Rumours related to food items are not new. Some are exaggerated truths (say, toxic vegetables) while some are plain lies like we had seen during the demonetisation period in November last year about shortage of salt, etc. It is not easy to ignore even dubious claims being made about edible items, as it is related to the well-being and daily lives of everyone. This time, the claims are about fake food or food items made of plastic.
There have been panic in various parts of the country after there were rumours of plastic rice, plastic eggs and plastic sugar flooding the markets. Such reports came from Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, West Bengal and even Delhi.
This led to many people panicking as the commodities in question are consumed in vast amounts and any adulteration with hazardous products like plastic might lead to serious health issues. Soon the administration swung into action in order to ascertain the truth.
As it turns out, most of the claims were rumours without any shred of truth. The Karnataka Food and Civil Supplies Minister U T Khader outright dismissed the rumours and blamed vested interests for spreading them. As per some estimates, plastic food doesn’t even make any ‘economic’ sense for adulteration as plastic is usually costlier than these food items.
Interestingly, this plastic rice rumour is pretty old and not limited to just India. Similar reports from South East Asia and even China have emerged earlier, and even there they were dismissed with similar logic. For example, even Malaysian newspapers had reported that there was no economic incentive to mix plastic in rice. The President of Malaysia’s rice wholesale association claimed that there was no profit to be made from plastic rice. This plastic rice phenomenon has also been dismissed by the Malaysian health department.
Now this ‘plastic theory’ has further been debunked by the Delhi’s food safety department. According to reports, the food department had collected at least 27 samples from the market and none were found to have had any plastic. The rumour was that such plastic rice was imported from China. However, an environmental rights activist stated that such stories were unlikely to be true as India already produced enough paddy and didn’t need to import rice from China.
Incidentally such reports of plastic food items are not new and such rumors are spread due to sensational media reports and unverified videos on social media. In October, the phenomenon of Chinese fake eggs had gripped Kerala after a local news channel had somehow managed to claim that fake eggs were being sold in the Idukki district of the state. This resulted in people releasing various anonymous videos about them receiving fake eggs. This prompted the food inspection officials to make checks and after even sending the samples to testing labs they concluded that all the eggs in question were real.
A similar phenomenon was also witnessed in West Bengal recently. Apparently the people in Kerala were convinced of the plastic eggs phenomenon after they thought the thin keratin film between the egg shell and egg white was actually plastic.
So how did this all begin
The origin of the plastic rice phenomenon actually has nothing to do with plastic. In 2010, China witnessed the Wuchang rice scandal where traders added flavours to ordinary rice to pass it off as premium Wuchang rice. In 2011, the Korean Times claimed that traders in Taiyuan, Shaanxi Province were selling fake rice which was made by mixing potatoes, sweet potatoes and plastic. This seems to be the first recorded report of the plastic in rice phenomenon. Also in this case the rice was not completely made of plastic but it was merely an additive.
Large news organisations too have apparently fallen prey to this rumor. In December 2016, the BBC and CNN had reported that large amounts plastic rice was seized in Nigeria. This was later dismissed by the Nigerian authorities who claimed that the rice actually contained bacteria above permissible limits.
So finally…
As pointed out by various sources, the ‘plastic food’ can never be a mass phenomenon as there’s almost no profit in making plastic versions of cheap foods and then selling them. The only such contamination can take place when it comes to premium versions like Basmati rice which is rarely consumed by people and hence shouldn’t result in mass panic as has been witnessed recently.
Twelve accounts, each having more than Rs 5,000 crore of outstanding loans, accounts for as many as 25 per cent of the current gross non-performing assets (NPAs) of the banking system as of March 31, 2016. This was revealed by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) yesterday.
All these identified accounts are eligible for immediate reference for proceedings under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC) as per the recommendation of the Internal Advisory Committee (IAC) of the RBI.
“In particular, the IAC recommended for IBC reference of all accounts with fund and non-fund based outstanding amount greater than Rs 5,000 crore, with 60 per cent or more classified as non-performing by banks as of March 31, 2016,” read a RBI statement.
