NATIONAL NEWS
Cruise drugs case: Witness alleges NCB official demanded ₹25 crore from Shah Rukh Khan to release his son; agency denies claim
An independent witness in the cruise drugs seizure case on Sunday claimed that an official of the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) and some other persons demanded ₹25 crore from Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan to release his son Aryan Khan in the case. Prabhakar Sail, a witness in the case, told mediapersons that NCB officials also asked him to sign nine to ten blank papers. However, an NCB official denied the allegations, terming them as completely false and malicious. NCB’s zonal director Sameer Wankhede earlier this month led the agency’s ‘drug bust’ on a cruise ship following which Aryan Khan was arrested on October 3. He is currently lodged in the Arthur Road jail here. Recently, the Pune police issued a lookout circular against K.P. Gosavi, another independent witness of the NCB in the cruise drugs case who used to offer people jobs abroad, in a 2018 cheating case. On Sunday, Sail alleged that an official of the NCB, Gosavi and another person, named Sam D’Souza, had demanded ₹25 crore from Shah Rukh Khan to release his son. Sail, who is the personal bodyguard of Gosavi and accompanied him on the night of the raid, said after Aryan Khan was brought to the NCB office, Gosavi met D’Souza. Sail claimed he heard Gosavi telling D’Souza over phone about a demand of ₹25 crore and to settle at ₹18 crore as they have to give eight crore rupees to Sameer Wankhede. Meanwhile, Maharashtra Minister and NCP spokesman Nawab Malik, who has repeatedly termed the cruise drugs bust case as fake, said Sail’s claims were very serious and demanded a probe into it by a Special Investigation Team (SIT). Talking to reporters in Beed, Malik reiterated his allegation that Wankhede was involved in extortion and terrorising the Mumbai film industry, and said he will meet the Chief Minister and Home Minister on Monday in Mumbai seeking a SIT probe into Sail’s claims. Shiv Sena MP Sanjay Raut in a tweet said, Witness in Aryan Khan case made to sign on blank paper by NCB is shocking. Also, there are reports that there was demand of huge money. CM UddhavThackeray said that these cases are made to defame Maharashtra. This seems to be coming true. Police should take suo moto cognizance. Maharashtra Congress spokesman Atul Londhe said Sail’s allegation substantiated the party’s charge that central agencies were being unleashed against the opposition parties. He demanded that the Supreme Court take appropriate action against the misuse of agencies politically.
First Zika virus case reported in Uttar Pradesh’s Kanpur
A Zika virus case has been reported in Kanpur district of Uttar Pradesh, a health official said on Sunday. He said a warrant officer in the Indian Air Force (IAF) was diagnosed with the infection on Saturday, the first in Kanpur. Chief Medical Officer Nepal Singh said that the IAF officer was suffering from fever for the past several days and was admitted to the Air Force Hospital in the district. Following mysterious symptoms in the case, the blood sample was collected and sent to Pune for proper examination which confirmed that the patient was Zika virus positive, he said, adding the report was received on Saturday. Twenty-two more samples of persons who came in contact with the patient and those who have the same symptoms have also been sent for examination, Singh said. Health and civic bodies’ officials have been put on alert to deal with the situation. Besides, several teams have also been tasked to check the spread of the virus in the district, officials said.
Phone calls, daily walks in jail’s green area stopped, says Navlakha’s partner
Activist and journalist Gautam Navlakha, who was arrested in the Bhima Koregaon case in 2020, has recently been shifted to a high-security section of the Taloja jail in Navi Mumbai and not allowed to call his family and lawyers, said his partner, Sahba Husain, in a statement on Sunday. Husain said Navlakha, who is nearly 70 years old, was shifted to the Anda Circle from the barracks on October 12. Additionally, his telephone calls to me and his lawyers, his lifeline to the outside world, have been discontinued on the pretext that physical mulaquats [meetings] have resumed in jail. I, his partner, Sahba Husain, am over 70, and I live in Delhi. Travelling to Taloja jail in Navi Mumbai frequently to meet him for the allotted 10 minutes is difficult and Gautam’s only contact with me is through the two calls he was allowed every week to me that enabled me to send him articles of need, including medicines, books etc, she said. She said with the phone calls now discontinued, he would be able to make contact only via letters that take at least two weeks to reach. She said not allowing under-trial prisoners to call their lawyers was the height of unfairness. Gautam’s fragile health and well-being will be further jeopardised by this withdrawal of the phone call facility to his family and lawyers. Already, in the Anda Circle, he is deprived of daily walks in the jail’s non-concreted greener areas and fresh air, and his health has deteriorated further, making specialised medical care an absolute necessity, if he is to live to fight this unjust and false case foisted on him, she said. She quoted Navlakha as saying he spends 16 hours a day inside his cell and the remaining eight hours in a cemented corridor surrounded by high walls. Citing the recent death of another accused, Father Stan Swamy, while in custody, she said: These are prisoners of conscience, who have had to face indignities and humiliation for the smallest needs, and wage court battles for basic dignities in prison…Gautam has faced his unjustified incarceration with courage and spirit. How much longer is he going to be persecuted for his views, and to what extent will the authorities go to break his spirit?
