On Wednesday, a fight took place between a group of tribals and a group of Muslim villagers at Dhulabari village of Bihar-Bengal border leading to tribals launching an attack with ‘arrows’ leaving many of the villagers injured.
According to the Dainik Jagran report, a group of Muslims had arrived at the tea estates near Dhulabari village to offer their ‘Namaz’ on the occasion of Eid. The tribals fearing that Muslims had come to occupy their lands attacked them with their traditional weapons of bow and arrow which hit a few people who had come there to offer Namaz.
On the day of Eid, few Muslim villagers were visiting Idgah lands near the village to offer prayers. As soon as they entered the contested lands, the tribals unleashed an attack on the villagers leaving more than 23 injured. During the fight, one of the people was also hit on his chest by an arrow. Reportedly, he was immediately then escorted to the nearest MGM hospital and his condition is serious.
However, according to Live Hindustan, it was actually Muslim villagers who had stormed to the tribal areas to stop them from worshipping. The report says that the Adivasis fearing an attack on them launched an arrow attack leaving many Muslim villagers injured.
The local police soon arrived at the spot and tried to control the situation by attacking the mob with lathis. Reportedly, the police officials also burnt the huts belonging to the tribals. Reacting to the police action, the tribals torched and damaged the police vehicles.
There has been a history of conflicts between the native Muslims and tribals which began as the latter arrived at these villages and illegally occupied the lands bordering the state of Bihar and West Bengal. The tribals and the local villagers have been continuously fighting each other over land issues. The tribal claim that they are deprived of both the lands to cultivate and also they are not included in any government welfare schemes.
On Tuesday, South African star bowler, Dale Steyn was declared unfit due to a shoulder injury and ruled out for the rest of the World Cup.
In the pre-match conference at the Ages Bowl, Faf du Plessis indirectly blamed IPL for Dale Steyn’s injury. He said, “Unfortunately, it happened there in the IPL in those two games that he played there. If Dale Steyn hadn’t gone to the IPL, who knows how it could have been today.”
Dale Steyn played only two games for Royal Challengers Bangalore and was ruled out of the possibility to play in remaining IPL matches due to injury.
Blaming IPL for Steyn’s injury is wrong. Steyn has a long history of injuries.
November 6, in 2015, suffered a groin strain, missed 3 Tests against India
December 28, in 2015, sustained shoulder spasms, missed 3 Tests against England
November 5, in 2016, fractured his right shoulder, missed the next 15 Tests (2 v Australia, 3 v Sri Lanka, 3 v New Zealand, 4 v England, 2 v Bangladesh and 1 v Zimbabwe)
January 4, in 2018, injured his heel, missed 2 Tests against India
April 25, in 2019, injured his right shoulder, missed remaining IPL season, ruled out of Cricket World Cup
This clearly shows Steyn had issues with injuries for a long time. His right shoulder injury in 2016 was so bad that it almost ended his career. He missed 15 straight tests due to that.
Dale Steyn played 4 Tests and 4 ODIs and 2 T20Is, also 2 T20 domestic games in 2019 before playing for RCB in IPL. So how do you conclude that it was just because of the two matches he played IPL is the cause of his injury?
The origin of the injury is not IPL. Whether you like it or not, this was always coming, Steyn was at risk since his shoulder injury in 2016. Dale Steyn had bowled only eight overs in IPL 2019, these many overs a bowler usually bowls during warm-up games for their country in World Cup.
What if Steyn missed out the IPL and have got injured after playing those two warm-up matches? Would Faf have blamed the warm-up games then? A fast bowler is always prone to injuries after a certain age, and Dale Steyn is not young anymore.
So it would have been better if Faf had concentrated more on how to improve and play with the available squad in the World Cup as they are just two losses away from an early World Cup exit.
The Congress party in Rajasthan seems to be in troubled waters as rebellious voices within the party are growing with each passing day. Ever since the party suffered a humiliating defeat in the recently concluded Lok Sabha elections, it is struggling with internal conflicts in Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka, and Rajasthan.
Recently, Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot blamed Deputy Chief Minister Sachin Pilot for the defeat of his son Vaibhav from Jodhpur constituency. Following this development, Congress MLA Prithviraj Meena demanded that Pilot should replace Gehlot. He also recommended Gehlot to take responsibility for the party’s miserable poll performance in the state.
