengthening regulations, access and surveillance of antimicrobial use. Also, the government will promote investment in AMR activities such as research and innovations with focus on development of new antibiotics, innovations in diagnostics and vaccines; and strengthening India’s leadership on drug resistance with focus on international, national and state or local level collaborations.      
The government will involve research institutes, civil society, and encouraging public private partnerships in alignment with Make in India. 
India made these commitments at the Inter-Ministerial Consultation on Antimicrobial Resistance in New Delhi last month where the participants pledged to adopt a “holistic and collaborative’’ approach towards prevention and containment of antimicrobial resistance. 
“Antimicrobial resistance is a serious threat to global public health that requires action across all government sectors and society and is driven by many interconnected factors. Single, isolated interventions have limited impact and coordinated action is required to minimize the emergence and spread of antimicrobial resistance,’’ Union Health and Family Welfare Minister J P Nadda said. 
Recognizing that emergence and spread of AMR was negating many 20th century achievements, particularly reduction in illness and death from infectious diseases, the Delhi Declaration brought out after the consultation, admitted that AMR was projected to kill millions of people worldwide as well as in India with massive social, economic and public health repercussions. 
The Ministry of Health & Family Welfare (MoHFW) has identified AMR as one of the top 10 priorities for the Ministry’s collaborative work with the World Health Organisation. The National Health Policy 2017 identifies antimicrobial resistance as a problem and calls for effective action to address it.
India is among the nations with the highest burden of bacterial infections. An estimated 410,000 children aged five years or less die from pneumonia in India annually; with pneumonia accounting for almost 25% of all child deaths. The crude mortality from infectious diseases in India today is 417 per 100,000 persons. Consequently, the impact of AMR is likely to be higher in the Indian setting.
The emergence of resistance is not only limited to the older and more frequently used classes of drugs but there has also been a rapid increase in resistance to the newer and more expensive drugs, like carbapenems. Available data indicates to rising rates of AMR, across multiple pathogens of clinical importance, at the national scale. In 2008, about 29% of isolates of Staphylococcus aureus were methicillin resistant, and by 2014, this had risen to 47%. In contrast, in countries which have established effective antibiotic stewardship and/or infection prevention and control programs, the proportion of methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) isolates have been decreasing. Extended-spectrum betalactamase (ESBL) producing strains of Enterobacteriaceae have emerged as a challenge in hospitalized patients as well as in the community. 
The burden of AMR in livestock and food animals has been poorly documented in India. Aside from sporadic, small, localized studies, evidence that can be extrapolated to the national level is lacking. Given that there are few regulations against the use of antibiotics for non-therapeutic purposes in India, the emergence of AMR from antibiotic overuse in the animal sector is likely to be an unmeasured burden in India, the background note of the Action Plan says.  Drug resistant bacteria have been isolated from dairy cattle as early as the 1970s. One of the most common clinical issues encountered in the dairy farms is mastitis, which maybe sub-clinical or overtly symptomatic. Commonly thought to be a disease of production, milk from mastitic cows and buffaloes have been shown to contain a wide range of bacteria, with a wide spectrum of resistance against commonly used antibiotics. 
As with the dairy sector, there is limited evidence available on the exact amount of antibiotic consumed within the poultry industry. In many cases, since the antibiotic is given as a growth promoter through the premixed feed, which comes with added antibiotics that are not even mentioned on the label, it is difficult to exactly estimate the dose or the consumption levels of antibiotics in the poultry sector. 
The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) banned the use of antibiotics and several pharmacologically active substances in fisheries. In contrast, there is no regulation in the poultry industry where many of the commercially available premixed feeds come with added antibiotics. These drugs can, of course, be added to the feeds separately by the farmers. Compared to the poultry and dairy sector, antibiotic resistance has been scrutinized more closely in the aquaculture sector. The existence of legislative provisions to contain the inappropriate and non-therapeutic use of antibiotics in fisheries is expected to impact the levels of AMR in the aquaculture sector but studies have proven otherwise, the note adds. 
India has previously instituted surveillance of the emergence of drug resistance in disease causing microbes in the context of vertical programmes, like the Revised National Tuberculosis Control Programme (RNTCP), the National Vector Borne Disease Control Programme (NVBDCP), and the National AIDS Control Programme (NACP). However, a cross-cutting programme dealing with antimicrobial resistance across multiple microbes has been lacking. 
To promote rational use of antibiotics, national treatment guidelines for antimicrobial use in infectious diseases has been released to serve as a reference guide for hospitals in the country for formulating their own local guidelines on the basis of which physicians will be trained. National infection control policy has been drafted and is in the process of finalization for strengthening infection control practices.
In 2010, India was the largest consumer of antibiotics, although the per capita consumption of antibiotics in India (10.7 units per capita) was lower than that seen in many other countries (e.g. 22 units per capita in USA).
Since March 2014 a separate Schedule H-1 has been incorporated in Drug and Cosmetic rules to regulate the sale of antimicrobials in India. About 24 antimicrobials belonging to third and fourth generation cephalosporins and carbapenems are covered under the schedule. These antimicrobials cannot be sold without a proper medical prescription and these drug packaging are required to be labelled with the following text along with red border. 
With respect to consumption of antimicrobials in food animals, the global consumption was estimated to be 63,151 (±1,560) units in 2010; India accounts for 3% of the global consumption and is the fourth highest in the world, behind China (23%), the United States (13%) and Brazil (9%). The consumption of antimicrobials in the food animals sector in India is expected to double by 2030.
In 2004, in the 15 largest pharmaceutical companies, only 1.6% of the drugs in the development stages were antibiotics, and none of them were from novel classes, nor were they targeted to treat multidrug resistant agents. Despite the obvious need to develop newer classes of drugs to respond to the challenges of emerging AMR, there are few late stage candidates in the process of development. Additionally, pharmaceutical agencies have been reluctant to invest in research and development of antibiotics.