Without naming the defaulters, the RBI said the banks will be asked to initiate insolvency proceedings to recover the dues.
“The Reserve Bank, based on the recommendations of the IAC, will accordingly be issuing directions to banks to file for insolvency proceedings under the IBC in respect of the identified accounts. Such cases will be accorded priority by the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT),” the RBI said.
Though the RBI did not disclose the names of the defaulters, reports suggest that borrowers such as Bhushan Steel, Essar Steel, Lanco, and Alok Textiles may be the first set of companies facing proceedings under the stringent recovery laws.
The IAC explored 500 top exposures of the banking system and has recommended for bankruptcy proceedings all accounts with fund and non-fund based outstanding amount greater than Rs 5,000 crore, with 60 per cent or more classified as non-performing by banks as of March 31, 2016. Of them, 12 accounts were referred immediately under Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code.
So far 81 cases of bad loans have been referred to NCLT. Out of the 81 cases, 18 were referred for bankruptcy by their creditors. NCLT is the arbitration authority for cases filed under IBC.
“The IAC agreed to focus on large stressed accounts at this stage and accordingly took up for consideration the accounts which were classified partly or wholly as non-performing from amongst the top 500 exposures in the banking system,” the RBI statement said.
Earlier Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had said that RBI was at an advanced stage of drawing up the list of bad loan cases to be referred to the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) for bankruptcy proceedings and the number of cases going for bankruptcy resolution would rise once the RBI draws up the list.
Last week, RBI deputy governor NS Vishwanathan had said, “We have decided to focus on a few large stressed accounts under this framework and accordingly a set of accounts has been identified, based on objective criteria.”
As reported earlier, private sector banks continue to hide a large chunk of stressed assets. There is a huge mismatch between the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) estimation and respective private bank’s own estimation of stressed assets as the private banks under report the non-performing assets (NPAs) figures. This has come to the light during the audit by the central bank.
Bad loans have increased over the years, thanks to the wilful defaulters, bleeding the Indian economy. According to available data, private sector banks have been jostling with stressed assets of a staggering Rs 10 lakh crore as of December-end. Similarly, the stressed assets of public sector banks are pegged at a whopping Rs 6.07 lakh crore till December end. Central bank had earlier stated that stress was coming from sectors such as power, telecom, steel, textiles, and aviation.
According to a report by S&P Global ratings, the stressed assets of Indian banks are likely to increase to 15 per cent of the total loans by March 2018 amid rising requirements for regulatory capital until 2019.
The Union Cabinet, on 3 May, had approved promulgation of an Ordinance to amend the Banking Regulation Act, which gives wide ranging powers to the RBI to initiate insolvency proceedings for the recovery of bad loans.
Last month, the Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi inaugurated India’s longest river bridge – the Dhola Sadiya bridge – that connects Assam and Arunachal Pradesh, and named it after the legendary Bhupen Hazarika.
This was enough for the social media handles of Congress folks to go into a tizzy on Twitter. This was their grouse:
They went on and on about how the foundation was laid in 2010 by the then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and all that Modi did was to take credit for Manmohan Singh’s work.
But then Social Media is an evil place to be. It soon emerged that the go-ahead for the design of this bridge was given by the Prime Minister of India in 2003, and I don’t have to remind you, the enlightened reader, who the PM was in 2003!
So essentially the bridge was announced in 2003, foundation laid in 2010, construction started in 2011 and inaugurated in 2017 – the story of any project in India.
Nonetheless the issue here is this claim by the Congress party and the ecosystem. This “allegation” has been a trend ever since the Narendra Modi government started rolling out welfare schemes. The Congress party (and the English media) have constantly been saying that all the programs are a mere rehash of old UPA programs.
While researching to write this article, guess what I found? An article in 2001, in India Today that said – “Most of the rural development schemes announced by Vajpayee are merely repackaged versions of populist programmes of past prime ministers.”