Talking to media persons in party’s Jaipur office today, Meena said, “A Chief Minister is responsible for an election defeat when the party is in power and when it is in the opposition, the responsibility lies with the party president.” Meena accused Gehlot of being obsessed with his son. He condemned Gehlot’s statement asking Pilot to take responsibility of Vaibhav’s defeat in Jodhpur.
Meena blamed Gehlot for the loss and said, “The statement by the Chief Minister is totally wrong and against the interest of the party. He himself should take responsibility for the Jodhpur seat.”
A few days ago another Congress MLA Harish Chandra Meena had gone on hunger strike and had staged a protest against his own party’s government in Rajasthan. The MLA was protesting against the inaction of the government in the death of a truck driver after allegedly being thrashed by the police.
Meanwhile Pilot announced that in the aftermath of the party’s dismal performance in the Lok Sabha elections, booth wise reports have been sought to assess and evaluate the factors leading to the drub.
We have called for booth wise reports to assess what went wrong. Congress President has taken responsibility but it has to be fixed at every level: Deputy CM Rajasthan @SachinPilot. pic.twitter.com/ZUntQ0IBvV
Addressing the media, Pilot said that Congress bagged much fewer seats across the country than expected. He added while Congress President had already taken responsibility for the party’s poor show, more needs to be done in this regard. Therefore, they would prepare a roadmap after analyzing the ground situation in different states in preparation for the upcoming state elections.
Congress failed to win even a single seat out of 25 seats in Rajasthan. In Uttar Pradesh, 63 out of the 67 fielded candidates even lost their deposits.
After a long delay, India cricket fans finally got to see their team playing in the World Cup. And it was a great start to India’s World Cup campaign as they won their opening game handsomely against the Proteas.
After winning the toss, Faf opted to bowl first and why not, side batting first at Southampton in the last ten matches have won eight times. But Bumrah, who was making his debut in World Cup and playing his 50th ODI for India, had some other ideas.
India required just 228 runs to win. But if India had Bumrah; South Africa had Rabada. The pitch was also helping the seamers, and Rababa made sure that India does not get off to a flying start. Rohit, on the other hand, was determined to stay on the wicket and made sure that India reaches the target safely. Rohit’s 122* was later called as his best ODI hundred by the skipper Virat Kohli.
Watch the Run chase (Indian innings)
But it was #TeamIndia‘s day, their successful chase led by a superb ? to @imro45 which included 13 boundaries and a pair of sixes.
Rohit Sharma scored his 23rd ODI hundred; he is now only behind Sachin Tendulkar (49) and Virat Kohli (41) in this list of most ODI hundreds for India.
Rohit Sharma became only the 7th Indian batsman to score 2 or more hundreds in World Cup. The other six are – Tendulkar (6), Ganguly (4), Dhawan (2), Kohli (2), Dravid (2) and Sehwag (2).
Chahal’s 4 for 51 is his 4th best bowling figure in ODIs, also the 6th best bowling figure by a bowler in World Cup against South Africa.
The win against South Africa is 50th ODI win under Kohli’s captaincy. He achieved this feat in his 69th game as captain.
Bumrah played his 50th ODI, India won 39 of those. The second best Indian to win most matches in their first 50 ODIs. Kedar Jadhav has 40 wins in his first 50 ODIs.
Chahal’s 4 for 51 are the best figures so far in the tournament from any bowler who has completed their full allocation of 10 overs.
Communal tensions prevail in Rohanya village in Pilibhit, Uttar Pradesh, after a Muslim mob ransacked a temple to oppose loudspeakers. The mob broke the loudspeaker and took away the idols of the temple along with them. As per reports, five men, Mehboob, Monis, Israel, Azaad and Alanoor have been arrested and a case has been registered for trying to create enmity between religious groups.
At a temple situated on the outskirts of Rohanya temple, people would gather and pray and play devotional songs on the loudspeaker. The village has both, Hindu and Muslim population. At around 9 pm on Tuesday night, a mob reached the temple and asked them to stop using the loudspeaker. They reportedly said that since the next day (yesterday) was Eid, the temple should stop playing devotional songs on the loudspeakers as they want to do namaz. The people in the temple protested saying that the namaz is carried out inside the village.
Agitated, the mob cut off the wire of the loudspeaker and even removed the idols and threw them away. When the priest protested, the mob beat him up as well. After the mob left, the priest and others called up the police which arrived to ensure the communal tension does not escalate. The police even got the idols back inside the temple.