The arbitrary and unreasonable move of the Maharashtra government to change the eligibility criteria at the last moment for admission for post graduation in the State government medical colleges has dealt a cruel blow to about 2000 doctors as they have been rendered ineligible for admissions for being non-domiciled.
Even though the Mumbai High Court bench of Justice S S Kemkar and A M Badar stayed the order of Directorate of Medical Education and Research (DMER) giving relief to them, the Maharashtra government has approached the Supreme Court against the stay order putting a question mark on the future of these hapless doctors who have been running from pillar to post to get justice. Their argument is that since the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) results came out in January and during the on-line counselling in April they were eligible for admission to all the government medical colleges, but now all of a sudden DMER has changed the eligibility criteria on April 28 and even published a merit list containing names of only domiciled students which is grave injustice and miscarriage of justice and fair play.
The Mumbai High court bench has held that the “change of eligibility criteria at the stage when the first selection list was to be published is in our considered view arbitrary and unreasonable.” Doctors who were under the expectation right since January 2017 that they would be eligible for admission have been rendered ineligible and would find it impossible now to apply for PG seats in any other State since the admission process is midway, the court had observed while passing orders on a plea filed by Dr Gagandeep Mahi and others against the change of eligibility rules. The High Court order has made it clear that the list should be prepared on the basis of earlier eligibility rule – which means non-domiciled graduates, too, should be included along with domiciled students. While issuing notice to the State government, the bench had observed that admission rules published before January 27, 2017 had made even non-domiciled MBBS students graduating from Maharashtra colleges with one year internship by March 31, eligible for PG admissions in the State, changing the rules mid-way was prima facie not sustainable, it said.  
According to the new resolution of the Maharashtra government, 50% of seats (state quota) in medical institutions are to be filled by domicile students. Besides, in the 35% institutional quota, 17.5% is kept aside for domiciles. Therefore, the reservation for domicile candidates is more than 67.5%. The non-domiciled students graduating from colleges of the state has now been confined to 17.5% management quota in private medical colleges. However, the HC bench has stayed this government resolution and suspended the list of domicile candidates for now.  Many of the non-domicile students from Maharashtra, who had earlier given up their seats in other states in the hope of getting admission in government medical colleges, are now have their hopes pinned on the Supreme Court. They are hoping and expect it to provide them justice and succor against the arbitrary decision of the state government.  
Describing it as a grave injustice, of the affected student Ayush said that when students had taken admission in Maharashtra colleges they were eligible for admission to the government medical colleges of the state. Moreover, after NEET examination results in January the non-domiciled students were called twice for document verification and were given written receipts stating that they were eligible for all government, private, corporate and deemed college seats in Maharashtra based on their performance in NEET.
“So, during on-line counseling I filled only government quota seats options as deemed seats are too expensive with fees ranging from minimum Rs 60 lakh to two crore for the course which is unaffordable for any middle class student. Suddenly, on Friday night a notice was issued by DMER that we are ineligible and have been shifted from category 1 to 2 making us ineligible for government seats while the quota for domiciled students have been increased from 67.5 percent. They did not give us any chance to alter my preference list. So, now since I had only applied for government seats during the on-line counseling I have no chance of getting any seat in the state which is grave injustice for student like me. Earlier, I had returned the seat in MD, Pathology in JNMC, Belgaum Karnataka as I was hopeful of getting a seat in a government medical college in Maharashtra. Now I don’t know what to do as my hard work during the entire year appears to have gone waste.”    Another student who has passed out from a government medical college of the state said that she had got admission in MBBS through the All India 15 percent quota. Though hailing from Chittorgarh in Rajasthan, she had chosen to study in Maharashtra as it has more colleges and so more PG seats. However, now being rendered ineligible at the last moment has made her stateless as Rajasthan does not give admission to students who have not done MBBS from the state.
“Today I don’t have a state quota in any state- not in my native state and not even in Maharashtra. Non-resident Maharashtrians, however, are getting a state quota in two states. If this is not discriminatory, I don’t know what is. This is a grave miscarriage of justice and today I feel like being a step daughter of India.”
Gagandeep Mahi, from BJMC Pune, said that it was a serious breach of trust on the part of DMER as he had even paid Rs 10 lakh in lieu of one year rural posting to get a chance for admission in Maharashtra colleges, but now he has been declared ineligible. “This is height of regionalism. We are not against domicile students, but consider us also.”        
Another student Varun Shukla shared that he got a seat in Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation in RG Kar Medical College, Kolkata. However, he chose to give up that seat as he had hoped to get a better choice in Maharashtra. But one hour after he gave back that seat, the shocking announcement from DMER came putting his future in peril.
The students find no merit in DMER director Pravin Shingare’s argument that state students should benefit from our facilities. He had said that since students from Maharashtra find it difficult to secure admissions in other states as many follow domicile policy that is why the rules have been changed. However, non-domiciled students’ argument is that if it was the case then they should have been informed while taking admission in the first year of MBBS course itself as it would have given them the choice to opt for other states as such knee jerk action at the last moment and putting their future in peril. (Annapurna Jha is a senior journalist. Views are personal.)