In the aforementioned article, only 4 schemes are mentioned and only 2 are in continuum, and more importantly note how despondent that article sounded on what would eventually become one of the biggest successful infrastructure programs – the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (which incidentally is *not* a repackaged program!).
Guess what I did not find? Any headline, from 2004 to 2014, that says – “Most of UPAs schemes are repackaged versions of NDA”.
Only fellow tweeter “thinkerspad” exposed this thievery of the Congress party, way back in 2013, here. And Prime Minister Modi touched upon this in his speech here (from 8:16 minutes onward, for about 3-4 minutes).
So, essentially, this is a media template. And I can just stop here and blame it all on media bias and propaganda, and I will not be wrong. But let us still look into the facts about welfare schemes by the Narendra Modi government, and whether they are mere rehash of some old Congress/UPA schemes, as is being claimed on Twitter by a few these days:
Jan Dhan Yojana
The accusation is that the Jan Dhan Yojana is a mere rehash of “Basic Savings Bank Deposit Account (BSBDA) with max publicity”. First of all – how did the UPA even want to propagate this program with such a complicated name? Imagine a customer who doesn’t know English going to a bank and the executive telling him/her that there is this awesome “Basic Savings Bank Deposit Account” that will change your life!
This claim was made by no other but former Finance Minister P. Chidambaram who wrote in 2015 that this BSBDA, started in 2012, was basically an extension of “No Frills” accounts introduced in 2005. He goes on to claim that 24.3 crore accounts were opened under this scheme, without any boasting or advertisement. Safe to assume that he means they opened 24.3 crore new accounts in a period of 9 years.
He further goes on to tell us that there was a big problem – “Most zero balance accounts had a zero balance and no activity whatsoever.”
Enter Jan Dhan Yojana. The name is instantly connecting with people. It now includes an added insurance cover, and interest on deposit. It now includes the bank officials going to the homes of people to get them an account.
Within no time, it creates a Guinness Record – 27 crore accounts opened in ~2.5 years; 75% zero balance accounts have now become ~28% zero balance and nearly INR 65,000 crores have come into the banking system.
So basically, all the shortcomings of earlier schemes were effectively addressed, new benefits were provided, and most importantly, some exemplary implementation guaranteed unprecedented success.
To say that Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana it is merely a repackaged version of BSBDA is like saying that motorbike is just a repackaged version of bicycle.
Neem Coated Urea
Here is the accusation: “Neem coated Urea started 13 years ago. Modi Govt increased the production ceiling fm 35% to 100% and that’s it.”
“That’s it”? Let’s quickly understand what this Neem coated urea is all about. As per the website of National fertilizers limited: (emphasis added)
“Agronomical trial on Paddy and Wheat crops with Neem coated Urea as source of Nitrogen has produced significantly higher yield at research and farm level.”
“National Fertilizers Limited, in the year 2002, standardized the techniques for production of Neem Coated Urea in situ, at its Panipat Unit.”
“Looking into the potential of Neem Coated Urea and its acceptance by the farmers, Ministry of Agriculture in July 2004, included the Neem Coated Urea in FCO.”
Let’s just focus on two timelines – standardization of technique in the year 2002, and adoption in July 2004.
Now, urea as a fertilizer is widely used and because of this, it is (was) also one of the highly pilferaged fertilizer in the country. Urea that was supposed to land in the hands of the farmer, often ended up with chemical industries or even rogue elements that used Urea to prepare adulterated milk.
So – it’s a open-and-shut case – move all Urea production to 100% neem coated, both to increase yield and stop the pilferage and misuse.
What did the UPA do? Mysteriously decides that only 35% of it will be neem-coated. Why the 65% free takeaway was allowed, is anyone’s guess.
For a full ~10 years, only 35% Urea was neem-coated. What did NDA do after coming to power? Made it 100% mandatory. It doesn’t take a genius to guess what “industries” have been hurt because of this.
At various fora, the PM and his ministers have highlighted this monumental change – at one such forum, when this was being highlighted, Rajdeep Sardesai cut short the minister and asked him, “Are you a suit-boot ki Sarkar?”
