June 2019 - meraapnabihar

Ranchi: Tribal man killed for objecting to weed being smoked outside his house, Md Sajid, Azam Ansari and Ramzan Ansari arrested

Source: opindia.com

In a shocking incident, Mangru Pahan (30), belonging to a tribal community from Jharkhand was stabbed to death, on the night of June 21, just because he had asked three men not to smoke ganja outside his house.

Three accused identified as Mohammad Sajid alias Chottu, Azam Ansari alias Babu and Ramzan Ansari alias Chutri have been arrested, according to a report in Bhaskar. The police has also recovered the knife allegedly used in the crime.

The accused confessed before the police that the stabbing took place following an argument with Pahan.

Mangru Pahan, who is survived by his wife and four children was a resident of Sarna Toli in Kadru area under Argora police station area. Pahan, who used to earn his living as a labourer. In the incident which took place around 9 pm, the three accused along with their friends were smoking ganja near Magru’s home at Kadru Sarna Toli. Mangru’ polite request to not smoke ganja outside his house, angered one of the youths so much that he stabbed Magru in his stomach and escaped.

Recalling the incident, Mangru’s relative said, “They had come outside the house (where there is a tree) and were smoking. Mangru objected on this. He told them that you can go to the railway station, where there are no people. But they first picked up an argument and then one of them stabbed him.

“We rushed him to RIMS (Rajendra Institute of Medical Sciences), where he was declared brought dead,” confirmed Mangru’s relatives.

Last year, in a similar incident, one Santosh was allegedly killed by Wasim after he too objected to ganja smoking. Santosh was reportedly a BJP party member and Wasim was allegedly the son of a Congress worker. In his statement to the police, Ashok, 27, who witnessed the attack, said Santosh had taken objection to the prime accused Wasim smoking marijuana.

MHA junior Ministers get homes in Lutyens’ Delhi

Source: economictimes.indiatimes.com

New Delhi: After Union home minister Amit Shah was allotted the late prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s Krishna Menon Marg residence in central Delhi, ministers of state Kishan G Reddy and Nityanand Rai, too, have been allocated bungalows in Lutyens’ Delhi.

While Reddy has been allotted 20 Tughlak Crescent Road, presently being occupied by former MoS Jayant Sinha, Rai has been allotted 4 Lodhi Estate where Trinamool Congress MP Dinesh Trivedi is staying, officials told ET.

However, it may take time before they move in because both Sinha and Trivedi have asked for some time to vacate the bungalows, officials said.

Shah is also yet to move into his new bungalow. He is currently staying at his 11Akbar Road and is expected to move after completion of renovation work.

Rai is said to be operating from his residence at MS Flats near RML Hospital while Reddy is staying at Telangana Bhavan.

The home minister had last week allocated all 23 divisions of the ministry except Intelligence Bureau, cabinet matters and issues related to president’s secretariat, to his two deputies, with Reddy getting bulk of the divisions including Jammu and Kashmir, North East and Left-Wing Extremism.

Rai was allocated centrestate division, Police-I that looks after transfer postings of IPS officers, and foreigners’ divisions which is responsible for FCRA licenses of NGOs, among others.

Explaining the rationale behind the allocation, a senior ministry official told ET, “Reddy is senior to Rai in the council of ministers.

This was the prime reason that he has been allocated the major divisions.

This was also the reasons why former MoS (home) Hansraj G Ahir was in-charge of LWE and Kashmir affairs while his colleague Kiren Rijiju had other divisions.”

Shah, who is on a two-day visit to Jammu and Kashmir, is expected to get a detailed presentation of each division of the ministry on his return, officials said. He and his two juniors will be informed about the work performed by each department at the presentation that will start on Friday with centre-state and disaster management divisions and will continue on Saturday, an official said.

Union Minister Ram Vilas Paswan elected unopposed to Rajya Sabha from Bihar

Source: indiatoday.in

Union minister and Lok Janshakti Party chief Ram Vilas Paswan on Friday was elected unopposed to the Rajya Sabha from Bihar.