The allegations regarding the transparency of Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) have ignited a debate in this country. After Bharatiya Janta Party secured historic mandate in Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections, Bahujan Samaj Party supremo Mayawati alleged the winning party with the EVM tampering. In the UP post-result press conference, she outrageously pointed out the doubts over the veracity of these voting machines. Subsequently, Samajvadi Party also went vocal on EVM tempering debate, sooner picked up by the Aam Aadmi Party Convenor and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal after the defeat in Municipal Corporation of Delhi election. Delhi Deputy CM Manish Sisodiya said the BJP party has mastered to tampering EVM since UP win and now they have graduated to ‘hacking’ the EVM for MCD results in their favor. But how justified the allegations are without knowing the details about our EVM?
EVM Background
EVM was first used in Kerala By-Poll elections in 1982 in Parur assembly constituency. This election was declared ‘null and void’ by the court as it rightly said that the ‘Representation of People’s Act’ explicitly talks about the Election Commission to conduct elections through ballot papers. Then the law was amended in the December 1988 and enforced in 1989. From 2004 onwards, the entire voting system is carried out by EVMs. 
10 Facts and Advantages of EVMs, Know Your EVM
An EVM consists of two units- a Control Unit and a Balloting Unit, joined by a five-meter cable. 
The Control Unit is with Presiding Officer and the Balloting Unit is kept inside the voting compartment. EVMs can record a maximum of 3840 votes. It can cater to a maximum of 64 candidates. In case the number exceeds, we will get back to ballot paper.
The total number of voters will not exceed 1500. However, the capacity of voting machines is more than sufficient.
The EVMs have been devised and designed by the Election Commission in collaboration with two Public Sector Undertakings; Bharat Electronics Limited, Bangaluru and Electronic Corporation of India Limited, Hyderabad. 
The machines will record only ‘five’ votes in a minute. It minimizes the possibilities of miscreants polluting the polling booths. There is a ‘close’ button on the EVM which once pressed reject the chances to record bogus votes any further. 
EVMs save a huge cost of papers. It also ends the hassle of transportation, printing of ballot papers and its storage. 
Counting is very quick so the results can be declared within 2-3 hours.
There are ‘no invalid votes’ under this system of voting. During the ballot papers regime, there were large number of invalid votes. Sometimes, ironically, the number of invalid votes were more than the winning margin. But now in the era of EVM, the choice of the electorate will be more correctly reflected.
The ‘hacking’ debate, Defence of EVM
Instead blaming the EC or the EVM, the political parties must learn the physical attributes of an EVM. The software used in an EVM cannot be altered as it operates with ‘Standalone’ software. Standalone softwares cannot be rigged or say ‘hack’ because they are not connected to computers, like a calculator. In other countries, the EVMs are connected to computers which is vulnerable to hacking. The chip inside an Indian EVM is one-time programmable, which is burnt during the time of manufacturing, hence there is no scope of tempering or hacking. The inbuilt chip can never be rigged as it is totally against the nature of the ‘Standalone’ mechanism. 
The buttons on EVMs are not permanently fixed. It is fixed in alphabetical order of the candidates’ name. So with every other polling booth, the sequence of the political parties can change.
Global Reference On EVM Ban By Losing Parties. 
Currently, the BJP is defending the transparency of EVM. But way back in 2009, the same party had questioned it. In fact, the current spokesperson of BJP, GBL Narsimha Rao also wrote a book on EVM’s malfunctioning, introduced and acknowledged by Lal Krishna Advani, which is a reference book for many sitting in the opposition. Nevertheless, we must do some fact check.
Journalist turned politician AAP’s Ashutosh spoke after the MCD defeat on a private news channel that Michigan University had considerably ‘proved’ that EVMs can be ‘hacked’. In fact, the example he quoted is manufactured and distorted. In the year 2009, a techie Hari Prasad accompanied by some computer science students and Michigan professors rigged the EVM, altering the ‘hardware components’ of the EVM. There was no proven software hacking, as Ashutosh claimed, or malfunctioning recorded in the standalone processing. Later on, EC issued a clarification that EVMs are safe and cannot be tempered. The same year, the then congress government booked Hari Prasad and he was jailed under the charges of stealing the EVM. 
In the Netherlands, the EVMs were banned in 2006. A ‘Dutch Public Interest Group’ recorded a video later broadcasted on national television that how one can hack the EVM? In Netherlands, the EVMs were connected to internet so it becomes vulnerable to hacking which is certainly not in Indian case. 
Ireland, after the worth 51 million pounds spent, decided to junk all EVMs. Germany banned it after the court said it to be unconstitutional because of transparency. England and France have never used EVMs. In the United States, many states like California and others have banned it due to paper trail. 
EVM and the way forward, VVPAT
In the wake all the allegations, comes the concept of Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trial (VVPAT). VVPAT works like a printer. Inside the polling booth, there is a Balloting Unit. With this unit is attached the VVPAT. When a voter casts his vote in the favour of a candidate ‘X’, the VVPAT will generate a ballot slip with the candidate’s name X, party symbol of X and serial number X in a sequence. It will be displayed on a screened window for seven seconds. The slip will automatically cut and drop in a sealed drop box. The voters would not receive that receipt as it will harm the secrecy of votes which might be a threat. 
VVPAT was first used in ‘Noksen Assembly Constituency’ in Nagaland in 2013. In the Subramanian Swamy vs Election Commission of India in 2013, Swami failed to prove the machines could be tampered with. In the response to his petition, the Apex Court directed the EC to equip these machines to VVPAT systems. 
The Union Government has approved the proposal to buy 16,15,000 VVPAT machines for 2019 Lok Sabha Elections. 
One important thing which must be discussed is the use of ‘Totalizers’. The ‘Totalizers’ are interface which are connected to multiple VVPAT systems to count results without disclosing the booth-wise counting results. As it dangerous to announce votes booth-wise, why not to use ‘Totalizers’? The former Election Commissioner of India Shahabuddin Yaqoob Quraishi said, “we asked for the opinions of political parties on using ‘Totalizers’ in counting but they denied as they wanted to know booth-wise results for booth management for the next elections. So don’t blame EC.”
So, in the current scenario, the defeated political parties must introspect the reason of losing elections but not to blame the sanctity and transparency of a world renowned institution, the Election Commission. They should fall in the debate of VVPAT and ‘Totalizers’ but not in some futile, baseless and irresponsible allegations on EVM. Like the Technical Evaluation Committee in 2006 called 100 experts across the country to demonstrate the functions of EVM then said that it cannot be tampered or hacked from a distance as it has no decoder or server. Repeating the same, the Election Commission came on front foot and drove the ball of allegation out by inviting similar experts, IITians, techies for an open challenge to ‘hack’ the EVM. 

