QBullet: Odd-Even Rule May Return; Amarinder Singh in Swiss Soup
Read headlines from across the newspapers this morning on The Quint’s newswrap.
advertisement
1. Odd-Even to Kick in If There's a Pollution Emergency: SC
The controversial odd-even formula for private cars can be automatically enforced and all construction activities halted if air pollution breaches the PM2.5 emergency level of 300 micrograms per cubic metre for 48 hours at a stretch.
This follows the Supreme Court's acceptance of the Centre's graded action plan on Friday.
The SC asked the Centre to notify the action plan with a bench of Chief Justice TS Thakur and Justices AK Sikri and SA Bobde – which had earlier banned sale of firecrackers in the national capital territory – saying urgent steps were needed to tackle the pollution crisis.
(Source: The Times of India)
2. American Alleges Rape by Guide, 4 Others in a Delhi 5-Star
A woman based in the United States was allegedly gang-raped by a group of five men, including a tourist guide, at a five-star hotel near Connaught Place.
Police said they received a complaint from the woman through email. The woman said she would come to Delhi to record her statement once an FIR was registered.
Police sources said the woman had sent a detailed account of her ordeal in the email sent to the official account of the police commissioner, cp-delhi.nic.in.
In her complaint, the woman said she had arrived in Delhi early in March 2016 on a tourist visa and was staying at the five-star hotel near Connaught Place.
(Source: The Times of India)
3. Swiss Leaks: Income Tax Moves Court to Prosecute Amarinder Singh for 'Foreign Assets'
The Income Tax Department has moved a Ludhiana court with a prosecution complaint against former Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh for being an alleged beneficiary of foreign assets, which were traced due to details emerging from the probe into Indians holding HSBC Geneva bank accounts.
The Swiss Leaks case, receipt of details of 628 HSBC accounts, including one in the name of Amarinder Singh’s wife, Preneet Kaur, as well as those of a string of trusts and off-shore companies, was first reported by The Indian Express in 2015.
Calling the complaint “malafide and politically motivated,” Amarinder Singh said the Income Tax Department had “failed to dig out any proof’’ of his alleged foreign assets.
(Source: The Indian Express)
4. In Bengal, War of Letters: We Told You, Says Army; We Objected, Says State
A day after West Bengal Chief Minister hinted at a “coup” while criticising the Army’s presence at a toll plaza near her Secretariat, and stayed overnight at her office for “guarding our democracy”, a letter versus letter exchange ensued between the Eastern Command and Kolkata Police to fuel the controversy.
While Army released letters to show that they had informed the state about their deployment as part of a larger “data collection” exercise across the region, the latter released letters to claim it had objected to the move.
While the Army cited a final letter on the issue, in which it told police that the operative was “imperative”, police said they never received it.
(Source: The Indian Express)
5. Demonetisation Pangs Will Last for a Quarter, but Benefit India in Long Run: Jaitley
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said on Friday the recall of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes will cause just three months of disruptions before yielding substantial benefits for the economy.
In a year, he sees a bigger and cleaner economy with less paper currency, a wider tax base with lower rates, and more money in the banks resulting in cheaper loans. All of this will help the country’s ambition of becoming a modern and digital economy befitting its status as the world’s fastest growing major economy.
Jaitley said at the inaugural session of the Hindustan Times Leadership Summit in New Delhi:
(Source: Hindustan Times)
6. Gujarat Realtor Who Declared Huge Cash Stash Goes Missing
A little-known businessman from Ahmedabad, Mahesh Shah (67), who had declared Rs 13,860 crore under the Centre’s Income Disclosure Scheme (IDS), has disappeared after Income Tax raids on his premises and those of his chartered accountant.
The businessman, who was accompanied by his accountant Tehmul Sethna, told the I-T authorities that he had Rs 13,860 crore in cash lying at several places in Gujarat and elsewhere.
The IDS scheme closed on 30 September.
On the disclosed money, he was supposed to pay 45 percent tax, which comes to Rs 6,237 crore, and his remaining money would be declared white and accounted for. According to Sethna, Shah “deals with high-end realty and land deals in Ahmedabad, Mumbai and other places.”
(Source: The Hindu)
7. P Chidambaram Sees 45-Minute Gap in Terror Vigil
P Chidambaram accused the Narendra Modi regime of increasing India's vulnerability to terror attacks, like the one in Nagrota this week, by dismantling a coordination mechanism the UPA had introduced after the 2008 Mumbai strikes.
Chidambaram, who had taken over as home minister days after the Mumbai attacks, had put in place a "unified command" that met every working day to analyse and respond to terror threats – which he credited for India's success in reducing Pakistan-sponsored strikes from 2008 to 2013.
That "unified command" – consisting of the national security adviser, home secretary and the chiefs of the Intelligence Bureau and the Research and Analysis Wing apart from the home minister – was dismantled after the Modi administration came to power.
(Source: The Telegraph)
8. A Conversation With Martin Amis
Martin Amis is a novelist with an innate talent to cause outrage. He angered Muslims (among others) by telling them post 9/11 that they ought to “suffer until they get their house in order”. He offended senior citizens (among others) in Britain by suggesting that euthanasia booths be installed along the streets for the silver tsunami to avail of a “medal and a martini” before terminating their lives. He annoyed his friend Julian Barnes (among others) by ditching his wife Pat Kavanagh as agent and switching to Andrew Wylie.
He has written 14 novels, of which the most recent is The Zone Of Interest, set in Auschwitz (his second Holocaust novel). He was recently in Mumbai for the Tata Literature Live! Following is one of the questions Amis answered:
What’s your feeling on Brexit and now Donald Trump?
I’ve been wracking my brains to think what has happened in the last 10 years that has made everyone in the West so credulous and so easily swayed in this unpleasant direction, in retrograde, and all I can think of is the Internet. I think there has been a psychic change in ordinary people. For instance, the weakening of the truth as a standard. People don’t care about the truth as they used to because they’re used to things not necessarily being true. I remember someone saying years ago that everything on the Internet is about 60 percent truth. I was horrified when I saw that, but now I think it’s 30 percent, and it seems to have blurred people’s grip on reality and brought out very unpleasant atavistic feelings, tribal feelings, I don’t know why.
(Source: Livemint)
9. Masayoshi Son Wishes to Gift a Million Electric Cars to Ola Cabbies
Masayoshi Son is preparing to launch a million dreams with an ambitious wish to give away electric cars built in India, as the founder of Japanese Internet and telecom giant SoftBank reiterated his commitment to boosting Indian entrepreneurship.
Son, who spoke to The Economic Times following a meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, said he wished to “give away a million electric cars, made in India, for free to drivers of Ola cars”, as a way to address the pernicious issue of pollution and also underline his support to the ride-hailing company, which he first backed in 2014.
“This is a wish and not a commitment yet,” said Son, adding that the electric vehicle project will depend on several stakeholders -local and central governments, vendors and Ola itself -agreeing on the terms.
(Source: The Economic Times)
More From The Quint
‘Extinguished Cash’ Now Meaningless to Judge Modi’s Demonetisation
Review: Vidya Balan’s Magic Makes ‘Kahaani 2’ a Worthy Successor
Records of 43K Patients Leaked, But Path Lab Says Not Its Concern
I Enjoyed Flying The Cheetah & Chetak But It’s Time to Let Them Go
Bollywood and Karan Johar Are Now Befikre About Friendzoning