Ram Vilas Paswan was declared elected and the certificate was handed over to him, Bateshwar Nath Pandey, the Returning Officer and secretary to Bihar Legislative Assembly, told PTI.

The certificate of election was given to Ram Vilas Paswan in presence of a host of senior NDA leaders including Deputy Chief Minister Sushil Kumar Modi.

The Lok Janshakti Party chief has been elected to the Upper House in a by-poll necessitated after the resignation of his cabinet colleague Ravi Shankar Prasad, who got elected to the Lok Sabha from the Patna Sahib seat in the recently concluded 2019 general elections.

This is the second time that Ram Vilas Paswan, who began his political career as a Sanyukt Socialist Party MLA in the 1960s, has been elected to the Rajya Sabha.

Ram Vilas Paswan’s previous election to the Upper House was in 2010 when he entered the Parliament with support of his then ally the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) a year after having lost his Hajipur Lok Sabha seat.

Ram Vilas Paswan resigned from the Rajya Sabha in 2014, two years ahead of the expiry of his term, when he wrested back the Hajipur contesting as an NDA candidate.

Ram Vilas Paswan had announced his decision not to contest the Lok Sabha polls this time and to choose the Rajya Sabha route instead when the NDA in Bihar, comprising BJP, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar JD(U) and LJP came out with its seat-sharing plan last year.

The Hajipur seat, which he won a number of times, on a couple of occasions with a record margin, has been retained for his party by Ram Vilas Paswan’s younger brother and state LJP president Pashupati Kumar Paras.

Posters in Patna blame Nitish, Pandey for AES deaths

Source: nationalheraldindia.com

Hours ahead of the Monsoon session of the Bihar Assembly on Friday, posters appeared in Patna blaming the NDA government for the death of over 150 children in Muzaffarpur due to Acute Encephalitis Syndrome (AES) and the complete collapse of law and order in the state.

Dozens of posters in Hindi that were pasted on walls along the main roads in the state capital, also demanded resignations of Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and Bihar Health Minister Mangal Pandey on moral grounds for having failed to check the spread of AES.

The posters termed Bihar as “maut ka kuan” (death well) and mocked it leaders lack of concern for the suffering of the people of the state.

“Chief Minister Nitish Kumar found time to visit Muzaffarpur only after 100 children had died, while Mangal Pandey was more interested knowing the score of the India and Pakistan World Cup cricket match at his press conference with Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan in Muzaffarpur,” it said.

The posters also expressed growing resentment among the people over the rising lawlessness in the state with daily reports of murder, kidnapping, extortion, loot, robbery and rape.

Ealier similar posters had come up in Muzaffarpur — the epicentre of AES epidemic — asking people to trace “missing” Opposition Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) leader Tejashwi Yadav.

Jharkhand Mob Lynching Victim’s Viscera Samples Sent to Forensic Lab to Ascertain Exact Cause of Death

Source: news18.com

Jamshedpur: Viscera samples of Jharkhand mob victim, Tabrez Ansari, have been sent to a forensic lab in Ranchi to ascertain the exact cause of his death as his postmortem report did not indicate it, a senior doctor said Friday.

Seraikela-Kharsawan district civil surgeon AN Dey said the exact cause of Ansari’s death can be confirmed only when the forensic lab report is received in a fortnights time.

The autopsy, he said, was conducted in-camera by a three-member medical board constituted by the district administration in the presence of a magistrate.

Ansari (24) was allegedly tied to a pole and thrashed with sticks by a mob at Dhatkidih village in Jharkhand’s Seraikela Kharsawan district on June 17 on suspicion of theft. The recently married man was purportedly seen in a video being forced to chant “Jai Shri Ram” and “Jai Hanuman”. So far 11 people have been arrested in connection with the incident.

Ansari was rushed to the Saraikela district hospital after he complained of uneasiness on June 21. On June 22, he was referred to the Tata Hospital in Jamshedpur where he was declared brought dead.