NEW DELHI: In May last year Universal Services Obligation Fund (USOF) floated a tender to set up towers in uncovered villages in the Northeastern states (except Arunachal Pradesh and two districts of Assam considered difficult/remote areas) and for mobile coverage along National Highways as part of comprehensive telecom development in the region, which does not have good infrastructure and is lagging behind from other states of India.
But apparently as a strategy private operators stayed away from the tender process and no company came forward to put up the towers. It was the case when these private operators have taken licenses to provide telecom services in the Northeast, but they never came forward to put up telecom infrastructure on their own.
It was then that DoT held meeting with the Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) to find a way forward. COAI gave its suggestions which ironically the Telecom Commission agreed completely without any changes or clarifications.
Market analysts and telecom experts say the COAI virtually adopted “blackmailing” tactics and forced DoT to agree to such terms and conditions which would not only put the DoT on a weak footing but also lead to misuse of public funds. The new provisions agreed by DoT in favour of COAI and telecom operators are also against the Competition Commission of India (CCI) guidelines as it favours particular companies and discriminates against other firms who are not operators but telecom equipment manufacturers and are ready to bid for the project as they have done in other projects. The DoT have also agreed to COAI terms and conditions which also detrimental to environment as it would enable setting up of diesel-powered gensets in villages and eco-sensitive zones.
Telecom experts point out that it will first such case in the telecom sector across the world where funds collected from private operators to boost telecom infrastructure would be given back to them for the same job. They should have put towers as per contractual terms and agreement, and are hence “defaulters”. Ironically, USOF is giving funds collected from operators back to them to put up towers.
It will also be first time in India, where a government department and “defaulters” are fixing the terms of the tender.
DoT also ignored state-owned BSNL in this project. Relying on private operators instead of state-owned company is bizarre. DoT seems to have completely ignored a CAG report which had pointed out how in the past private operators first took money and subsidy from the government to set up towers in remote areas, but later shut down these towers living several users in the dark. These cases are in the litigation, they added.
There are 8,621 uncovered villages in the eight Northeastern states – Arunachal Pradesh (2805), Assam (2503), Meghalaya (2374), Manipur (528), Mizoram (252), Nagaland (134), Sikkim (23) and Tripura (2). For this, the DoT has envisaged setting up 6,673 towers in these eight states with an investment of Rs.4,770 crores. The DoT has also earmarked Rs.270 crores for setting up 321 mobile towers for providing telecommunication coverage along the National Highways in the region. But all these projects have been stuck for the past several months due to delays in finalizing the tender process.

