QBullet: Pak Warplanes Conduct Military Drill; Maha on High Alert
The Quint’s compilation of the stories making headlines in dailies across the country.
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1. Pakistan is ‘Ivy League of Terror’: India
India on Thursday called Pakistan the “Ivy League of terrorism”, and a senior BJP leader compared Pakistan’s Prime Minister to a terrorist leader, but by evening, the foreign office suggested it still viewed diplomacy as the best option with Islamabad.
Hours after Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif accused India of human rights violations in Kashmir while addressing the United Nations General Assembly last night, India deployed a first secretary-level officer at its UN mission, Eenam Gambhir, to rebut him.
(Source: The Telegraph)
2. Schoolkids Report ‘Suspicious Men’, Maharashtra on High Alert
The Western Naval Command declared a high alert on Thursday along the coastline of Navi Mumbai, Raigad, Mumbai and Thane, after two schoolchildren in Uran reported five-six “suspicious looking” men, who they claimed were carrying weapons and backpacks.
Since the area houses a naval base and an ONGC plant, the Indian Navy, Coast Guard, Maharashtra Police and Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) responded swiftly. Navy helicopters combed the area and an alert was sounded.
Maharashtra Director General of Police Satish Mathur said:
Police have withheld the identities of the two children.
(Source: The Indian Express)
3. Pak Warplanes Take Part in Military Drill Amid Tension with India
Rumours swirled of Pakistan’s armed forces preparing for possible hostilities with India as combat jets participated in a war-game on Thursday. But analysts and commentators in Islamabad ruled out a military confrontation between the two sides.
A Pakistan Air Force (PAF) spokesperson said F-7 and Mirage jets touched down on the M1 Motorway, a 155-km highway linking Peshawar and Rawalpindi, as part of the “Highmark” exercise. Pakistani social media users posted footage of a jet landing on the highway.
Despite officials insisting the exercise had been planned in advance, the closure of airspace and flights by combat jets fuelled rumours that the Pakistani military was preparing for a possible attack in the wake of the terror attack in Uri, that killed 18 Indian soldiers.
(Source: Hindustan Times)
4. Material Issues Are at the Heart of Dalit Politics, says Jignesh Mewani
Jignesh Mewani has become the face of Dalit assertion in Gujarat after leading the protests following the Una incident last July, in which a group of Dalits were brutally assaulted by cow protection vigilantes.
Mewani, who is a leader of the Una Dalit Atyachar Ladhai Samiti, recently led a rasta roko agitation in Ahmedabad demanding that the government give physical possession of the land already allotted to Dalits. The State administration relented and has started mapping the land around Saroda village in Ahmedabad district’s Dholka tehsil, in preparation for handing over around 220 bighas of land to 115 Dalit families of this village.
(Source: The Hindu)
5. Railways Could Be Freed of Populism After Budget Unification
The Modi government’s decision to discontinue the British-era practice of a separate Railway Budget, apart from being intended to encourage better fiscal management, is aimed at freeing the state-run transporter from the clutches of ruinous political populism.
With the Railway Budget often becoming a political gravy train, the state-run transporter was forced to divert resources even as unfinished projects piled up amid popular, but uneconomical announcements.
The “political glamour” of the Rail Ministry attracted the attention of regional political players, who bargained and controlled the portfolio for more than 15 years of coalition government under United Front, NDA and UPA regimes.
(Source: The Times of India)
6. India Weighs Baloch Leader Brahamdagh Bugti’s Asylum Request
In an indication that the government was serious about the Baloch cause, the Home Ministry said on Thursday that it had received Baloch leader Brahamdagh Bugti’s request for an Indian ID card and travel papers and was examining it, a senior official said.
The request was forwarded by the Ministry of External Affairs to the Home Ministry on Wednesday.
The official said that though a time frame could not be given for the request to be processed, it would be done at the earliest.
Bugti will have to undergo multiple layers of verification before he is granted the Indian ID card and travel papers, said the official. The final call will be taken by Prime Minister Narendra Modi himself. India does not have a comprehensive asylum policy and as per the United Nations, there are at least 6,480 asylum seekers in India but the government does not recognise them.
(Source: The Hindu)
7. Congress Hits Out at Nawaz Sharif
The Congress on Thursday pilloried Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif for describing India’s “precondition” for a comprehensive dialogue as “unacceptable”, stressing that sustainable engagement was impossible as long as terrorism was a state policy in Islamabad.
While the Congress’s tough position – constantly maintained since the days of the UPA government – can help quieten the “nationalists”, it can also help it indirectly project the Narendra Modi government as having unnecessarily rushed to engage with Pakistan without any concrete assurances on terrorism.
(Source: The Telegraph)
8. Let O in OBC Stand for Orphans Too, Says NCBC Panel
The National Commission for Backward Classes (NCBC) has passed a resolution stating that destitute orphaned children should be included in the Central list of Other Backward Classes (OBC).
If implemented, this would be the first time that the Central list of OBCs, which provides 27 percent reservation in government schools and jobs, includes a group based on a criteria other than caste or community.
The decision was taken at a recent meeting chaired by NCBC head Justice V Eswaraiah. The affirmative action has been proposed for children, who have lost their parents before reaching the age of 10, and are admitted to government-run or aided schools and orphanages, with no one to take care of them “either by law or custom”.
(Source: The Indian Express)
9. State of Economy: As India Mulls Response to Uri Attack, Macro Indicators Largely Mirror 2001
Soon after the terrorist attack on Parliament on 13 December 2001, Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s government decided to mobilise troops on the border and along the LoC in the face of strident demands to carry out a strike against Pakistan. The movement of troops and armaments was known as Operation Parakaram (Strength or Prowess).
A political decision had been taken to respond to the attack militarily and diplomatically, and Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha had to issue instructions to release funds at a difficult time – there was a deceleration in the global economy, India was facing one of its worst droughts ever, and the 9/11 attacks had plunged the world as a whole into uncertainty.
(Source: The Indian Express)
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