Category: Articles

American aerospace major Boeing on Monday announced the arrival of two new heavy-lift Chinook helicopters for the Indian Air Force at the Mundra port in Gujarat.

The Indian Air Force has ordered 15 Chinooks and the first four helicopters arrived in February.

The IAF had placed the order in 2015 along with 22 Apache attack helicopters

“Two new CH-47F (I) Chinooks for the @IAF_MCC squadron arrive at the Indian shores. The advanced multi-mission helicopter will provide the Indian armed forces unmatched strategic airlift capability,” Boeing India tweeted.

The CH-47 Chinook is an advanced multi-mission helicopter. The Chinook has unsurpassed ability to deliver heavy payloads to high altitudes, and is eminently suitable for operations in the high Himalayas. The aircraft has been battle-tested in diverse, extreme conditions throughout the world, and has proven capability to operate in the wide range of conditions that typify the Indian subcontinent,” the company said.

When finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s Budget speech omitted numbers relating to the government’s overall revenue and expenditure, for both the previous and current years, this was widely commented on. After all, these numbers are the reason for having a Budget speech in the first place – to provide parliament and the general public a quick overview of the state of the Central government’s finances. Her response to this criticism was that all these numbers are available in the supplementary material provided in the Budget documents, so there is no need to go into them in the speech.

But most people do not go through the supplementary material, and that is why finance ministers typically provide a basic summary. But now a more serious reason for this omission has appeared, because it turns out that the numbers provided in the documents – at least as far as the revenue and expenditure of the previous year (2018-19) are concerned – are not just misleading but actually false.

The proof of this comes in the finance ministry’s own Economic Survey of 2018-19. Volume II contains a statistical appendix, in which Table 2.5 on Page A59 provides the receipts and expenditure of the Central government. The last column of this table provides the ‘provisional actuals’ – that is to say, the real amounts as per the finance ministry’s own calculations – for the year 2018-19. (Since this Survey was brought out in July, rather than in February or March, it gave ample time for the ministry to record the actual receipts and spending of the fiscal year that ended on March 31, 2019.) These are presumably the numbers emanating from the office of the Comptroller General of Accounts and therefore must be taken to be correct.

 As the JD(S)-Congress coalition government in Karnataka teetered on the brink of collapse, all the ministers quit Monday to give a free hand to Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy to reshuffle his Cabinet to include rebel MLAs while two Independent legislators also withdrew their support.

There was no immediate word from the rebel camp on the move to reshuffle the Cabinet in a bid to save the wobbly 13-month-old government, as the action shifted to Goa from Mumbai after 13 dissident MLAs — 10 of the Congress and 3 of the JD(S) — submitted their resignations to the Assembly Speaker’s office on Saturday triggering a fresh political crisis.

Of the 13 MLAs, 10 — seven of them from the Congress — were holed up in a luxury hotel in Mumbai since Saturday and were joined by H Nagesh, one of the two Independent MLAs and a minister who quit, on Monday. All the legislators were headed to Goa by road.

Sources in Mumbai said the legislators were being accompanied by Mohit Bhartiya, president of the Mumbai BJP Yuva Morcha. According to JD(S) sources in Bengaluru, the party MLAs were being taken to a resort on the outskirts of the city.

The two Independent MLAs–H Nagesh and R Shankar–who were made ministers less than a month ago in a bid to give stability to the government resigned and extended support to the BJP, as resort politics returned to haunt the crisis-hit coalition.

Amid an allegation by Congress leader D K Shivakumar that the BJP ‘hijacked’ Nagesh, all eyes were on Speaker Ramesh Kumar, who is expected to examine on Tuesday the resignations by the 13 MLAs submitted to him on Saturday that triggered the latest political crisis in the state.

The ruling coalition faces the threat of losing its majority if the resignations of the 13 rebel MLAs are accepted. The JD(S)-Congress coalition’s total strength after Nagesh and Shankar withdrew support is 116 (Congress-78, JD(S)-37 and BSP-1) besides the Speaker.

With the support of the two independents, the BJP has 107 MLAs in the 224-member House, where the half-way mark is 113. If the resignations of the 13 MLAs are accepted, the coalition’s tally will be reduced to 103. The Speaker also has a vote.

Fighting hard to save one of its few state governments, Congress took the lead holding the meeting at the residence of Deputy Chief Minister G Parameshwara, which was attended by senior leaders, including AICC general secretary K C Venugopal.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) held its Parliamentary Party meeting in the national capital on Tuesday. The meeting was chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and had Union Home Minister Amit Shah, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, BJP Working President Jagat Prakash Nadda and other senior party leaders in attendance.

Prime Minister Modi issued several directives to the BJP MPs during the meeting. This was BJP’s first parliamentary party meeting under Modi 2.0. The meeting was earlier scheduled to take place last Tuesday, but it was cancelled due to sudden demise of BJP’s Rajasthan unit chief Madan Lal Saini. Usually when Parliament is in session, the BJP parliamentary party meeting takes place every Tuesday.

Xiaomi is going to make the Mi CC9 and Mi CC9e official at an event in China tomorrow, on July 2. Ahead of that, the company’s official Weibo account has decided to ramp up the fans’ excitement by posting the first official image of the two phones, showing both of their backs. Here it is for your viewing pleasure:

As you can see, there’s a subtle pattern on the Mi CC9e’s back, in this white-ish color version, whereas the Mi CC9 in blue has light waves dancing on it. These effects will probably vary according to how light hits the rear of each device, but they’re still interesting, as we’re moving towards more and more unique designs from this specific point of view.

The Mi CC9 and CC9e are the first products of Xiaomi’s cooperation with Meitu, a smartphone brand that was focused on selfies, and which it acquired. In fact, there’s rumored to be a special Meitu edition of the CC9 series.

