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Indian Railways announces resumption of 200 trains from June 1, bookings to start from May 21

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Indian Railways announces resumption of 200 trains from June 1, bookings to start from May 21

The Railways on Wednesday decided to resume services of its passenger trains and issued a list of 100 pairs of trains that it will operate from June 1. The bookings for the tickets will begin from May 21 at 10 am, the Railway Minister added.

Reportedly, seventeen Jan Shatabdi trains, five Durontos and other mail or express trains will resume its operation from various parts of India from June 1 in the second phase of graded resumption of passenger train operations in India.

The decision to allow trains to resume operations comes after the Modi government announced the resumption of domestic flight services, in a phased manner.

Railway Minister Piyush Goyal took to Twitter on Tuesday to announce the decision. The Indian Railways will run 100 pairs of trains— to and fro. The bookings will open on Thursday, 21 May and booking can be made 30 days in advance. The tickets can only be booked from the IRCTC website.

Meanwhile, Indian Railways has also issued some guidelines to be followed during the resumption of railway services across the country. The Railways also ordered that the food stalls and canteens at stations are to be opened, bringing back some normalcy on railway stations.

Reportedly, the five Durontos will run from Howrah to Yesvantpur, Sealdah to Puri, Shalimar to Patna, Ernakulam to Nizamuddin and Secunderabad to Nizamuddin. The trains will connect tier-two cities across India as well as metros and capital cities.

These trains will be fully reserved trains having both AC and Non-AC classes. The general coaches will also be reserved seats for sitting. Most importantly, there will be no unreserved coaches on the trains.

“Fare shall be as normal and for General (GS) coaches, being reserved, second seating(2S) fare shall be charged and seat will be provided to all the passengers,” Railways said.

Second phase of resumption of trains

Earlier, the Indian Railways had announced the gradual resumption of passenger train services in the country. In first phase, 15 pairs of trains, which will mean a total of 30 return journeys were opened for booking for general passengers, unlike the Shramik special trains which are booked by individual state governments to transport people stranded at various places due to the coronavirus Lockdown.

The Indian Railways had also started running special trains, named Shramik Special trains, on the exclusive request of state governments to enable migrant labours, pilgrims, students and others to reach their native places after remaining stranded at various places for over a month due to the lockdown.

Haryana Congress leader Pankaj Punia arrested by police over abusive, Hinduphobic tweet

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Haryana Congress leader Pankaj Punia arrested by police over abusive, Hinduphobic tweet

A day after his hateful and bigoted tweet created garnered heavy criticism on social media, Haryana Congress leader Pankaj Punia has been arrested by the police. As per reports, Punia was arrested by the Haryana police hours after an FIR was filed against him in Lucknow.

In his attempts to criticise UP CM Yogi Adityanath, Punia had used vile, derogatory slurs against saffron-clad Hindus, and had defiled religious slogans. In a tweet, he had written “Congress had wanted to run buses to help poor migrants, but the Bisht government started politicising the matter. Only Bhagwa-clad Sanghis can do such neech (lowly, disgraceful) activities.

He had further written, “These people, (saffron-clad Hindus) are the ones who exhume corpses and rape them. They get naked in front of their daughters and masturbate while chanting Jai Shri Ram slogans.”

Punia’s tweet

Multiple FIRs

Multiple FIRs have been filed against Punia for his vile remarks targeting religion and beliefs. Apart from the FIR in Lucknow, FIRs have also been filed in Noida and Delhi, and Aligarh too. The FIR in Lucknow, filed at Hazratganj police station, has charges under 153 A, 295A, 505 (2) IPC and 67 of IT act. In Lucknow, the FIR was filed by the UP police cyber cell.

As per reports, Punia will be presented in court today. Some reports say that he will soon be handed over to the UP police.

Congress’ bus list fiasco

Punia’s tweet was in response to the congress political stunt that was exposed by the UP government. Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi had claimed that her party will make 1000 buses available to ferry migrant workers. After the UP government agreed to their ‘offer’ Congress ad provided a list of vehicles.