Suspecting that Ansari’s death could have been sudden, Dey said footage of the CCTV installed at the jail showed that he returned from the toilet the morning after his assault, asked for water from an inmate and drank it.

The man had external injuries on his left leg and hand,

and a cut mark on his skull. No internal injury was detected, Dey said quoting the postmortem report.

The victim did not have symptoms of brain hemorrhage nor complained of headache during the intervening four days between his assault and death, the civil surgeon added.

Monsoon weakens over Jharkhand, rain deficit at 60% so far

Source: hindustantimes.com

Erratic monsoon has again worried Jharkhand farmers, who are yet to come out of last year’s drought pain. The rain deficit in the state has reached 60% in June, a crucial month for raising nursery for paddy crops and direct seed sowing of other crops such as maize and pulses.

The farmers could not start activities of nursery raising and direct seed sowing due to deficient rainfall in June, agricultural scientists of Birsa Agricultural University (BAU), Ranchi, said.

The monsoon hit the state on June 21 has slowed down in last four days causing more rainfall deficit.

According to Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) centre in Ranchi, the state received merely 63.4mm rainfall against the normal rainfall of 156.7mm from June 1 to June 26.

The deficient rainfall condition is likely to prevail for next 48 hours.

“The monsoon has weakened over Jharkhand in absence of any strong system. This is a normal characteristic of the season. However, we are expecting a spell of good rainfall from June 29,” said SD Kotal, director IMD centre, Ranchi.

He said a low pressure was expected to develop over the Bay of Bengal by June 30, impact of which would be visible from June 29.

“We are hoping the upcoming spell would fill the gap of rainfall deficit to a great extent,” he said.

Seedling process in Jharkhand has already delayed by 16 days. Senior agro-meteorologist of Birsa Agricultural University (BAU), Ranchi, A Wadud said this was the peak time for nursery raising for paddy crops and direct seed sowing of other crops including maize and pulses.

The two major activities generally conclude in the state by the end of the June last.

“However, farmers are yet to take up the activities due to the lack of sufficient rains. If rainfall remains elusive for next one week, it will have an impact in overall kharif production, as sapling transplantation to paddy field would not take place by first week of July,” Wadud said.

Even as the parts of Jharkhand, including Ranchi, received brief rainfall on Wednesday, farmers said it was not enough to start for nursery raising or direct sowing of the seeds.

Hari Munda, a Ranchi’s Mandar based farmer, said, “I could not start seedling due to the lack of rainfall. A seed takes at least 20 days to grow as sapling. If we could not start the process by June 30, it would certainly have an impact on the overall production.”

Jitendra Kumar, Ormanjhi based farmer, said, “Next 10 days of the June are crucial for nursery raising, as farmers begin transplanting of saplings to farm field from July 1.”

He said “A heavy rainfall will be enough for nursery raising. Sadly, there is no significant rainfall till date.”

Notably, the state has been the victim of erratic monsoon rainfall for last few years. In 2018, the state faced 28% rainfall deficit, causing drought in half of the Jharkhand’s blocks. The state government in November last year had declared 129 blocks as drought. At least 91 blocks were declared severely affected.

The government recently released Rs 346 crore drought relief package to farmers of 129 blocks. Jharkhand has around 39 lakh hectare arable land, of which about 27 lakh hectares land is used for Kharift crops. About 18 lakh hectares area is used for paddy, three lakh hectares for maize, six lakh hectares area for pulses and 60,000 hectares for oils seeds.

After Bihar, a public health agenda for India

Source: thehindubusinessline.com

Global experience shows that building a robust health system takes decades. However, the government has made systematic efforts towards impacting the multiple determinants of health over the last five years. The second term of the Narendra Modi-led government will be crucial for ensuring full implementation of recently launched initiatives in the health sector.

