NATIONAL NEWS
A) Pushkar Singh Dhami to be sworn in as Uttarakhand CM on Sunday
Two-time MLA Pushkar Singh Dhami was chosen by the BJP legislature party and will be sworn in as chief minister of Uttarakhand on Sunday. Dhami’s selection follows the resignation of his predecessor Tirath Singh Rawat yesterday. Rawat had submitted his resignation to Governor Baby Rani Maurya as he was caught in a legal bind over his continuation as chief minister, an office, which required him to be elected as member of the Uttarakhand Assembly within six months of having taken oath. This, in turn, was rendered impossible by a clause in the Representation of the People Act which disallows by-polls for vacant seats if the tenure of the state assembly expires within a year. Uttarakhand goes to polls in March 2022. Left with no option, Rawat submitted his resignation paving the way for a new man to be elected by the party to head the state. New Uttarakhand CM Pushkar Dhami flanked by former CM T.S. Rawat and State BJP chief Madan Kaushik after Mr. Dhami was elected leader of the State legislature party. Forty-five-year-old Dhami will be the state’s10th chief minister and is considered to be close to Defence Minister Rajnath Singh. He will be the third chief minister in four months to head the state, beleaguered by serious infighting in the ruling party. Dhami was the officer on Special Duty to the state’s second chief minister Bhagat Singh Koshiari a year after the formation of the new state. Uttarakhand goes to polls in March 2022 and at the time of writing this, it is learnt, he is unlikely to be the face of the state where most of the MLAs have decided to fight the elections under Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Watch this space for this fast-developing story.
B) Punjab’s power crisis
Power and the availability of power may decide who comes to power in Punjab which is the grip of an unprecedented power crisis amidst soring mercury. The State has been witnessing some pitched protests by farmers and common people against the shortage of power. People are complaining that power cuts in the state lasts for hours on stretch. The demand for power is close to 14,225 MW while the supply is at 12,800 MW, a shortfall, the state government is unable to bridge. As paddy transplantation is in full-swing, farmers are reportedly upset that they are not getting their eight-hour power supply. Consumers have taken to the streets as they sweat it out in the summer heat. With the state government having to take some tough measures like staggered power supply in order to divert power for agricultural crops, there is also a ban on air conditioners in government offices. With the state slated to go to polls next year, opposition party AAP with 16 MLAs has promised 300 units of free power to every household in Punjab if voted to power next year. On Saturday, AAP party supporters protested in front of the residence of Chief Minister Amarinder Singh forcing the Punjab police to disperse the crowds with water cannons.
C) Covid Watch: Numbers and Developments
The number of reported coronavirus cases from India stood at 3,05,26,959 with the death toll at 4,01,516. The Union Government has sent multi-disciplinary teams to Kerala, Arunachal Pradesh, Tripura, Manipur, Odisha and Chattisgarh on Saturday, following a high number of COVID cases being reported from the states. The teams will monitor the COVID-19 management protocol being followed in the states assessing testing, surveillance, availability of beds, and vaccination progress. On the progress of vaccination, V K Paul, chairman of the National Empowered Group on Vaccine, told journalists that the estimate of 216 crore vaccine doses to be administered by year-end was aspirational and based on an optimistic assessment on what the vaccine manufacturers had conveyed to the Government. Till date 34 crore people have been vaccinated with at least one dose since the drive began on January 16, the government said.
INTERNATIONAL NEWS
A) Investigation of Rafale deal
A French judge will investigate the controversial 2016 ₹59,000 crore sale of 36 Rafale fighter jets to Indian government. Back home, the Opposition Congress claimed it has been vindicated. The party was engaged in a Twitter battle with the BJP on the matter. The deal inked between the Indian government and French aircraft manufacturer Dassault, originally initiated by the Congress-led UPA government in 2012 and executed by the Narendra Modi-led BJP Government in 2016, has been mired in controversies following allegations of hidden commission and payoffs to middle-men who facilitated the deal. The Parquet National financier (PNF), the French judicial institution responsible for tracking down serious economic and financial crimes, was reportedly reluctant to investigate even as several French mainstream newspapers and websites reported that there were shortcomings in the deal. French website Mediapart had even accused the French Anti-corruption Agency of burying suspicions surrounding the September 2016 deal, as AFP reported today. In a series of exposes in 2018, The Hindu, had also reported how the deal was unfavourable to India and was more expensive on the Indian exchequer; the report also exposed several shortcomings in the defence deal prompting the government to accuse the paper of stealing official documents. Several media reports today spoke of how three months ago, Mediapart had claimed millions of euros of hidden commissions were given to a go-between who helped Dassault conclude the sale, of which some… could have been given as bribes to Indian officials. Dassault responded that no wrong-doing was flagged in the group’s audits. After the reports, France’s Sherpa NGO, which specialises in financial crime, filed an official complaint for corruption and influence peddling among other accusations, prompting an investigating magistrate to be designated to probe the deal. In this first complaint, the NGO had pointed out how Dassault chose as its Indian partner, Reliance Group, which has had no previous experience on defence aircrafts. Dassault had initially won a contract in 2012 when the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance was in power, to supply 126 jets to India, and had been negotiating with Indian aerospace company Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL). By March 2015, those talks had almost reached a conclusion, according to Dassault. Readers might recall how back in January 2016, at the time of the negotiations, Reliance had financed a film co-produced by Julie Gayet, the partner of Francois Hollande, who was president at the time, forcing Hollande to clarify that there was no conflict of interest. Hollande added in good measure that France had no say in who Dassault’s Indian partner was. The former president has repeatedly said that it was the Indian government that had suggested businessman Anil Ambani’s firm. France’s Le Monde newspaper also revealed that France in 2015 cancelled a 143.7-million-euro tax adjustment targeting a French firm belonging to Reliance, at the time when the deal was being negotiated. As investigations kick in, the Union Government will have its task cut out in defending its decision.
B) Twitter in crosshairs
Micro-blogging site Twitter caught in the crosshairs of the Union Government filed an affidavit in the High Court today in which it has claimed that it was in the last stages of hiring a grievance officer. Twitter had initially appointed Dharmendra Chatur, Principal Associate at Poovayya & Co., a Bangalore based law firm, who resigned from the post within a month prompting the micro-blogging site to appoint its California-based global legal policy director Jeremy Kessel as the new grievance officer for India. The new IT rules require an Indian resident for the job. The Union government is party to the petition in front of the court. The affidavit was in response to a notice issued by the Delhi High Court Twitter’s alleged non-compliance with the new information technology rules. Twitter and the Government of India have been engaged in a bitter feud with the latter accusing the California based firm of violating IT rules which mandate the appointment of a grievance official, an Indian resident based in India, to address the complaints of users. The new rules came into effect from May 25. IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad today praised social media platforms Google, Facebook and Instagram for publishing their first compliance report on voluntary removal of offensive posts as per new IT rules, terming it a big step towards transparency.