The matter soon escalated and the police had to step in to control the communal tension.
Pilibhit Police had confirmed that in Bilaspur station, a case has been registered against five accused under section 147 (rioting), 295 (injuring or defiling place of worship with intent to insult the religion of any class), 504 (intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of the peace), 506 (criminal intimidation) and 153A (promoting enmity between different groups on ground of religion) of the Indian Penal Code.
उक्त प्रकरण में थाना बीसलपुर पर 5 आरोपियों के विरुद्ध मु0अ0सं0 258/19 धारा 147/295/504/506/153A ipc पंजीकृत कर विवेचना की जा रही है। अभियुक्तों की गिरफ्तारी का प्रयास जारी है।
In throes of worsening economic catastrophe, Pakistan’ military has decided to slash the defense budget in a bid to help the country emerge out of its financial woes. However, Major General Asif Ghafoor, Director General (DG) Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) took to Twitter on Tuesday to suggest that voluntary cuts in the defense budget for next fiscal year would not be at the cost of defense and security.
Voluntary cut in def budget for a year will not be at the cost of def & security. We shall maint effective response potential to all threats.Three services will manage impact of the cut through appropriate internal measures. It was imp to participate in dev of tribal areas & Bln.
— Maj Gen Asif Ghafoor (@OfficialDGISPR) June 4, 2019
Ghafoor termed Indian media ‘fake’ for spinning reports on their internal budgeting choices.
Indian fake media busy spinning on our internal def budgeting choice.Don’t forget,we were the same forces with same budget on 27 Feb 19. We hv the capability & capacity to respond. Remember, it’s not budgeting, it’s resolve of force & the nation firmly standing behind its forces.
— Maj Gen Asif Ghafoor (@OfficialDGISPR) June 5, 2019
Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan appreciated the gesture by Pakistan military of accepting the voluntary cut in the defense budget in the backdrop of a grave financial abyss the country finds itself staring at.
The cash-strapped nation is currently grappling with the worst financial crisis in its history. The recently published World Bank report, which had retained its projection of India’s growth at 7.5% per annum for the next three fiscal years had predicted the growth of South Asia countries except for Pakistan, whose growth it is set to drop at 2.7% in the FY19-20.
Such is the gravity of the economic crisis in Pakistan that on the occasion of Eid, PM appealed to the people of Pakistan to stand united and help overcome the dire economic situation.
Eid Mubarak to my Pakistanis. Wishing you all a Happy Eid. Let us all resolve to to stand up as a united nation to overcome our economic crisis while putting the least amount of burden on the poorer section of our society.
Since the time of his election as Pakistan Prime Minister, Khan has been negotiating with world leaders to winkle out bail packages and temporarily assuage the looming economic disaster without much help. A conducive environment for terrorism to spawn and flourish has also added to the woes of Pakistan as investors have remained away from the terror-prone country.
Pakistan is in desperate straits as economists’ predict its economy is on the brink of collapse. The former finance minister of Pakistan, Asad Umar believes that the only solution to Pakistan’s problems is a bailout by the International Monetary Fund (IMF). He opines the balance of payment crisis presently faced by Pakistan is unprecedented and approaching IMF for a bailout is unavoidable. However, he did acknowledge that the conditions laid down by the Fund were far more strict compared to the previous occasions.
To deal with the current situation, Islamabad is finalizing a bailout package from the IMF to ward off the Balance of Payment crisis, notwithstanding short term loans of more than a billion from allies such as China and Saudi Arabia. The precarious situation that Pakistan finds itself in dictates the military’s move of cuts in the defense budget for the next fiscal year rather than the lofty ideals of inclusiveness and tribal development as stated by Ghafoor.
We had reported earlier that China is making efforts to help its friend and neighbour Pakistan and has decided to give USD 2.1 billion in loan to help Pakistan revive its sinking economy.
Feeling dejected and angry after their ‘hate crime’ propaganda was busted, Newslaundry CEO Abhinandan Sekhri, a free-trial version of multi-talented ‘intellectual’ Yogendra Yadav, now seems to have resorted to making cheap slurs against journalist Swati Goel Sharma by calling her ‘hysterical’ for presenting facts.
Swarajya journalist Swati Goel Sharma had written a report based on ground reports regarding the alleged scuffle in Gurugram between two individuals, which was initially propped by the media as a hate crime despite the fact that there were no signs of communal angle whatsoever.