But the list was found to contain the numbers of auto-rickshaws, trucks, ambulances etc, while details of many vehicles were not available. Some two-wheelers and blacklisted vehicles were also listed. Congress leaders had gone berserk after the political stunt did not fan out as they expected and had resorted to vile allegations and threats against journalists, bureaucrats, even their spouses, UP government and BJP.

NIA arrests Hizbul terrorist accused of murdering BJP leader and brother in Kashmir

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NIA arrests Hizbul terrorist accused of murdering BJP leader and brother in Kashmir

The terror watchdog National Intelligence Agency has nabbed a Hizbul Mujahideen terrorist from Jammu and Kashmir, who is accused in the murder of BJP leader Anil Parihar and his brother Ajeet Parihar.

According to NIA, the terrorist is named Rustam Ali, a 56-year old militant from Hizbul Mujahideen. He was later produced before special NIA court and was sent to seven day NIA custody.

BJP leader Anil Parihar and his brother Ajeet Parihar were murdered in Kishtwar on November 1, 2018, by the terrorist organization Hizbul. The NIA registered the case on November 28, 2018. Rustam Ali was arrested by the NIA on May 19, 2020. Rustam Ali was also wanted in another terror case of Kishtwar that was registered by the NIA.

The NIA stated, “Charge-sheet against seven accused persons, including three arrested accused persons namely Nisar Ahmad Sheikh, Nishad Ahmad Butt, and Azad Hussain and the absconding accused Rustam Ali was submitted in NIA special court in Jammu on May 15, 2020.”

The arrest was made after a tip-off about his presence in the outer area of Kishtwar town and an NIA team was sent to arrest him.

The NIA claimed that the investigation of the two cases revealed a greater conspiracy of these terrorists and their over ground workers of the banned outfit in a mission to revive terrorism in the Chenab valley region.

“Boom” in Bengaluru: Indian Air Force says it may have been an IAF jet going supersonic causing the loud noise

OpIndia Staff
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“Boom” in Bengaluru: Indian Air Force says it may have been an IAF jet going supersonic causing the loud noise

The southern metropolis of Bengaluru was today sent into a tizzy after large parts of the city were rocked with the mysterious sound of “boom”. Subsequently, social media was rife with videos of the incident as people started speculating the cause of the grating sound. Many netizens conjectured that the loud inexplicable noise that they heard in Bengaluru could be of a sonic boom.

Now, the Indian Air Force has issued a muted clarification, confirming that it was an IAF fighter jet going supersonic that caused the boom over Bengaluru today. IAF said that while jets fly at supersonic speeds beyond city limits, the noise was heard in the city due to reduced noise levels caused by the lockdown, as well the weather condition.

“No aircraft of Training Command was flying in the area. However, ASTE and HAL could have been undertaking their routine test flying, which necessitates going supersonic at times. These are done well beyond the city limits in specified sectors,” the statement released by the IAF read.

The statement further added, “However, considering the atmospheric conditions and reduced levels of noise levels in the city during these times, the aircraft sound may become clearly audible even if it happened way out of the city.”

In a subsequent tweet, journalist Shiv Aroor also stated that the language used by the IAF in its clarification is the closest categorical confirmation that one can elicit on a sensitive issue like this.

Sonic boom in Bengaluru

Earlier today, Bengaluru witnessed a loud sound akin to that of a huge crash was heard in large swathes of the city at around 1:20 PM in the afternoon. Several citizens who felt their window panes vibrating and building shaking made panic-stricken call to police describing the strange incident. Others took to social media to express their shock and bewilderment about the incident.

The sonic boom is a sound which is created when an object moves faster than the speed of the sound. When a supersonic jet accelerates and crosses the speed of the sound, it creates shock waves, which creates a very loud boom noise. The shock waves also cause windows and other objects in the vicinity to the shack, which can be a frightening experience, and due to which people may mistake it for an earthquake.

Due to this reason, generally, planes are not allowed to go supersonic over residential areas, but sometimes they need to do it, and today’s incident can be one such occasion. It may be noted that there is air force base near Bengaluru, and the fighter planes routinely fly from that base. As speculated, such a fighter plane, most probably a Mirage 2000, caused the sonic boom today afternoon over the Karnataka capital.

