Srinagar: A policeman was killed after militants fired upon a joint police and CRPF party in Frisal area of South Kashmir’s Kulgam district.
Police sources told KNT that militants resorted to indiscriminate firing on a joint party in which a head constable sustained serious injuries.
He was shifted to hospital where he succumbed to his injuries. The head constable has been identified as Muhammad Amin (349/Kgm).
The incident occurred in the jurisdiction of police station Yaripors. (KNT)
Pattan: An Army Commanding Officer Saturday pacified angry mob and stopped the issue getting snowballed into a major controversy when he ‘apologized’ to people who alleged that a soldier part of a patrolling party passed ‘lewd’ comments on a young girl in Singhpora area of Pattan town here in North Kashmir’s Baramulla district on Saturday morning.
Local sources told news agency KNT that soldiers from 29 Rashtriya Rifles stationed at Khanpeth camp were patrolling in a vehicle in Singhpora area when a soldier allegedly passed ‘vulgar’ comments on a young girl. The girl raised hue and cry attracting the attention of people. In a jiffy, scores of people assembled and started raising pro-freedom and anti-army slogans.
The protesters demanded immediate arrest of the ‘erring’ soldier. “After passing lewd remarks, the soldier threatened her as well and this is unacceptable and we won’t tolerate it,” said an elderly protester.
Police team led by SDPO Zafar Mehdi and Chowki Officer Mirgund police post, Muhammad Ashraf rushed to spot to pacify the protesters.
Police, without any delay informed Commanding Officer, stationed at Hyderbeigh Pattan about the incident, who rushed to the spot to ascertain the facts.
SDPO Pattan said that they are still verifying the matter. Chowki Officer Muhammad Ashraf told KNT that though army soldier had done nothing, still the Commanding Officer apologized to people and pacified them. The officer told people that he apologizes, though he doesn’t know whether his soldier has done any stupid thing or not.
The police officer said that people dispersed peacefully after the assurance of Army officer that matter will be probed thoroughly. (KNT)
Unidentified gunmen fired upon a joint police and CRPF party in Frisal area of South Kashmir’s Kulgam district
Further details awaited
Rahul Gandhi repeated his earlier assertion that exiting the lockdown was not an event or an on-off switch.
The Government of India should not act as a sahukar (money lender) to be offering loans to citizens instead of helping them with direct cash transfer, former Congress president Rahul Gandhi said on Saturday and appealed to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to rethink his economic stimulus package.
Interacting with journalists of regional media via video conferencing, Mr Gandhi said as an Opposition leader trying to pressure on the government to directly transfer money into people’s hands and warned that an ‘economic storm’ was on its way.
Repeating his earlier assertion that exiting the lockdown was not an event or an on-off switch, the Congress leader said the government must get out it ‘intelligently’ that protects both India’s economy as well as the vulnerable sections.
“I don’t want to make a political statement but I have a serious reservation about the nature of the package that the Government has given and I would like the Government to reconsider,” Mr Gandhi said.
“I would like to appeal to the Government of India that you can surely offer loans but Mother India cannot act like a sahukar (money lender) to her children. Mother India should directly transfer money into the hands of her children. The migrant labourer walking on the street needs money, not debt. The farmer who is suffering needs money, not debt…If we do not, this will become a catastrophic problem,” he added.
Mr Gandhi, who had conceived the nyuntam aay yoana [NYAY] or minimum income guarantee before the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, once pitched for it to be used to hep the poor.
“Do NYAY temporarily if you don’t want to do it permanently. But please start putting money into the small businesses, farmers, migrants’ bank accounts because if we do not then we will have a catastrophic result,” he said, adding it would cost the government ₹65,000-70,000 crores.
The Congress leader said though they have suggested doubling of work days to 200 days under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MNREGA), for migrant workers in urban workers only a monthly cash transfer of ₹7,500 can help.
It is heartbreaking to see millions of people walking on the highways without food and water, Mr Gandhi added and offered condolences to numerous tragedies migrant labourers have faced.
“This is a challenging problem and I don’t want to resort to finger pointing. I want to say we have to all help the people who are walking on the streets. The situation is that the BJP is in government and they have the tools. So, they have a bigger responsibility. It’s also our duty as we are in the Opposition. All of us jointly have to help them,” Mr Gandhi said.
Senior Congress Ahmed Patel, however, directly attacked the Centre over the migrants issue. “Migrant crisis is now as big as corona pandemic itself. Govt cannot be a bystander as poor either go hungry or lose their lives in accidents. Speeches are not a solution. ₹1000 cr of PM care funds must reach their hands. If need be govt must use Army to help migrants reach safely,” Mr Patel tweeted.
With inputs from The Hindu
We urge the Indian side to work with China and refrain from taking any complicating move so as to create enabling conditions for the development of our bilateral relations and peace and stability at the border areas
‘The two sides stay in diplomatic communication on the relevant border issue’
Amid tensions between the Indian and Chinese soldiers at Pangong Tso lake area, China said on Wednesday that India should refrain from taking any action to “complicate” the issue and claimed that the PLA troops were conducting “normal patrol” on the Chinese side of the border.