Congress versus Congress plays out in social media in Punjab
The turmoil in the Punjab Congress was playing out on social media on Sunday with Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC) chief Navjot Singh Sidhu asserting that he wouldn’t let the political discourse to deviate from real issues and Lok Sabha member Manish Tewari describing the situation in his party as ‘anarchy’. Sidhu’s tweets, viewed in the backdrop of the ongoing fight between Deputy Chief Minister Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa and former Chief Minister Amarinder Singh over the latter’s friendship with a Pakistani national Aroosa Alam, isn’t just an attempt to tone down personal attacks but bring back the discourse on the leadership question. Punjab must come back to its real issues that concern every Punjabi and our future generations. How will we counter the financial emergency that stares upon us? I will stick to the real issues and not let them take a backseat! The choice is clear between irreparable damage and the last chance for damage control. Who will bring back State’s resources to the State’s coffers, instead of them going to private pockets? Who will lead the initiative for resurrection of our great State to prosperity!! asked Sidhu. These tweets reflect the nervousness and doubts in Sidhu’s mind about who would be the party’s chief ministerial choice if it manages to retain power. Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channi was chosen as a compromise after the faction-ridden leaders couldn’t agree on a name to replace Capt. Amarinder (retd.). But soon the party made a virtue out of necessity as Channi was the first Scheduled Caste (SC) Chief Minister in a State where the SCs make up over 30% of the population. At the Congress Working Committee (CWC) meeting on October 16, former party chief Rahul Gandhi claimed that empowering Dalit leadership is an article of faith for the party. In less than 24 hours, Sidhu made his letter to party president Sonia Gandhi public. The four-page letter, dated October 15, was ostensibly to seek an audience with her to explain his Punjab Model but the underlying message of his importance was clear. He wrote, Under your esteemed leadership, the Congress party won a 2/3rd majority in the 2017 Assembly elections, campaigning upon a pro-people agenda to give democratic and economic powers of the people back to the people. I personally campaigned in 55 Assembly constituencies, among which we won 53, arguing for a Punjab Model of Development, according to which the rightful resources of the State should come back to the State, instead of going to private pockets. He said his development model was Punjab’s last chance for resurrection and redemption. Far from ‘resurrection’, Tewari, known to be close to Capt. Amarinder (retd.), questioned Sidhu’s elevation.
INTERNATIONAL NEWS
New China border law gives stamp of approval for PLA’s LAC actions
China’s legislature has adopted a new border law, to take effect on January 1, that calls on the state and military to safeguard territory and combat any acts that undermine China’s territorial claims. The law was first proposed in March this year, a year into tensions that erupted along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) with India after the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) mobilised two divisions in forward areas and carried out multiple transgressions. China has unresolved border disputes with India and Bhutan. The new law, observers said, would formalise some of China’s recent actions in disputed territories with both India and Bhutan, including the PLA’s massing of troops in forward areas along the India border, multiple transgressions across the LAC, and the construction of new frontier villages along the border with Bhutan. The legislature, which is largely ceremonial in China and controlled by the ruling Communist Party, on Saturday voted to adopt a new law on the protection and exploitation of the country’s land border areas, the official Xinhua news agency said. The law stipulates that the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the People’s Republic of China are sacred and inviolable, the text said, adding that the state shall take measures to safeguard territorial integrity and land boundaries and guard against and combat any act that undermines territorial sovereignty and land boundaries. Article 22 of the law says the PLA shall carry out border duties including organising drills and resolutely prevent, stop and combat invasion, encroachment, provocation and other acts. The passing of the law coincides with stepped up Chinese activity along the land borders, which have mirrored actions in disputed waters in the East and South China Sea. The law will give a stamp of approval for the military’s recent actions in disputed areas.
2,700-year-old wine press, carvings discovered in Iraq
Archaeologists in Iraq announced on October 24, 2021, that they have discovered a large-scale wine factory from the rule of the Assyrian Kings 2,700 years ago. They also reveal their discovery of stunning monumental rock-carved royal reliefs. Iraq was the birthplace of some of the world’s earliest cities. As well as Assyrians, it was home once to Sumerians and Babylonians, and to among humankind’s first examples of writing. Some of the most famous carvings that have survived from the Assyrian Period are the mythical winged bulls, with examples of the monumental reliefs seen in the Iraq museum in Baghdad, as well as the British Museum in London and the Louvre in Paris. The joint team of the archaeologists from the Department of Antiquities in Dohuk and colleagues from Italy said that the stone bas-reliefs, showing kings praying to the gods, were cut into the walls of a nearly 9 kilometer long (5.5 mile) irrigation canal at Faida in Northern Iraq. The carvings, 12-panels measuring five meters (16 feet) wide and two meters tall, show kings, gods, and sacred animals. They date from the reigns of Sargon II (721-705 BC) and his son Sennacherib. Italian archaeologist Daniele Morandi Bonacossi said that there are other places with rock reliefs in Iraq, particularly in Kurdistan, but none are so huge and monumental as this one. He informed that the scenes represent the Assyrian King praying in front of Assyrian gods. Bonacossi also noted that the seven key gods are all seen, including Ishtar, the goddess of love and war, who is depicted on top of a lion.