(Courtesy: ictflash.com) 

NEW DELHI : Delhi’s ruling AAP averted a major crisis on Wednesday when its disgruntled founder leader Kumar Vishwas agreed not to quit while an MLA who took him on was suspended from the party.  After indicating a day earlier that he may quit the AAP, Kumar Vishwas on Wednesday attended a meeting of the Political Affairs Committee (PAC) of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) at Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal’s residence.  After his public outburst, Kejriwal called on the poet-politician on Tuesday night and the two drove to the AAP leader’s Ghaziabad residence to discuss the unprecedented rift between them.  Also on Wednesday, Kumar Vishwas was named the AAP in-charge of Rajasthan, where assembly elections will be held next year.  “The PAC has decided to suspend Amanatullah Khan from the party,” Deputy Chief Minister and Kumar Vishwas’ childhood friend Manish Sisodia told reporters after the PAC meeting.  The decision came three days after Khan alleged that Kumar Vishwas was conspiring to break the party and plotting a coup against Kejriwal at the behest of the BJP and RSS.  Appearing before the media with Sisodia, Kumar Vishwas said he was happy that a dialogue among party members had resumed.    The AAP announced a three-member committee of party leaders Pankaj Gupta, Atishi Marlena and Ashutosh to determine why Khan made the allegation against Kumar Vishwas.  Sisodia said Kumar Vishwas had been given the task of strengthening the AAP in Rajasthan and the party “will fight election in the state under his leadership”.  Kumar Vishwas, Sisodia and Kejriwal are among the founder members of the AAP.

