Indian Express news — صفحه 11 از 14 — ✅ خرید وی پی ان ❇ ip ثایت vPn آی پی اختصاصی ◐

آوریل 17, 2022

7 in 10 have availed of PDS scheme; lack of documents occasional hurdle

The central and state governments have introduced various welfare schemes targeted at the poor and the marginalised sections of society — to avail ration, pension, even gas cylinders. In part 4 of this series, Lokniti-CSDS’s study on the urban poor of Delhi tries to see the outreach of some popular welfare schemes and whether the targeted groups are indeed getting the benefits they are supposed to.
🗞️ Subscribe Now: Get Express Premium to access the best Election reporting and analysis 🗞️
PDS, Jan Dhan Yojna
The findings from the survey suggest that close to seven in ten (69%) surveyed households have benefited from the Public Distribution System (PDS) scheme through which people get ration at subsidised cost.
Close to a quarter (23%) of households also reported that they opened their accounts under the Jan Dhan Yojna introduced by the BJP-led central government, which helped people avail the benefits of various schemes launched during Covid-19.

During the pandemic, the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Yojana was introduced, which provided Rs 500 to women having a Jan Dhan account. The study found that a mere 9% of households said they got the amount. However, if the household had a Jan Dhan account, amongst them a little over one-fifth said that they got the benefit under Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Yojana.
Sixteen percent of households benefited from the pension scheme and 15% received gas cylinders under Ujjwala Yojna, a central government scheme (Table 1).
Though not many urban slum dwellers could avail the benefit of the Direct Cash Transfer by the central government under the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Yojana during Covid-19, they got other forms of assistance from the government during the pandemic.
A little over seven in ten (71%) households got free ration provided by the government and two-fifths said they received free medicines and treatment. Merely 8% of households got financial help from the government during Covid (Table 2).
Delivery, accessibility
When we look at delivery and accessibility of the welfare schemes, we found that availing these services was not very challenging for the urban poor. Nine of ten respondents said they had never paid any bribe to get the benefits of any schemes.

However, data shows that lack of proper documents became a hurdle at times in availing these services. Sixteen percent of households in the survey said that they were denied ration due to the lack of identity proof documents and 7% said that they were denied help related to medical treatment (Table 3). The government is promoting digitalisation in service delivery and encouraging people to apply online for welfare schemes.
While it was believed that it would be daunting for the poor to apply online, the data presents a positive picture, with close to a quarter of the urban poor households in Delhi saying they had applied for government services. However, one doesn’t know whether they sought help from others or applied on their own.

Data suggest that people living in Delhi’s slums are getting benefits of state welfare schemes, especially free ration or ration at subsidised cost. However, schemes such as pension and direct cash transfer under the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Yojana was not well delivered among urban poor and not many could avail its benefits.
The authors are researchers at Lokniti-CSDS, Delhi. For the study, 1,080 people spread across 55 slums covering all 11 districts of Delhi were interviewed using a structured questionnaire by means of face-to-face interview method. The interviews were conducted by trained field investigators for three months (November 2021 to January 2022).

!function(f,b,e,v,n,t,s)
{if(f.fbq)return;n=f.fbq=function(){n.callMethod?
n.callMethod.apply(n,arguments):n.queue.push(arguments)};
if(!f._fbq)f._fbq=n;n.push=n;n.loaded=!0;n.version=’2.0′;
n.queue=[];t=b.createElement(e);t.async=!0;
t.src=v;s=b.getElementsByTagName(e)[0];
s.parentNode.insertBefore(t,s)}(window, document,’script’,
‘https://connect.facebook.net/en_US/fbevents.js’);
fbq(‘init’, ‘444470064056909’);
fbq(‘track’, ‘PageView’);
.

آوریل 16, 2022

Power politics: With an eye on Himachal as well, AAP announces free electricity in Punjab