Kolkata: Rebuked by mother for spending too much time on mobile phone, 13-year-old girl commits suicide

OpIndia Staff
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Kolkata: Rebuked by mother for spending too much time on mobile phone, 13-year-old girl commits suicide

A 13-year-old girl studying in a reputable English medium school in Salt Lake area in Kolkata was found hanging from her three-storey apartment Monday allegedly after she was scolded by her mother. The incident took place in Salt Lake’s DA block.

The mother had allegedly rebuked the child for spending too much time chatting on her mobile phone.

13-year-old Kolkata girl scolded for chatting 

The 13-year-old girl stayed with her parents and elder brother on the third floor of her home in Kolkata’s Salt Lake area.

On Monday evening, the girl’s mother scolded her for spending too much time chatting on her mobile phone. After being reprimanded, the 13-year-old girl’s mother went to her room on the third floor of the house. At around 10 pm, the girl’s mother came back downstairs to check on her. The girl’s mother found her daughter hanging from the ceiling fan with a dupatta.

The girl was rushed to the Bidhannagar sub-divisional hospital where she was declared brought dead. 

Kolkata police said that though no note had been found near the body, initial autopsy report hints at suicide. “Preliminarily, it looks like a case of suicide. ” a senior official working at the Bidhannagar City Police said that they are waiting for the final post-mortem report to ascertain the actual reason behind the 13-year-old girl’s death. 

Maharashtra: Naxals in Gadchiroli sets four trucks on fire

OpIndia Staff
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Maharashtra: Naxals in Gadchiroli sets four trucks on fire

Banned left-wing terror outfit CPI-Maoist set four trucks on fire in Maharashtra’s Gadchiroli late night on Tuesday and gave a call for bandh on Wednesday.

The attack comes days after senior female leader, Surjanakka, of Naxalites was eliminated by security forces in Gadchiroli’s encounter. The Naxal leader Sujanakka alias Chinakka alias Jaini (48) had Rs 16 lakh bounty on her head. In the protest against her encounter, the Naxalites called for a complete shutdown. The incident of burning trucks took place in the area of Savargaon police station, which is adjacent to the police station.

It is notable that a large number of Naxalites were present at the place where the trucks were set on fire. Reportedly, Naxalites carried out a massive encounter three days ago in South Gadchiroli in which two police personnel were martyred. Today, the Naxalites have registered their presence by arson in the North Gadchiroli. Teams to tackle against the Naxals have departed.

May 2 encounter in Gadchiroli

The Women commander of the banned Naxal outfit Communist Party of India (Maoist) was eliminated in the encounter by the security forces. She was in the most wanted list of the Maharashtra police, Telangana police, and also Chattisgarh police with a bounty of Rs 16 lakh on her head. 144 serious offences were registered against her including ambushes on police and civilian murders. She had joined the Naxal movement in 1988 and was the wife of CPI (Maoist) leader Devji.

As per reports, C-60 commandoes were conducting a search operation in the jungles of Sinbhatti under Pendhra division when they were attacked by the maoists. The commnados retaliated and the encounter went on for an hour.

During the search operation, the security forces discovered a Maoist camp which was set up by Maoists who had planned to carry out the attacks on the security personnel. An AK-47, a Claymore mine, a pressure cooker, and Naxal literature was found from the spot.

Congress suspends Rae Bareli MLA Aditi Singh from the post of General Secretary in party’s woman wing after she rebuked party on migrant bus row

OpIndia Staff
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Congress suspends Rae Bareli MLA Aditi Singh from the post of General Secretary in party’s woman wing after she rebuked party on migrant bus row

Hours after Congress MLA from Rae Bareli Aditi Singh slammed her own party for playing “cheap politics” over the list of buses for migrant workers, the Congress party has suspended Singh from the position of General Secretary of the women’s wing of the Congress party and has initiated anti-disciplinary action against her. Singh is the National In-charge of Priyadarshini, the Congress women’s wing.

“MLA Aditi Singh has been suspended from the position of General Secretary of Congress women’s wing,” reported ANI quoting a party source.