NEW DELHI: India on Wednesday said it has provided Pakistan with “actionable evidence” of the involvement of the Pakistani Army in the killing and mutilation of two Indian soldiers on Monday and demanded that Islamabad take action on the incident that again flared bilateral diplomatic tensions. Indian Foreign Secretary S. Jaishankar on Wednesday summoned Pakistan High Commissioner Abdul Basit and conveyed India’s outrage over the “barbaric act”  and told him that the Pakistani army was involved in the May 1 incident in Jammu and Kashmir near the Line of Control. As part of the “actionable evidence” that Pakistan has demanded, after India accused it of being behind the killing and mutilation of the two Indian soldiers, Jaishankar said that the attack on the Indian soldiers was “preceded by covering fire from Pakistani posts in Battal sector (in vicinity of village Battal)”. Jaishankar also said that “blood samples of Indian soldiers that have been collected and the trail of blood on Roza Nala (at the attack site) clearly shows that the killers returned across the Line of Control”. The army’s Naib Subedar Paramjeet Singh and the BSF’s Head Constable Prem Sagar were killed and their bodies mutilated in Krishna Ghati sector of Poonch district of Jammu and Kashmir on Monday.   India says that a Border Action Team (BAT) of Pakistan was behind the incident close to the Line of Control.  

KOLKATA: The massive hunt for undeclared cash launched across the country post demonetisation has revealed that these was either converted into gold or routed through shell companies to make it legal tender, IT sleuths have told IANS.
 Income Tax officials said black money holders avoided the bank-deposit route because they wanted to conceal their identities and somehow had “managed to get many jewellers” to convert their unaudited cash into gold.  “They bought gold and jewellery from jewellers across the cities on November 8 (the night Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the demonetisation of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 currency notes from midnight) and, thereafter. Jewellers camouflaged the identities of the actual buyers and offered split bills,” an Income Tax official, who was part of the investigations, told IANS on condition of anonymity.  According to him, jewellers saw in demonetisation an opportunity to ramp up their sales and thought “they could get away” by showing these amounts as sales.  “Jewellers offered a platform to convert unreported cash into gold,” the official said, adding that split bills were below the value of Rs 2 lakh, the threshold above which buyers have to provide the permanent account number (PAN) issued by the income tax department.  “The buyers’ lists provided by the jewellers were false. After verification, it emerged that many of the buyers were financially weak and not in a position to spend such huge amounts shown in the invoices,” the official said. Taxmen tried to find an answer to a common question: How did jewellers meet the huge spurt in demand following the announcement of demonetisation, particularly after the festival season?  “We found many of these sales were booked as advance collection for future sales. Due to preceding sales during Dhanteras and Diwali, jewellers had a stock crunch and they delivered gold later,” another IT official told IANS, asking not to be identified.  Taxmen said they have stumbled upon records which suggested many shops — as many as 90 per cent across cities — were closed at the time of the demonetisation announcement and sales at the day’s closing had been reported.  “Still, we found sales were registered in the accounting system either on November 8 or a date prior to that after the closing sales were reported. These sales were manipulated,” another IT official said, also requesting anonymity.  Sankar Sen, Chairman and MD, Senco Gold Ltd, which was one of the jewellery houses under the I-T department scanner, told IANS: “We keep records of all buyers on the basis of the names and contacts provided by the customers. We cooperated with officials and provided all the documents, including the CCTV footage that we had.”  “It is difficult for jewellers to verify whether the customers have provided a legitimate identity or not, particularly when the sale value is less than Rs 2 lakh,” he said.  The hunt for black money by the IT officials picked up after November 29 as they waited for some time to collect information from the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) or other agencies about the movement of funds.  Asked how taxmen identified jewellers, an official told IANS: “The first set of information showed that jewellers deposited huge amounts of money into banks. Then, we went after jewellers.”  The IT sleuths were able to identify legitimate transactions, easily. “We also had given options to the jewellers to disclose the name of actual buyers or declare that the amount is your money,” the official said, pointing out that such moves proved successful.  Many actual buyers and jewellers contributed to the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Yojana (PMGKY), an amnesty scheme to declare unreported wealth.  Had a robust and quick information-sharing system among state and central agencies been in place, the hunt for black money would have been more effective, the officials lamented.  “A compilation of unique features found in transactions post-demonetisation across states is expected soon,” an IT official said.  According to the Union Finance Ministry, the CBDT has detected undisclosed income of over Rs 9,334 crore between November 9, 2016, and February 28 this year.  Under Operation Clean Money (OCM), more than 60,000 persons, including 1,300 high-risk persons, have been identified for investigation into claims of excessive cash sales after demonetisation was announced.  According to officials, shell companies provided a strong support system for black money after demonetisation.  The officials found dummy directors of these companies included a cancer patient who signed documents for a Rs 10,000 monthly fee or charges of Rs 200 for every signature.  The officials said reporting of cash seizures was relatively less in Kolkata because of the existence of the shell companies as an established channel to stash ill-gotten money.  Explaining how active the channel was, the official said: “Many cash handlers with whom we interacted told us that the money does not stay for more than half-an-hour at a particular point.”  Shell companies were also used as instruments to buy bullion. “We found invoices for bullion sales were generated against such companies while actual beneficiaries received the bullion.”  