The company says the CC9 and CC9e will have 3D glass bodies, with a perfect fit in your palm. The Mi CC9 is rumored to have a 6.39-inch FHD+ OLED screen and the following dimensions: 156.8 x 74.5 x 8.67 mm. On the other hand, the CC9e is due to have a 6.08-inch display and measure 153.48 x 71.85 x 8.475 mm. Both phones are expected to run Android 9 Pie with MIUI 10 on top.

According to past leaks, teasers, and certifications, the CC9’s main rear camera will be a 48 MP unit, while on the front there will be a 32 MP shooter for selfies. At the helm we’ll find the Snapdragon 710, 712, or 730. RAM will be 4/6/8GB depending on version, with internal storage at 64/128/256GB. A 3,940 mAh battery should be ample enough to keep the lights running for quite some time. The CC9e is likely powered by a Snapdragon 710, 712, or 632.

Xiaomi has also released the first official promo video for the new CC9 line, which you can see below – but be advised that it’s in Chinese, so unless you speak the language you aren’t likely to understand anything of what’s being said.

Stability has not been a trademark of the Congress-JD(S) government in Karnataka for over a year of its rule now. With two Congress legislators resigning from the assembly on Monday, the coalition has suffered yet another setback.

After the resignations of Vijayanagar MLA Anand Singh and Gokak MLA Ramesh Jarkiholi, the Congress is left with 77 legislators whereas its partner JD(S) has 37. Together, the alliance now has just a wafer-thin majority of 114 legislators in the 224-member Karnataka assembly, where the magic figure is 113. On the other hand, the main opposition BJP has 105 MLAs, there is one legislator of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and an independent MLA.
While Singh said he decided to resign over some unfulfilled demands, Jarkiholi in his resignation complained that his party had “ignored” his seniority after dropping him from the cabinet last year.

It is being speculated that Singh may join the BJP. However, the MLA rejected the claims of falling prey to Operation Lotus, a strategy adopted by the BJP in 2008 to shore up its numbers in the assembly by making opposition MLAs resign and seek re-election on BJP ticket. Singh is a three-time MLA from Vijayanagara and had won the constituency in 2008 and 2013 on a BJP ticket.

Reacting to the news, state BJP chief and former chief minister BS Yeddyurappa said the resignations reflect large-scale unease in the ruling coalition and the government will collapse under its own weight.

“Only after the collapse of this government we can explore the constitutional provisions to form the new government. There is no question of elections. We are a strong force of 105 members and we have every right to make a claim for forming the government if the present one collapses,” he said.

JD(S) leader and chief minister HD Kumaraswamy, who is in the US for the foundation-laying ceremony of a temple, tweeted that he was aware of the developments taking place in the state adding that the “BJP was daydreaming to destabilise the government”.

The Kumaraswamy government has often accused the BJP of horse-trading in the past one year with rumours of legislators of mainly the Congress switching over to the saffron party.

Akash Vijayvargiya, the BJP’s Indore legislator who thrashed a municipal official, received a tongue lashing in-absentia from Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday who made it clear that he had taken a very dim view of his conduct.

Akash’s father and BJP general secretary Kailash Vijayvargiya was present at the meeting, occupying a seat in one of the back rows.

PM Modi did not name either of them at the meeting of BJP’s parliamentary party that has lawmakers from the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha on Tuesday. But he left no one in doubt what had provoked the sharp reprimand.

PM Modi referred to the video clip of the assault . “I see people hitting them… Did people vote us for this,” PM Modi said.

n the fourth anniversary of Narendra Modi’s government flagship programme ‘Digital India’, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday said that the initiative has empowered people, reduced corruption and improved public service delivery to benefit the poor.

“On this day, 4 years ago Digital India was launched, to leverage the power of technology and make technology more accessible. Digital India has empowered people, significantly reduced corruption and improved public service delivery to benefit the poor #DigitalIndiaNewIndia,” he tweeted.

“The Digital India initiative is a people’s movement, powered by people’s strength and their efforts to learn as well as innovate. I salute all those assiduously working to strengthen Digital India and wish them the very best for their future efforts,” Modi said in another tweet.

The programme was launched on July 1, 2015, by the Government of India with a vision to transform India into a digitally empowered society and knowledge economy.

Digital India, which is the focal point of Modi’s ‘New India’ push, is centred on three key vision areas- Digital Infrastructure as a Utility to Every Citizen and Governance and Services on Demand, and Digital Empowerment of Citizens.

Taking to Twitter, Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said that the programme is now finding global resonance.

Former finance minister Arun Jaitley on Monday said with the increase in revenue the country may effectively have two rates for the Goods and Services Tax (GST). He, however, ruled out a single slab GST saying that such a system is possible only in “extremely affluent” countries where there are no poor people.

“As revenue increases further, it will give an opportunity to policy makers to possibly merge the 12% and 18% slab into one rate, thus, effectively making the GST a two rate tax,” he said in his blog ‘Two Years After GST’.

Jaitley is the architect of the country’s biggest indirect tax reform, which was rolled out in 1 July 2017 when he was the finance minister. This is Jaitley’s first blog after he opted out of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s council of ministers. His previous blog was on exit polls predicting a clear win for PM Modi.

Jaitley said India cannot have one single rate of GST. “It would be inequitable to apply a single rate in countries where there are a large number of people below the poverty line,” Jaitley said in the blog.

“The direct tax is a progressive tax. The more you earn, the more you pay. An indirect tax is a regressive tax. In the pre-GST regime, the rich and the poor, on various commodities, paid the same tax. The multiple slab system not only checked inflation, it also ensured that the Aam Aadmi products are not exorbitantly taxed,” he said.