A complaint against Singh is already pending with the Assembly Speaker of Uttar Pradesh. The party has also requested for disqualification of her MLA status. “This was decided at the time when she had a meeting with Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath and attended the Assembly session, against the party’s will,” added sources.

The party has notified Singh regarding its decision and a response from her is awaited.

Aditi Singh had lashed out at her own party for the migrant bus row

Earlier in the day, Aditi Singh had lashed out at her own party for playing “cheap politics” over the issue of arranging 1,000 buses by general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra to ferry stranded migrant labourers to their homes amid coronavirus lockdown.

In a tweet today she condemned Congress for playing petty politics at the time of such a disaster. She wrote that in the list of 1000 buses provided by Congress, a staggering 297 vehicles are junk buses, 98 of it are auto-rickshaws or other vehicles like trucks and ambulances and 68 vehicles are without papers.

She castigated her party for making a “cruel joke” of the critical situation the country is in due to the coronavirus outbreak. She went on to praise Uttar Pradesh CM Yogi Adityanath for being empathetic towards the migrant student and arranging for buses to bring them back from Kota to Uttar Pradesh, unlike the Congress. 

Congress had sought disqualification of the Rae Bareli MLA

It is pertinent to note here that Congress leader Aditi Singh had earlier too had miffed her party members after she defied the party call to boycott the special assembly session called by the BJP in UP Assembly to discuss sustainable development goals defined by the UN in October last year. Singh’s chutzpah had irked the Congress party to an extent that it had sought her disqualification in November last year after issuing a show-cause notice against her.

Cabinet approves Atmanirbhar Bharat package for the allocation of food grains, 8 crore migrant workers to benefit

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Cabinet approves Atmanirbhar Bharat package for the allocation of food grains, 8 crore migrant workers to benefit

The Union Cabinet has approved a part of Atmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyan that includes an allocation for food grains to the stranded migrant workers, slated to benefit over 8 crores people living in other states. While revealing a tranche of the economic relief package, finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman had declared that the government will provide 5 kg of grains per person per month for two months free of cost.

The centre released a statement on Wednesday clarifying, “It would entail an estimated food subsidy of about Rs 2,982.27 crore. As per reports, the expenditure towards intra-state transportation and handling charges and dealer’s margin / additional dealer margin will account for about Rs 127.25 crore which will be borne fully by Central Government. Accordingly, the total subsidy from the Government of India is estimated at about Rs 3,109.52 crore.”

Earlier Sitharaman had said, “Migrants who are neither registered under national food security act or state card beneficiaries will be provided 5 kg of grains per person and 1 kg chana per family per month for two months.”

The state governments to carry out implementation

The State governments will be identifying the migrants, distribute the grains, will be conducting the complete implementation of this part of the scheme, and come back with the required guidelines. About 8 crores of migrants will be benefitted from this move.

Besides that, to enable migrants to access the public distribution system from any fair price shop in India by 2021, a technology-driven system will be in operation.

Sitharaman further added, “This scheme will enable the migrant beneficiary to access PDS from any fair price shop in the country,” Sitharaman had said. As of now 67 crore beneficiaries in 23 states amounting to 83 percent of the PDS population have been included in the scheme. “All states will complete full fair price shop automation by March 2021.”

This is approved at a moment when those migrants who have ration cards but are stranded in the other states are not being able to avail food grains from the fair price shops because of being registered in their natives.

Allocation of food grains for the migrant labourers in the Atmanirbhar Bharat package

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had announced free food grains to the migrant workers across the country who have been amongst the worst-affected sections of the population from the economic tailspin caused by the coronavirus outbreak in the second tranche of the economic relief package.

A total of 9 announcements were made in the second tranche, which included free food grains to migrant workers for 2 months, national portability of ration cards, which permitted people to take ration from any public distribution unit in the country.