NEW DELHI: Amidst national outrage over mutilation of two Indian soldiers’ bodies, Indian Army’s Director General of Military Operations (DGMO) Lt Gen AK Bhatt on Tuesday spoke on hotline to his Pakistani counterpart, conveying grave concern over the Indian patrol being targeted by Pakistan troops and mutilation of bodies of the soldiers in the Krishna Ghati sector.

In a stern message, Lt-Gen Bhatt told his Pakistani counterpart Major-General Sahir Shamshad Mirza that such a “dastardly and inhuman act was beyond any norms of civility and merits unequivocal condemnation and response.’’

Indian Army, in a statement, said the DGMO expressed grave concern about the incident in Krishna Ghati sector where Pak troops targeted Indian patrol on Indian side of Line of Control (LoC) and mutilated bodies of two soldiers.

He also conveyed concern about the presence of Border Action Teams (BAT) training camps in the close vicinity of LoC in the Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK). He said that full fire support was provided by the Pakistan Army post located in vicinity of the incident site”.

Pakistan Army continued to be in denial mode and asked India to produce “actionable evidence” that a Pak BAT team had cross LoC and mutilated bodies of two Indian soldiers. The issue was discussed during a hotline contact between the two DGMOs.

Union Finance Minister and Defence Minister Arun Jaitley met Prime Minister Narendra Modi and it is understood that the issue of beheading of Naib Subedar Paramjeet Singh of  and Head Constable of Border Security Force (BSF) Prem Sagar came up for discussion.   
        

Meanwhile, Pakistan’s Inter Services Public Relations (ISPR) said in a statement that  local commanders level hotline contact was established at Rawalkot-Poonch sector on LoC on Monday night between Pak and Indian Army authorities. Indian counterpart was told that there has been no crossing of LoC by Pakistani troops from Pak side nor mutilation of bodies of Indian soldiers.  

Giving expression to the widespread outrage and shock in the country over the mutilation of soldiers’ bodies by Pak BAT team, Union Minister M. Venkaiah Naidu described  Pakistan as a “rogue state”,   Speaking in Bengaluru, Mr. Naidu said the government would take “appropriate action.’’ 

The Indian Army bid final adieu to the two martyred soldiers and their bodies were cremated with full military honour. While Naib Subedar Paramjeet Singh’s last rites were held in Tarn Taran in Punjab, BSF head constable Prem Sagar’s final rites were performed in his village in Deoria in Uttar Pradesh. Their families also demanded a befitting and hard response from the Indian Army to their Pakistani counterparts for this “inhuman and barbaric’’ act.