First, a greater push is needed for supporting the development of dedicated public health cadres in States. Whether it is combating a Nipah virus outbreak in Kerala or preventing the death of children due to the Acute Encephalitis Syndrome in Bihar, a strong public health system is crucial. In fact, in a rapidly urbanising and densely populated India, the risk of disease outbreaks and spreading of contagion is much higher.

It took a significant human cost and socio-political crisis after the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) outbreak for China to boost investments in public health. We must make the recent deaths in Bihar a turning point for prioritising public health in India.

Expanding Ayushman Bharat

In 2018, the government announced the flagship Ayushman Bharat programme which seeks to comprehensively strengthen the health system from the primary level through to tertiary care. With respect to primary care, emphasis will need to be placed not only on accelerating the establishment of Health and Wellness Centres (HWCs) but also ensuring that they are fully functional and delivering comprehensive services, including in areas like mental health and geriatrics.

A strong referral system for those identified to be at risk of non-communicable diseases will also need to be put in place. Further, suitable models for delivery of primary care in urban areas will need to be prioritised as historically sub-centres and primary health centres have not worked as effectively in large, dynamic urban agglomerations.

Over 26 lakh beneficiaries have received treatment thus far under the Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (PM-JAY). The supply of services under PM-JAY will need to be enhanced through the creation of multi-speciality hospitals in the private sector. This will also boost job creation as every additional hospital bed generates an estimated 3-4 jobs. The government can also build on the platform of PM-JAY to expand insurance coverage to a larger section of the population. For instance, a contributory health insurance scheme could be launched for various categories of professionals who are not covered under PM-JAY and can afford to pay a contribution.

A long-standing challenge for India’s health system has been the existence of patient health records in manual or disparate IT systems with little standardisation. This limits interoperability and sharing of information. A key component of the HWCs is the creation of patient health records at the community-level. Further, PM-JAY emphasises electronic records for all patient transactions. What is needed now is an entity that can create a common health data vocabulary and specify minimum data standards. NITI Aayog has put out a strategy paper on the National Health Stack.

Another area in which the government has intervened significantly is enabling access to drugs and medical devices at affordable prices by setting up over 5,000 Jan Aushadhi stores and adopting price control. Going forward, the government would need to iron out any challenges with the business model of Jan Aushadhi stores as well as take steps to boost the domestic production of raw materials for drugs, thereby reducing the country’s dependence on imports.

During the first term of the Modi government several efforts were made to reform medical education in the country. The National Medical Commission Bill, 2017 must be implemented expeditiously. Reforms should also be undertaken along similar lines in AYUSH, nursing, dental and pharmacy education. To boost medical education infrastructure, private partners may be encouraged to establish new medical colleges, linked with district hospitals. I Developing other cadres of health professionals such as AYUSH and nurse practitioners as well as allied health professionals, should be prioritised.

Of course, a key enabler for implementing these reforms and programmes is an increase in government health expenditure to at least 2.5 per cent of GDP by, if not before, 2025. State governments also have a key role to play in ensuring that they spend at least 8 per cent of their budget on the health sector. The government can consider innovative sources of raising funds for health including earmarking revenues from tobacco and alcohol sales, earmarking taxes on sugar-sweetened beverages and utilising social impact bonds.

Missing bullets from UP making way to gangs in Jharkhand and Bihar

Source: indiatoday.in

In a shocking revelation, made by a senior police official following the story published by India Today on June 24, 2019 regarding crores of missing pistol and rifle bullets from UP, it is being said that the missing bullets are being sold in the ammunition black markets of Bihar and Jharkhand apart from Uttar Pradesh.

The revelation also mentioned that a sudden spurt in firearm-based crimes is due to these missing bullets.

The UP DGP OP Singh instructed all the district police officials in UP to conduct a full physical verification of each and every bullet issued to the licensed firearm bearers.

The state police’s crime wing will be investigating the case of missing bullets now.

Following the report from the crime wing, the police officials in all the districts will be given further instructions.