Electrification drive
We now move on to the next (hilarious) accusation – “RGGVY (Rajiv Gandhi Grameen Vidyutikaran Yojana) renamed as Deen Dayal Upadhya gram jyoti yojana for Piyush Goyal to boast tall fake claims.”
RGGVY, introduced in 2005, had the aim is to electrify all villages. By when? By 2010. [pdf] Quite obviously, that target was missed by a WIDE margin.
But was it some innovative program when it was introduced in 2005? Turns out that the NDA-1 government, under Atal Bihari Vajpayee, had an “ACCELERATED RURAL ELECTRIFICATION PROGRAMME”.
Now, my head is spinning to understand who usurped whose idea?!
And by the way, in three years, India has become a power surplus and net exporter of electricity for the first time in 2016-17.
Housing schemes
Seriously? Such schemes have been in vogue in India since 1985 at least. If successive governments haven’t been able to achieve targets, the incumbent government obviously has a responsibility towards plugging the loopholes, and achieving the new target of housing for all by 2022.
It is pertinent to mention here that Narendra Modi himself has said many times that if the country can just focus on finishing already approved projects, a lot of development is possible. Towards achieving this goal, he personally chairs a “PRAGATI” meeting every month and tracks the progress of all these projects.
Pension schemes
The accusation is “Aam Aadmi Bima Yojana started in 2007 became Modi’s Pradhan Mantri Suraksha Bima Yojana.”
I guess such statements are made simply assuming the reader is not intelligent enough to decipher outright visible differences. Here is “Aam Aadmi Bima Yojana” and here is “Pradhan Mantri Suraksha Bima Yojana”, and below is a quick table comparing them:
Just the name was changed?
Both the yojanas exist today, but it is anybody’s guess which one people will prefer to take! And the user conveniently forgets to mention the other insurance scheme – Pradhan Mantri Jeevan Bima Yojana – Life insurance of 2 lakhs with a premium of 330/- per annum. And as always – the NDA government put in a lot of efforts into spreading this information to the citizens of the country.
Beti Bachao Beti Padhao
Some are claiming that the “National Girl Child Day” of UPA was renamed to “Beti Bachao Beti Padhao” [pdf] program of the NDA. This is even more specious comparison than the insurance schemes – to compare the celebration of a day to a mass campaign program like Beti Bachao Beti Padhao!
However, this is not result of some lack of understanding. There is a clear agenda. To make these lazy accusations multiple times so that people start believing that they are true. An influential part of the media is complicit in fanning this narrative.
Also, one can’t help but notice the utter lack of in-depth coverage of unique flagship programs like MUDRA, Make in India, Ujjwala, Startup India, Digital India et al. Latest coverage was an article written in The Indian Express about Make in India, calling it a flop show, and guess who wrote it? P Chidambaram.
Vinay Pradhan, the Meerut district president of the Congress party was removed from all positions of the party on Tuesday after he was found using the word Pappu in order to refer to Rahul Gandhi, though in a positive contenxt. This decision to remove him from all party positions was taken by Uttar Pradesh Congress Committee (UPCC) chief Raj Babbar.
The word Pappu is held as synonymous with Rahul Gandhi by his critics and roughly translates to someone who is either dumb or an idiot. Vinay used it in context of ‘giving it back’ to the critics, but ended up getting flak.
The word was used by Vinay in a Whatsapp message, which he shared in a group of Congress leaders and supporters, perhaps hoping to get brownie points for defending Rahul Gandhi. In fact, he, as a disciplined Congress worker, used the usual pro-poor rhetoric of Rahul Gandhi as facts.
Here is the snapshot of the Whatsapp message which signaled the doom for Vinay:
For those who can’t read Hindi, the message begins with stating how a ‘section’ of the nation knows Rahul Gandhi as Pappu. The message then talked about how this ‘Pappu’ (addressed to that ‘section’) apparently chose to lead an austere life by not using flashy cars and avoided going to parties hosted by Ambani, Adani and Mallya.It then talked about how this ‘Pappu’ had forsaken the post of Prime Minister and allowed Manmohan Singh to stay at the helm. The message ends up with an attack on RSS, accusing the Sangh of spending 450 crore rupees to malign the image of Rahul Gandhi as ‘Pappu’.
