Police implicated two brothers, but the illicit liquor trade runs deep in Punjab's political economy
The brothers were only two of several figures in the trade, many of whom remain untouched by agencies, an Amritsar-based cop told @seekingsrishti scroll.in/article/100588…
“Everybody from the police and excise officers to politicians are deeply involved in this business [liquor mafia]" alleged Anil Vinayak, an Amritsar-based social activist
Of the 16 distilleries in Punjab, at least 8 are connected to influential people
In India, many different liquors have the same base Extra Neutral Alcohol. The same base spirit is sometimes smuggled to make hooch, as well as illicit batches of liquor under known brand labels.
“From Punjab, ENA is smuggled to states as far as Assam, Gujarat Bihar"
#CommonGround | “After all, the brothers are just the distributors of the illicit liquor. They do not manufacture it. The big fish are still out in the open."
#CommonGround | A month after the tragedy, Tarn Taran Congress president resigned, alleging that party leaders, civil and police administration were sheltering illicit liquor smugglers.
After the hooch tragedy, the police and the administration swung into action, visiting distilleries to inspect their stocks. But more than a year later, there have been no conviction
#CommonGround: Within days of the hooch tragedy, two Congress Rajya Sabha MPs had criticised their own party, accusing the state government, then led by Amarinder Singh, of “clear-cut failure”.
Economist Aravind Panagariya's dismissal of Rajasthan's #righttohealth Act as an example of “irresponsible populism” is shocking in a country where the financial burden of healthcare continues to push over 55 million people into poverty every year. scroll.in/article/1047330
Panagariya also sees pensions and the right of the retired and elderly to a dignified life as a “populist” move in the context of the debate over a new pension scheme launched by the Bharatiya Janata Party government. scroll.in/article/1047330
For Panagariya, any government spending that violates the fictive boundary of fiscal prudence is sacrilege and thereby “irresponsible populism”. One of the pillars of this thinking is that such “dole outs” are necessarily inflationary. scroll.in/article/1047330
#ScrollInvestigation: The Modi government greenlighted the clearance of about 3,000 acres of forest land in Chhattisgarh for the expansion of a coal mine operated by the Adani Group...
...even though a government-funded study found millions of tonnes of coal lying unextracted at the bottom of the existing mine.
Allocated by the coal ministry to Rajasthan’s state electricity company, the Parsa East and Kanta Basan mine is operated by the Adani Group, which also holds 74% stake in its profits.
THREAD | The assault of an activist in Sikkim’s Singtam town on April 9 has once again drawn attention to the concerns over the redefinition of who counts as “Sikkimese” for tax purposes in the Finance Act, 2023. scroll.in/article/104738…
The act allows Indians who settled in Sikkim before 1975, when the Himalayan kingdom was merged with India, to avail of tax exemptions that ethnic Sikkimese groups have been granted.
The bill was necessitated by a Supreme Court verdict in January.
Critics allege that the law, which was passed by the Lok Sabha on March 24, is an attack on the state’s special rights and the identity of native groups. scroll.in/article/1047381
"What has happened is a very scary dilution” of Article 371, Joint Action Council member Amrit Sharma… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…
The Bharatiya Janata Party was on Sunday forced to replace a ceremonial banner it had erected in #Karnataka’s Mandya district to welcome Prime Minister Narendra Modi. scroll.in/article/104574…
A Thread ⬇️
The Opposition leaders pointed out that the banner featured two purported 18th-century Vokkaliga chieftains who the saffron party claims had killed Mysuru ruler Tipu Sultan.
According to the historical record, the Mysuru king was killed by the British.
This attempt by the BJP to showcase the supposed Vokkaliga chieftains Uri Gowda and Nanje Gowda, is being seen as part of the organisation’s new electoral push to appeal to specific castes groups - Vokkaliga voters.
THREAD: In early 2019, when Irshad Arif Irshad and his three friends decided to start an e-commerce business in Kashmir, they pooled their own savings instead of taking a loan.
“We did not take any bank loan because we know the risk of failure of businesses here,” Irshad said.
They opened a web portal called Kashmir Origin, a local platform that sells curated Kashmiri handicrafts, organic products and fabrics.
All four co-founders had worked for e-commerce companies in #Kashmir as well as other parts of India, and brought their expertise to the table.
But soon, their internet-driven business faced an unprecedented crisis.
In August 2019, J-K was put under severe restrictions and a never-seen-before internet blockade.
“We had no idea about the status of our orders. We thought the business was over," Arif said.
A group of 87 former civil servants urged President Droupadi Murmu to advise the Central government to immediately stop the Rs 72,000-crore mega project on Great Nicobar Island.
The mega project and the proposal to increase the island’s population amounts to “a planned destruction of the Adivasi culture and lives”, said Sharad Lele, a former member of the environment ministry and tribal ministry committee on the Forest Rights Act. scroll.in/article/103826…
“This proposal for compensatory afforestation in Haryana in lieu of this ecological and social loss in the Islands is devoid of any logic,” said Tushar Dash, a forest rights researcher. scroll.in/article/104166…