FIREARM-BASED CRIMES IN UTTAR PRADESH

Most cases of firearm-based crimes are being committed in Uttar Pradesh by criminals, according to the information available with India Today.

According to the statistics from the police headquarters, there are around 1,00 murders committed in Uttar Pradesh every year using firearms and most of these firearms are illegally produced and obtained.

Since it is easy to manufacture a firearm but it is near impossible to produce a decent bullet without an elaborate factory setup, the bullets for these illegal weapons are sourced from the licensed firearm bearers and ammunition dealers, who fudge their records to show that the bullets have gone missing or have been utilised.

JHARKHAND AND BIHAR

Similar is the case of Jharkhand and Bihar, where 800-1,000 murders are committed every year using illegal weapons.

THE RAIDS

In the past Lok Sabha polls, the UP police had raided 240 illegal weapon factories.

It is clear that all these weapons require bullets to be of any use.

In Uttar Pradesh, there are several lakh licensed weapon holders who have never faced an audit of the bullets they have in possession or have used so far.

TRACING THE BULLETS

A retired police official told India Today that the logistics wing of the police should be instructed to ensure that every firearm cartridge is numbered.

If this provision is brought into effect, the cases of murders from firearms will see a steep drop in numbers as each cartridge will then be traceable to the person who got it issued from the firearm dealer.

Social activist and Hindustani Biradari Vice-Chairman Vishal Sharma said that licensed weapons have become more of a status symbol these days and most weapon bearers do not even have the training to use the weapon when needed.

Vishal Sharma said, “Uttar Pradesh is at the top in the country when it comes to the number of licensed firearms, with Jammu and Kashmir coming second.”

While licensed weapons are a necessity in Jammu and Kashmir due to terrorism, UP does not have that big a threat to the lives of common citizens to warrant such a huge number of firearm licenses.

Vishal Sharma expressed surprise that when one licensed weapon holder can only have a maximum of 200 cartridges in a year and only keep 100 at a time, with a requirement to produce at least 80 per cent of the spent shells to the dealer, then how such a huge number of cartridges disappeared from the city’s firearm holders.

BULLETS AND BLACK MARKETS

Agra SSP Joginder Kumar told India Today that licensed weapon holders could now be subjected to random surveillance by the Local Intelligence Units of the police to ensure that they are not selling the cartridges in the black market.

WHO’S GOT WHAT

Joginder Kumar said that Lucknow tops the state’s districts in the number of licensed weapons at 53,033 weapons, Agra comes a close second at 47,102 weapons, Bareilly has 45,896 weapon bearers, Prayagraj has 45,841, while Kanpur (City) has 39,095 licensed weapon holders.

There are five states in India whose total number of licensed weapons are lower than the licensed weapons held by either of these five districts of UP.

Delhi has 38,754 licensed weapons, Tamil Nadu has 22,532, Assam has 19,283, Odisha has 20,588, while Kerala has just 9,459 licensed weapons.

Two-day feast of organic delights for aam aadmi in Ranchi

Source: telegraphindia.com

If you’re a mango person — a.k.a aam aadmi — yearning to bite into delicious carbide-free varieties, your prayers have been answered.

The two-day Mango Festival that kicked off at the regional office of the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (Nabard) here on Thursday provides a win-win proposition for consumers and producers alike of organic mangoes.

A dozen stalls have been put up by NGOs with which Nabard has been working for implementation of its Wadi project, meant for providing an assured supplementary income to the poor of the project area.

Rajesh Murmu, from Mehjia village of Jamtara district, was sitting idle at his stall after selling his entire stock of 60kg of Amrapali mangoes within two hours of the opening of the festival.

“It was raining when we started yesterday (Wednesday) and we couldn’t bring more than half of the mangoes we had planned to display here,” he said at the empty stall of the Badlao Foundation he is attached to.