However, this passionate defense of Rahul Gandhi and attack on RSS was lost on the leadership of Congress party. Ignoring the context of his message, the state leadership decided to banish Vinay from the party.
This incident is somewhat similar to blasphemy laws in Pakistan, where you can not repeat blasphemous words even in different context. Repeating the blasphemous words, say for the purpose of reporting, can also be constituted as blasphemy. Similarly it seems, just uttering the word Pappu in any context would mean blasphemy for the Congress party and the person will have to suffer consequences.
In a development that is aimed at stopping China’s growing influence in the region, India is expediting the infrastructure projects in Myanmar/Burma after years of tardiness in project implementation. According to reports, India has completed building the Sittwe power and the inland water terminal in Paletwa, a town in Myanmar.
India had missed several deadlines earlier and it was threatening to ruin the reputation of India vis a vis China. Now India is looking forward to complete the final stage of the project, which is a 109-km road connecting the Burmese town to Indian border. The road construction is expected to start in October.
“We have just awarded the contract for the final stage which is the road to be built from Paletwa to a point called Zorinpui which is on the border with Mizoram. The creation of this transport corridor, once it is fully functioning, has the potential to transform the economic landscape in the states through which it goes, Rakhine and Chin,” Indian envoy to Myanmar Vikram Misri was quoted as saying.
India is also building the India-Myanmar-Thailand highway. Work for the trilateral highway, which was originally targeted for 2014, is scheduled to be completed by 2020.
“We are repairing 69 bridges on the Tamu-Kalay road and also constructing the Kalaywa-Yagyi section of the highway. In Chin State, which borders Mizoram in India, we are constructing a road that will connect Rhi on the border to the town of Tiddim,” the Indian envoy to Myanmar said.
It could be noted that Beijing is investing heavily in Myanmar. China’s belt and road project has seen an almost $10 billion investment in Kyaukphyu port in western Myanmar. But despite all these, there remains distrust between the two countries.
But in sharp contrast to their relationship with China, Myanmar looks up to India as a long-time friend. India has extended over $1.75 billion grants to Myanmar. Myanmar features prominently in India’s Act East policy as India tries to balance out Beijing’s massive presence there.
India is the largest market for Burmese exports. India’s exports to Burma stands at $100-150 million million.
India has a long historical relationship with Myanmar since ancient times. Buddhism, which was originated in India, has tremendously influenced Burmese society and culture for millennia with 90 per cent continuing to follow the religion. Burmese script is based on Indian Grantha script.
The archaic practice of triple talaq has recently been a very hotly debated topic. While various corners of the society including many Muslim women want the practice banned, there have been pockets of resistance which have chiefly been led by the All India Muslim Personal Law board.
Now there seems to be some sensitization among the Muslim community against the practice of Triple Talaq and one such incident has come to light from Uttar Pradesh, but the details are all sketchy.
According to reports, a Panchayat in the Sambhal district of Uttar Pradesh has set a deterrent against the practice of triple talaq after fining a man Rs 2 lakh for giving all three talaqs in one go to his wife.
Their marriage reportedly was not a happy one and it was accompanied with constant quarrels. Recently things took turn for the worse and the man pronounced triple talaq on his wife. After this, the wife returned to her parents’ home and her brother approached the head of their Panchayat, asking him to take up his sister’s matter. As a result a Panchayat was constituted on Sunday and was attended by the Turk community members from 52 villages.
When the man wasn’t able to justify the use of triple talaq, the Rs 2 lakh fine was slapped on him. Apart from that, he was also reportedly asked to pay a ‘mahar’ of Rs 60,000 and was ordered to return whatever dowry he had received from his wife’s family.
Even though the incident is very encouraging, various media outlets ended up providing inconsistent pieces of information, which put a dent on the details and thus credibility of the news.