As many ‘liberal-secular’ media had already sat on a narrative to push their agenda to target the Hindus for alleged hate crime on Mohammad Barkat Alam in Gurugram, the timely reportage by Swati Goel Sharma in Swarajya had cleared some air regarding the true nature of the incident. Along with other media houses, Newslaundry, which is fighting for relevance and existence, had also used the opportunity to target the Hindu community by implying that the attack on Alam was an example of ‘hate crime’.
In fact, Newslaundry came up with its own ‘ground report‘ following Swarajya’s ground report to imply that the Swarajya report covering the alleged attack on Alam in the recent ‘topi’ incident at Gurugram had some discrepancies. In the report, which reads more like a ‘revenge report’, instead of countering Swarajya’s report on facts, tried to cast aspersions on Swati’s reportage.
Swarajya’s Swati Goel Sharma tore into Newslaundry’s biased reportage through a series of tweets.
This pompous piece on Gurugram Muslim man case says that “a report in Swarajya also insinuated that Khan might have tutored Alam during a visit to Delhi”.
I think it’s the NL reporter @sighyush who needs some lessons in what’s insinuation and what’s reportage
However, when Swati lashed out on Newslaundry’s biased reportage which cast aspersions on her credibility as a journalist, Sekhri thought such a reaction defending one’s reportage was ‘hysteria’.
? no, but the hysterical thread was fun.
— Abhinandan Sekhri (@AbhinandanSekhr) June 5, 2019
Swati Goel Sharma in her report had further highlighted the fact that how victim Alam had changed his statements by presenting two sets of stories – one to the police during filing the FIR where he had not mentioned about the group forcing him to chant “Jai Shri Ram” slogans, while making new set of claims to the media in Delhi claiming that he was forced to raise Hindu religious slogans during the scuffle.
Even Gurugram Police Commissioner Mohammad Akil had held a press conference to clarify that many of Barkat’s allegations do not match with his statement in the FIR as well as with the footage obtained from CCTV cameras. The police had even hinted that the victim may have been tutored to change his statements pertaining to the incident.
As reported by Swarajya, Murtaza, one of the cousins of the victim had revealed that Haji Shahzad Khan of the controversial and communal group Muslim Ekta Manch had met Alam without his knowledge and took his cousin to Delhi. Interestingly, Murtaza had expressed his anguish over Khan using Alam to make videos to highlight the incident.
Perhaps people at Newslaundry wanted to hide this fact and hence took offence against the citing of Murtaza’s statements. In their report, they went on to term Murtaza statement against Haji Shahzad Khan as Swarajya’s ‘insinuation’.
A screenshot from Newslaundry’s report. Click on the image for bigger resolution.
Further, the Newslaundry reporter has used his creative discretion to term Murtaza statements as “poor recollection” of facts while dictating Swati Goel Sharma on the manner of reporting to be followed. Interestingly, the reporter at Newslaundry has selectively quoted Murtaza whenever it suited his agenda, but calls it as a “poor collection of facts” whenever it busts his propaganda.
As facts pertaining to the case began to emerge, outfits like Newslaundry seem to have got upset and begun to shoot the messenger by twisting ground reports. This was further pepped with Newslaundry’s CEO Abhinandan Sekhri brazening it out and indeed choosing to attack those who counter his outfit’s shenanigans.
Sekhri is a long-term aide of Aam Aadmi Party chief Arvind Kejriwal. He had co-founded the NGO ‘Public Cause Research Foundation’ which eventually evolved into ‘India Against Corruption’ movement that gave birth to AAP. He also co-founded Newslaundry, a self-declared media watchdog, which has till now deleted at least two of its own reports as they went against self-declared ‘liberal’ journalists.
A woman was shot dead this morning by terrorists in Kakapora area of Pulwama district in Jammu and Kashmir. She was immediately rushed to a nearby hospital where she was declared brought dead. According to the police, terrorists barged into the woman’s house and opened fire. This information was shared by the Kashmir Zone Police on Twitter.
— Kashmir Zone Police (@KashmirPolice) June 5, 2019
The victim who was identified as Nigeena Bano died on the spot while another civilian named Mohammad Sultan suffered serious injuries. He was referred to Srinagar hospital where he is currently being treated for his injuries.
“Both the civilians received critical gunshot wounds. Both were evacuated to a nearby hospital for medical treatment. However, Nigeena Bano succumbed to her injuries,” a police official confirmed.