Asked about the continued tensions along the border and whether the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) troops action was anyway related to the disagreements with the Indian government’s plan to lure business out of China, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said both the countries were in diplomatic contact over the face-off between their troops.
“China’s position on the border issue is consistent and clear. Chinese border troops have been upholding peace and tranquillity along the border areas, Zhao told a media briefing here.
“China is conducting normal patrol along the Chinese side of the Line of Actual Control (LAC). We urge the Indian side to work with China and refrain from taking any complicating move so as to create enabling conditions for the development of our bilateral relations and peace and stability at the border areas, he said.
“The two sides stay in diplomatic communication on the relevant border issue, he said.
Since the tensions began at the Pangong Tso lake area in eastern Ladakh on May 5-6, China maintained steady silence over the incident while its official media has not reported it so far.
When asked about the incident on Monday, Zhao played it down saying Chinese troops there are “committed to uphold peace and stability”.
He said the most pressing issue for the world at present is the fight against the deadly coronavirus. We shouldn’t allow any politicisation or stigmatisation in a bid to create more differences or confrontation,” he said.
At least a couple of Chinese military helicopters were spotted flying close to the un-demarcated Sino-India border in the area after the fierce face-off on May 5 following which a fleet of Sukhoi-30 jets of the Indian Air Force too carried out sorties there, the sources said in New Delhi.
The troops on both sides held on to their respective positions and even reinforcements were brought in an apprehension of further escalation in tension, they said when asked about the face-off.
They said tension was still prevailing in the area, though both sides agreed to disengage during a meeting of local commanders on May 6.
“The situation remains tense,” said a source in New Delhi.
The sources said the spotting of Chinese helicopters in the area was nothing unusual as India too flies a fleet of military choppers in the area from three bases in the region.
On May 5, scores of Indian and Chinese army personnel clashed with iron rods, sticks, and even resorted to stone-pelting, sources said, adding a number of soldiers on both sides sustained injuries in the incident.
In a separate incident, nearly 150 Indian and Chinese military personnel were engaged in a face-off near Naku La Pass in the Sikkim sector of the Sino-India border on Saturday. At least 10 soldiers from both sides sustained injuries in the incident.
The troops of India and China were engaged in a 73-day stand-off in Doklam tri-junction in 2017 which even triggered fears of a war between the two nuclear-armed neighbours.
The India-China border dispute covers the 3,488-km-long Line of Actual Control, the de-facto border between the two countries. Both sides have been asserting that pending the final resolution of the boundary issue, it is necessary to maintain peace and tranquillity in the border areas.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping held their first informal summit in April 2018 in the Chinese city of Wuhan, months after the Doklam standoff.
In the summit, the two leaders decided to issue “strategic guidance” to their militaries to strengthen communications so that they can build trust and understanding.
Modi and Xi held their second informal summit in Mamallapuram near Chennai in October last year with a focus on further broadening bilateral ties.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by Kashmir Today staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said Friday that the move aims to prevent Huawei from making a run around existing U.S. sanctions.
The U.S. government imposed new restrictions on Chinese tech giant Huawei on Friday, severely limiting its ability to use American technology to design and manufacture semiconductors produced for it abroad.
Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said Friday that the move aims to prevent Huawei from making a run around existing U.S. sanctions.
There has been a very highly technical loophole through which Huawei has been able to in effect use U.S. technology,” Mr. Ross told Fox Business.
We never intended that loophole to be there.
Adam Segal, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, said the move “looks like a victory for the people who really want to drive the nail, or what they think will be the nail, in Huawei’s coffin.”
The new restrictions elicited an angry response from China, which threatened retaliation against U.S. companies.
Chip design and manufacturing equipment used in the world’s semiconductor plants is mostly U.S. made, so the new rule aims to impact multiple foreign producers that sell to Huawei and affiliates including HiSilicon, which makes chips used in supercomputers with scientific and military uses.
The Commerce Department said foreign foundries would be granted a 120-day grace period.
Under the new rules, foreign semiconductor makers must obtain a license from U.S. officials in order to ship to Huawei-designed semiconductors to the Chinese company that were produced using U.S. technology.
Last year, the Trump administration barred U.S. firms from using Huawei technology or providing technology to the Chinese firm without government approval, deeming it a national security risk.
The Commerce Department exempted a narrow list of products and services and has continuously extended that limited waiver, largely to lessen the impact on U.S. wireless carriers that use Huawei technology in their networks. This week, it added another 90 days.
The new restrictions are separate from those exemptions, but loopholes have allowed U.S. companies to continue to supply Huawei with chips made outside the U.S.
The Commerce Department said in a statement Friday that the new restrictions would narrowly and strategically” target Huawei’s acquisition of semiconductors that it designs built in overseas foundries that use U.S. software and technology.
Kevin Wolf, an attorney at Akin Gump who oversaw export administration at the Commerce Department during the Obama administration, noted the narrow scope of the rules.