The Indian Express report claimed that the couple were married two years ago i.e. in 2015, but the Times of India (TOI) got them married a year earlier in 2014. Small inconsistencies are understandable, but what made things entirely muddled is a Zee News report claiming that the couple were married for just 10 days.
Even the identities of the couple were all mixed up. While The Asian Age, Zee News, The Telegraph and Dainik Jagran didn’t bother to give out the names of the couple, Indian Express called them as Raees Ahmed and Rehana Begum, while TOI called them Salman Turk and Sabiha Begum.
The ages of the couple too were inconsistent. Indian Express claimed the man and woman were 45 and 34 years of age respectively, while the TOI claimed they were 45 and 35 years of age. Asian Age and Zee News quoted them to be 45 and 22 years of age respectively, and Telegraph claimed that the man was 40 years of age while being silent on the age of the woman.
Such glaring inconsistencies when it comes to specifics does raise serious question about both the credibility of the incident as well as that of the media houses. One hopes it is just lazy journalism, and not something worse like a fake news.
The then Congress government in Haryana, led by Bhupinder Singh Hooda, in 2008, had granted licences to Robert Vadra’s Skylight Hospitality for building a colony in Gurgaon simply on the ground that the director of the firm was a VIP and the son-in-law of Congress president Sonia Gandhi.
This has been revealed by the testimonies of the officers of Department of Town and Country Planning (DTCP), Gurgaon before the Justice (retd) SN Dhingra Commission of Inquiry whose remit is to look into land deals involving Robert Vadra and circumstances under which licences were granted to Skylight Hospitality for development of colonies in Gurgaon.
According to reports, the Gurgaon Town Planning officer has informed the Dhingra Commission that granting of license to Skylight Hospitality was determined on the basis of the “status” of its director.
“Vadra was Sonia Gandhi’s son-in-law and since he was a VIP, he had the capacity to build a colony.” This was what Gurgaon Town Planning officer had recommended. This officer’s report was subsequently approved by senior officials in DTCP and then by the then Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda.
It could be noted that the DTCP is also responsible for granting change of land use (CLU) certificates. The Haryana Development and Regulation of Urban Areas Act doesn’t specify that a CLU applicant should have the capacity to build the project, but a licence applicant must have the capacity to build the colony.
Justice (retd) SN Dhingra Commission of Inquiry was set up in May 2015 by the BJP government led by Manohar Lal Khattar. The Commission had submitted its report to Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar in August last year.
Even as the contents of the probe panel is still under wraps, Justice Dhingra has reportedly said that he has done his job and it is up to the courts to decide whether the report should be made public.
The Congress chose to challenge the constitutional validity of the Dhingra Commission and alleged that the BJP government had set up the Commission in “pursuit of a political vendetta”.
Earlier the commission had discovered a land transaction undertaken by Congress president Sonia Gandhi’s daughter and Robert Vadra’s wife Priyanka Gandhi. Priyanka had bought 5 acres of agricultural land in Amipur village in Faridabad district of Haryana for Rs 15 lakh on April 28, 2006. That piece of land was resold to the original owner around four years later on February 17, 2010 at over five times the original price.
The Tejas Express, Indian railways’ premium semi-luxury train has unfortunately been in the news for the wrong reasons ever since its launch. The train which boasts of features such as on-board entertainment system, LCD screens, WiFi, coffee vending machines, snack tables, smart windows with automatic blinds had one of its windows damaged after a stone was allegedly thrown at it.
The maiden trip of the train from Mumbai to Goa was practically ruined after a few passengers travelling on the train decided to steal the headphones and vandalize the LCDs which have been provided as part of the on-board entertainment system. Some of the passengers even littered in the train and also didn’t flush properly after using the toilets.
Now though a positive news regarding the train is doing the rounds. As reported the train’s departure on Sunday from Goa was unfortunately delayed by 3 hours as the empty coach from Mumbai came late, owing to the change of train’s timetable.