Innocent civilians and security personnel have become easy and frequent targets for terrorist attacks in the state. A Special Police of Officer (SPO) of J&K police named Khushboo Jan was shot dead by terrorists in March this year in a similar style. A few days later in the same month, a 24-year old man from Bemnipora in Shopian was brutally killed by terrorists. The body of the victim identified as Tanveer Ahmed Dar was found in Kachdoora.
Delhi Police has categorically denied media reports claiming that a speeding car had rammed into people offering namaz in the Khureji area of East Delhi causing injuries to at least 17 persons on Wednesday when Eid was being celebrated. News agency IANS had reported the incident, which was then picked up by various news publications.
The report by IANS had quoted a statement from Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP) Shahadara, Meghna Yadav confirming the injury of 17 people in the incident. This report was further picked up by publications including The Quint, India Today, India TV and Business Standard making similar claims.
However, DCP Yadav has categorically denied making such claims. When OpIndia spoke to DCP Meghna Yadav to get a confirmation, she denied giving such a statement to any news agency and termed it a ‘lie’.
“They are all lying, whichever media portal is quoting my statement claiming 17 injuries. There is no one injured,” clarified DCP Yadav in conversation with Opindia. “Three people walked into the police station much later after the incident claiming they were injured. But there was no visible injury,” she further added.
All the three who claimed to have been injured were later sent for medical examination.
DCP Yadav divulged that the place where the incident happened usually remains crowded but no namaz was being offered at the time when a speeding car passed through the area. In fact, people who were offering the prayers had already dispersed by that time.
Incidentally, the claim of injury was picked up mostly by the English media, while some reports in the Hindi media had clarified that no one was injured and no car had hit people offering namaz on Eid day.
A report in Amar Ujala for example had carried the statement by Delhi police officer that no one was injured. The report further said that the crowd assembled for namaz had indulged in stone pelting to protest the speeding car, which they feared could have caused grievous injuries to the faithfuls.
Meanwhile, some videos claiming to have captured the violent protests by the namazis have gone viral on social media:
हुड़दंग मचाकर, बसों में तोड़फोड़ कर के, आम लोगों को परेशान करके ईद नहीं मनाई जाती! ईद तो शांति और भाईचारे का प्रतीक है… दिल्ली के नमाज़ियों ने आज जिस तरह से हुड़दंग किया वो ईद मनाने का तरीक़ा बिलकुल ग़लत है pic.twitter.com/woM083N5Sp
The World Bank has stated that the India Economy is poised to retain a 7.5 per cent growth for the next three years on the back of strong investment and private consumption.
In its Global Economic Prospects released by the International Bank on Tuesday, it pegged India’s growth in the fiscal year 2018-2019 at 7.2 per cent. It also stated that the stagnation in government consumption was counterbalanced by robust investment, that benefitted from public infrastructure spending.
The Bank has asserted that the growth in the Indian economy will remain at 7.5 per cent, unchanged from the previous forecast, and will remain same for the next two fiscal periods, making it the world’s fastest growing economy for the next 3 years. China, on the other hand, is experiencing headwinds in its economy, with its growth rate for FY19 projected to drop to 6.2 per cent and then subsequently to 6.1 per cent in 2020 and 6 per cent in 2021.
The report mentions that the private consumption and investment will gain from rising credit growth amid more accommodative monetary policy, with inflation having dropped below the Reserve Bank of India’s target. It also added that the Support from delays in planned fiscal consolidation at the central level should partially offset the effects of political uncertainty around elections.
The outlook for South Asia remains positive with regional GDP expected to expand to 6.9 per cent in 2019, 0.2 percentage point down from previous predictions due to downward revisions for Pakistan, but it will rise up to 7 per cent in 2020 and 7.1 per cent in 2021. Pakistan’s growth is expected to slow down further at 2.7 per cent in FY19-20.
The Washington-based lender has observed the military clash between the two South-Asian neighbours in mid-February this year remained contained and the economic ramifications were not substantial. However, it added that rekindling of tensions between the two neighbours can fuel uncertainty, deflate the investors from investing in the region, an apparent remark for the Pulwama attack and the retaliatory Balakot airstrikes by India.
It further added that the comprehensive implementation of GST in India is yet to be complete and hence there is ambiguity about the GST revenue. The report mentioned that the contribution of exports to economic activity is expected to remain weak with moderate global trade growth.