If a foreign foundry makes a chip based on a Huawei design and U.S. equipment is used to make a chip then it’s controlled, but if a chip is not made from a Huawei design then it is not controlled, he said.
Huawei did not immediately respond to a request for comment. But China’s official Global Times newspaper threatened countermeasures on Friday.
It said Beijing that could include restrictions on U.S. companies including Qualcomm, Cisco and Apple. It also threatened to suspend purchases of Boeing aircraft.
Global Times noted that the new Commerce rules would block companies such as TSMC, a Taiwainese chip maker, from providing semiconductors to Huawei. TSMC announced plans this week to build a chip plant in Arizona.
It did not immediately respond to an Associated Press query on whether the new rules might alter those plans.
“It seems the U.S. is ratcheting up efforts to pinch China’s high-tech companies, the editorial read, calling it more than just an element of President Donald Trump’s re-election strategy. U.S. suppression has become the No. 1 challenge to China’s development.
India will not allow its share of water from the Indus network of rivers to flow into Pakistan, Minister for Road Transport and Water Resources Nitin Gadkari said on Thursday.
Mr. Gadkari reiterated India’s position that has been under consideration, saying the water from the “eastern rivers” that fell in the Indian share would be diverted to Punjab and Jammu and Kashmir.
As per the Indus Waters Treaty, signed between India and Pakistan in 1960, India has full rights to utilise the waters of the Ravi, the Beas and the Satluj rivers, while the waters of the Indus, the Chenab and the Jhelum belongs to Pakistan.
“Under the leadership of Honourable PM Narendra Modi, our Government has decided to stop our share of water which used to flow to Pakistan. We will divert water from Eastern rivers and supply it to our people in Jammu and Kashmir and Punjab,” Mr. Gadkari tweeted.
Mr. Gadkari announced that the construction of a dam had started at Shahpur-Kanti on the Ravi and the Ujh multi-purpose project would store the Indian share of the water for use in Jammu and Kashmir and the balance water would flow from second the Ravi-Beas link to provide water to other basin States. These schemes had been declared national projects.
On December 6, 2018, the Union Cabinet approved the implementation of the Shahpur-Kanti Dam Project with the allocation of ₹485.38 crore for five years. The project aims to minimise the wastage of water that now goes to Pakistan through the Madhopur Headworks downstream.
The Ujh Project in Kathua, Jammu and Kashmir, aims to irrigate about 30,000 hectares and produce 300 MW electricity from the waters of the Ujh, a tributary of the Ravi.
With inputs from The Hindu
The DPR of Ujh project, which was declared as a national project in 2008, was initially prepared by Indus Basin Organisation of the Central Water Commission in 2013
The Centre has given approval to a modified detailed project report (DPR) of the Ujh Multipurpose Project (MPP) in Jammu and Kashmir at an estimated cost of ₹9,167 crore, an official spokesman said on Saturday.
The Central Advisory Committee for consideration of techno-economic viability of major and medium irrigation, flood control and multipurpose project proposals accepted the project proposal subject to certain conditions, keeping in view its strategic importance from Indus Waters Treaty angle for utilisation and regulation of waters flowing across the border, the spokesman said.
The modified Ujh MPP is located on river Ujh, one of the main tributaries of river Ravi, in Kathua district of Jammu and Kashmir.
A 116.00 metre high dam is proposed at the river with full reservoir level (FRL) at 608 metre.
The proposed dam site is Barbari village about 1.6 km downstream of Panchtirthi. The powerhouse site is approximately 9.5 km downstream of the dam site near Deoli village.
The spokesman said the advisory committee of Department of Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation (DoWR, RD&GR) accorded approval to the modified DPR of the project at a meeting chaired by Union Secretary U P Singh recently.
The DPR of Ujh project, which was declared as a national project in 2008, was initially prepared by Indus Basin Organisation of the Central Water Commission in 2013.
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Total number goes up to 1,013 with Srinagar topping the list
Thirty new COVID-19 cases, nine from the Jammu division and 21 from the Kashmir division, were reported on Friday. The total number of cases in Jammu and Kashmir has gone up to 1,013.
An official said Srinagar topped the list with 153 cases, followed by Anantnag with 145 cases. In the Chenab Valley’s Kishtwar, only one case has been detected so far.
Of the 1,013 cases, 489 are active cases and 513 have recovered and 11 have died, officials said.
Another official said the administration had evacuated 49,218 people through Lakhanpur and brought back 7,264 persons by special trains at Jammu and Udhampur till May 15.
A clash broke out between locals and security forces in south Kashmir’s Pulwama against the ban on Friday prayers during the lockdown.
Eyewitnesses said a group of youth clashed with the forces manning the streets in the Rohimoo area after an attempt to offer prayers at the mosque was foiled.
The locals, according to the eyewitnesses, were demanding that they be allowed to offer congregation prayers at mosques.
All mosques, including the popular Jamia Masjid and Hazratbal Shrine, remained closed in the Valley.
With inputs from The Hindu