Nabard implements the Wadi (a Gujarati word meaning small orchard) project under its tribal development scheme that was introduced in 2008-09 for improving the socio-economic condition of the people living in its project areas by encouraging them to grow organic, carbide-free fruits and also helping them in the production, processing and marketing of their produce. Hence, the rural bank has been organising a mango festival in Ranchi since last year.

“We started planting mango saplings under the Wadi scheme in 2010 and got good quality of fruits from the third year itself,” said Alex Hansda of Chetna Vikash, who came from Saraiyahat in Dumka district with mango varieties such as Amrapali and Fazli.

“We have been cultivating mangoes for the past five years and started getting good quality Amrapali mangoes after three years,” said Ram Kumar Oraon of Grameen Seva Kendra of Patratu in Ramgarh district.

The stalls are selling mangoes at Rs 40 and Rs 50 per kg, depending on the variety.

“The quality of mangoes sold here is really very good as I found last year,” said Ashok Sharma, a visitor, after buying 3kg of Amrapali mangoes from one of the stalls.

Sorry, children, you live in a capital whose guardians can’t keep dirty water off roads

Source: telegraphindia.com

Nine-year-old Anushka Kumari, who was returning home from school on Thursday, stumbled and fell on the waterlogged stretch of Gandhinagar-Vidyapati Road of Ranchi Municipal Corporation’s ward 2. When she got up, she vomited many times as she had gulped drain water, and had blood oozing out of her knee.

The Class I student of Gyanodaya Public School in Gandhinagar on Kanke Road has to walk 1km to her Misirgonda residence. That would have been no sweat for the girl if she did not have to cross the low-lying stretch flooded with drain water by stepping on small boulders.

Like thousands of pedestrians, Anuskha manages to do that every day, but on Thursday she tripped. But the child, despite vomiting and hurting her knee badly, was more scared of what her mother would say for dropping her schoolbag in the dirty water and spoiling her textbooks.

Those who use the Gandhinagar-Vidyapati Road — a low-lying stretch of Kanke Road — every day are forced to step on boulders for some 15 metres to avoid ankle-deep drain water. Reason: the dirty water has nowhere to go.

Earlier, drain water used to flow out to a low-lying disputed stretch of land. But in the past month, some people blocked the drain’s exit point. Now, water from the drain spills on to the road.

“Despite reminders, the RMC is silent. Senior officials of the RMC say residents are at fault as they built houses without approval of the building map. That’s a complete lie,” Sanjay Kumar; a local resident, said.

He said the road got flooded even after the “slightest bit of rain”. “You can imagine our dread this season,” he said.

A few months ago, RMC had prepared a database of existing drains aided by 50 students from Ranchi University’s geography department. Ranchi municipal commissioner Manoj Kumar also visited affected localities.

But, residents and even ward councillors feel that the corporation simply does not do enough for Ranchi’s drainage.

A resident of Edalhatu, Shyam Bahadur, said: “RMC’s monsoon plan is meant for certain VIP pockets only. People like us live with choked drains. RMC only collects taxes.”

Ward 7 councillor Sujata Kacchap said she herself was a victim of the “RMC’s mismanagement”. “My house is at lane 2 at Khorhatoli. Two years back, during underground electric cabling work, drainage there was destroyed by (outsourced company) Polycab. The company said they would rebuild the drainage and asked me to submit a detailed project report through the RMC. Unfortunately, the RMC is sitting on the report. I’ve raised this matter at least thrice at board meetings.

The entire stretch near my house gets flooded, but the RMC doesn’t even send safai workers.”

Councillor of ward 4 Husna Ara agreed. “There are certain pockets in my ward with perennial flooding. Harihar Singh Road is the worst affected.

Drain water has no place to flow out. Instead of working out a permanent solution, RMC elevated the road. Now, the slightest shower floods the road.”

RMC health officer Kiran Kumari said they held a special meeting on waterlogging and drainage. “We are taking account of all individual cases of waterlogging due to choked drains. Every ward supervisor has been asked to send reports. We are looking at preventing vector-borne diseases, and permanent solutions.”