TikTok faces huge backlash due to videos promoting assault on women as its Play Store rating drops to 1.3, NCW calls for a ban

OpIndia Staff
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TikTok faces huge backlash due to videos promoting assault on women as its Play Store rating drops to 1.3, NCW calls for a ban

The social media platform TikTok where users share short-videos witnessed a huge fallout after it was massively reported by users after several incidents of the platform being used for glorifying various crimes emerged in recent times. The app’s rating on Google Play Store dropped swiftly from 4.6 to 1.3. A war had broken out some days ago between the TikTok’s so-called social media influencers and the Youtube content creators that led to a series of revelations about the way TikTok is being used to glorify the worst crimes such as the acid attack on women and animal abuse.

Owing to the absurd, insensitive and hateful content, the demand for the ban of the app has been growing. The National Commission for Women(NCW) Chairperson Rekha Sharma has recently written to the social media platform Tiktok regarding a video in which the users are glorifying an acid attack on women. The video was taken down by the uploader, and later the user’s account was suspended by TikTok.

NCW says the app should be banned

Rekha Sharma alleged that several videos related to violence against women have been shared on this platform. Taking to Twitter, she said that she’s keeping a strong opinion that this platform should be banned.

She asserted that she will be writing to GOI in the matter. “It not only has these objectionable videos but it is also pushing youngsters towards an unproductive life where they are living only for few followers and even dying when the numbers decrease”, She further added.

TikTok responded

Rekha Sharma said that a video drew her attention in which a user seemed to be throwing acid on women. She said, “we wrote to Tik Tok to take it down and they cooperated. Soon, we were shown hundreds of videos with abusive content — videos inferring rape, domestic abuse, and molestation. We got in touch with TikTok and showed them some more of the videos; we are waiting for their response.”

The spokesperson of Tik Tok told IANS, “Keeping people on TikTok safe is a top priority and we make it clear in our Terms of Service and Community Guidelines that clearly outline what is not acceptable on our platform. According to the policy, we do not allow content that risks the safety of others, promotes physical harm or glorifies violence against women.”

TikTok which is owned by the Chineses firm name ByteDance had over two million downloads and earlier had 4.6 rating at the google play store. But now the app rating is only 1.3 owing to mass downvoting by users. It was also accredited as the best social media app. It has more than 600 million users in India.

TikTok as a propaganda tool

TikTok, the popular vertical format short video app, is well known for talent, comedy and lip sync videos. Initially, most videos uploaded on the app mostly featured dance and other talent, comedies, lip-syncs etc. But as any social media platform, controversial content started appearing in this app also. Apart from short videos that glorify assault on women, the app was also widely misused to spread misinformation during the initial days of Coronavirus outbreak. Hundreds of videos had appeared claiming that the virus will not affect those who worship Allah properly by doing five times namaz, and that Coronavirus is actually sent by Allah to punish ‘kafirs’. Muslim youths were seen mocking the Coronavirus in their videos, saying that they don’t need masks as their God will protect them.

Domestic flights to begin operations from May 25 in a calibrated manner: Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri

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Domestic flights to begin operations from May 25 in a calibrated manner: Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri

The Narendra Modi government on Wednesday announced that domestic flight operations will recommence in a calibrated manner from 25 May.

The Union Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri took to Twitter to make the announcement. He added that all the standard operating protocols (SOPs) for passenger movement is also being separately issued by the Ministry of Civil Aviation.

Limited operations

Reportedly, the Airports Authority of India (AAI), which is responsible for managing civil aviation infrastructure in the country has also finalised its standard operating procedure for the resumption of commercial flights operations.

The state-run authority, which handles air traffic control services across India, expects 30% scheduled flights to get operational in the initial days, especially between big cities and expects to gradually scale up the operations. Similarly, airlines are likely to operate between tier-I cities initially.

Earlier, the national carrier Air India (AI) had also asked its pilots and cabin crew details to be ready to resume operations once lockdown is over by mid-May this year.

The SOP also stated that at initially only one terminal shall be used in airports with more than one terminal. The larger terminal will be reduced to ensure proper sanitation considering the limited availability of material resources. Strict social distancing norms will be introduced inside the planes to ensure space between two passengers.

India has suspended international flights since March 22 while domestic flights were prohibited from March 25. The current lockdown period is scheduled until May 3 for now.

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