Two timetables have been introduced for the train, regular and a monsoon one. During the monsoon season the train would take about 12-15 hours as opposed to its usual 8.5 hrs. The revised time table has been put in place in order to hedge against the rough terrain the monsoon rain brings with it.
The train departed from Goa at 10:30 AM instead of the scheduled 7:30 AM but made up time by travelling as fast as 153 Kmph between the Karmali and Kudal sector.
This incident shows that the Indian Railway authorities are doing all they can in order to maintain the premium standard of the train. It remains to be seen if the passengers too take a lesson from the dedication of the authorities to try and responsibly use the facilities provided on-board the train.
This punctuality when it comes to the Tejas Express would also contribute in improving the image of Indian trains which are infamous for having regular delays.
The Good and Services Tax (GST), which is a watershed moment in Indian Taxation is scheduled to be launched on 1st July 2017 and rates of almost all goods and services have been fixed and then have also been subsequently revised.
The implementation of the GST is already going to be a challenge for the government but as it turns out some unscrupulous elements want to cause further troubles by spreading baseless rumors in order to create panic among people directly affected by the new tax.
As it turns out recently rumors are floating on social media which claim that the government has decided to defer the launch date from 1st July to 1st September. The rumors are reportedly being spread chiefly on WhatsApp but are also being circulated on Facebook and Twitter:
We contacted our columnist Ashutosh Mugikar for more clarity on this issue. He stated that the rumour was chiefly being circulated on WhatsApp. He stated that he too had received such messages on various professional groups which include members like lawyers, company secretaries, chartered accountants etc. The reasons given for this rumoured delay are:
GST technology backbone is not ready
GST technology backbone has not yet been tested
He dubbed these messages to be plain scaremongering and also pointed out that various associations had called for the deferment of the GST launch till September due to the unpreparedness of various industries. Thus he speculated that people who want GST deferred might have seeded in this rumour.
The Maoists, who have been wreaking havoc in the Bastar region of southern Chhattisgarh, are reportedly in the process of creating an entirely new red corridor along the western border of the state.
According to reports, a 25-page-long document, retrieved by the Chhattisgarh Police in April, states that the new Maoist zone will cover the forest pockets in Balaghat district in Madhya Pradesh, Gondia district in Maharashtra and Rajnandgaon, Kabirdham and Mungeli districts of Chhattisgarh.
It could be noted that Rajnandgaon is not new to Maoist violence. In 2009, the then SP Vinod Choubey was killed in a Maoist ambush along with 29 other policemen. Mungeli have not seen any Maoist activity so far, though there have been some reports of Maoist movement in Kabirdham, which incidentally is the home district of Chief Minister Raman Singh.
The document describes the new area as the MMC (Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh Confluence) zone. The Maoist document further indicates that the idea is to create an entity like the Dandakaranya Special Zonal Committee in Bastar.
MMC is the second red zone that the Maoists are building after they had built BBM (Bolangir, Bargarh, Mahasamund) division, in 2006, under Odisha State Committee. This marks the first expansion by Maoists in Chhattisgarh region in eight years.
The contents of the document, said to be have been drafted by “MMC Leading team” in March 2017, highlights issues specific to the area that the Maoist leadership must take up such as land, differential pricing of bamboo and even demonetisation.
The Maoist document states that efforts need to be taken to increase “political awareness of the Naxal movement”. “We have to familiarise village level committees of the strategies and policies of the people’s war,” reads the document.
The document mentions that that there have been encounters in September, December last year and February this year, where the Maoists lost key papers, leading to security forces learning of their plans.
The Maoist document cautions its cadre to remain mobile and instead of staying in one place and attack security forces by laying ambush. Intelligence sources suggest that the Maoists have sent 58 senior and middle level cadres – headed by a Maoist commander Surender – to operationalise the MMC.
There are also indications that the top Maoist leadership, possibly members of the Central Committee, have visited the region to push the process.
It appears that Maoists are concentrating to increase their strength entirely in and around Chhattisgarh after reports indicated that they were being weakened in other regions of India.