In Punjab, where power has been costliest in the country and “faulty” Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs) are a major political issue, the Aam Aadmi Party-led government has announced 300 units of free power.
The announcement, the biggest of the AAP government so far, was made on Saturday, when it completed one month in office. Besides standing the party in good stead in Punjab, the scheme may also help it in neighbouring Himachal Pradesh, which goes to the polls later this year. It was only a day earlier that Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur announced 125 free units of power.
🗞️ Subscribe Now: Get Express Premium to access the best Election reporting and analysis 🗞️
It was on June 29 last year that AAP supremo Arvind Kejriwal promised the 73.80 lakh power consumers in Punjab that his party, if voted to power, would provide them with 300 units of free electricity, along the line of a scheme in Delhi, where he is chief minister. Chief Minister Amarinder Singh was then having a tough time in the Punjab Congress, his failure to provide the promised cheap power and terminate PPAs being among the reasons.
The Congress high command constituted a Mallikarjun Kharge-led panel in May 2021. On June 27, the panel submitted to Amarinder an 18-point agenda, one of which was the proposal to give 300 units of free power. Amarinder’s government, however, told the high command that it was not doable.
After Amarinder’s ouster in September 2021, when Charanjit Singh Channi took over as his successor, he slashed the tariff for the first 300 units by Rs 3 for consumers having loads of up to seven kilowatts. The first 100 units of power are being charged at Rs 1.19 per unit for all domestic consumers. Earlier, it was Rs 4.19. After that, consumption between 100 and 300 units was billed at Rs 4 instead of Rs 7 per unit. For more than 300 units, the charges were at Rs 5.76 per unit as against the earlier rate of Rs 8.76. This benefited 69 lakh consumers—everyone except for those who could afford high power bills, according Channi.
However, electricity tariffs are not a new political issue in the state. Sensing that it could be a vote-catcher, former chief minister Parkash Singh Badal gave free farm power during his 1997-2002 stint. It was scoffed at by experts then as a drain on the exchequer. When Amarinder took over as chief minister in 2002, he did away with the subsidy partially. The narrative then turned against Amarinder.

Later, the Opposition Congress blamed PPAs with private thermal plants for the high power prices. The PPAs were said to favour the private players in that the government had to pay them sustenance fees even on off-peak days, when it did not procure power from them.
The burden on the exchequer was being passed on to the consumers. Amarinder had promised that he would do away with PPAs but later said they were such legally sound documents that no government could touch them. This created unease in the Congress itself.
The AAP government now faces the challenge of not only footing the Rs 6,000-crore free power bill but also taking a call on PPAs.

آوریل 13, 2022

Explained: Ruins of Mariupol port could become Russia’s first big prize in Ukraine

The Sea of Azov port of Mariupol, reduced to a wasteland by seven weeks of siege and bombardment that Ukraine says killed tens of thousands of civilians, could become the first big city captured by Russia since its invasion.
Russia said on Wednesday more than 1,000 Ukrainian marines, among the last defenders holed up in the Azovstal industrial district, had surrendered, though Ukraine did not confirm that.
🗞️ Subscribe Now: Get Express Premium to access the best Election reporting and analysis 🗞️
Here is why the city’s capture would be important.
STRATEGIC LOCATION
Mariupol, home to more than 400,000 people before the war, is the biggest Ukrainian city on the Sea of Azov and the main port serving the industries and agriculture of eastern Ukraine. It is also the site of some of Ukraine’s biggest metals plants.
On the eve of the war, it was the biggest city still held by Ukrainian authorities in the two eastern provinces known as the Donbas, which Moscow has demanded Ukraine cede to pro-Russian separatists.

Its capture would give Russia full control of the Sea of Azov coast, and a secure overland bridge linking mainland Russia and pro-Russian separatist territory in the east with the Crimea peninsula that Moscow seized and annexed in 2014.
It would unite Russian forces on two of the main axes of the invasion, and free them up to join an expected new offensive against the main Ukrainian force in the east.
Prominent among the Ukrainian forces that have defended Mariupol is the Azov Regiment, a militia with far right origins incorporated into Ukraine’s national guard. Russia has portrayed destroying that group as one of its main war aims.
HUMANITARIAN IMPACT
The siege of Mariupol has been the worst humanitarian catastrophe of the conflict, described by Kyiv as a war crime. Ukrainian officials say at least 20,000 civilians were killed there by Russian forces employing tactics of mass destruction used in earlier campaigns in Syria and Chechnya.
International organisations such as the Red Cross and the United Nations say they believe thousands died but the extent of suffering cannot be assessed yet because the city has been cut off.
Ukrainian officials have said around a third of the population escaped before the siege, a similar number got out during it, while around 160,000 were trapped inside. They sheltered for weeks in cellars with no power or heat, or access to outside shipments of food, water or medicine.

Daily attempts to send convoys to bring in aid and evacuate civilians failed throughout the siege, with Ukraine blaming Russia for looting shipments and refusing to let buses pass through the blockade. Moscow said Ukraine was to blame for failing to observe ceasefires.
Bodies have been buried in mass graves or makeshift graves in gardens. Ukraine says Russia has brought in mobile crematorium trucks to burn bodies and destroy evidence of killings.
Among the major incidents that drew international outcry was the bombing of a maternity hospital on March 9, when wounded pregnant women were photographed being carried out of rubble. A week later, the city’s main drama theatre was destroyed. Ukraine says hundreds of people were sheltering in its basement, and it has not been able to determine how many were killed. The word “children” had been spelled out on the street in front of the building, visible from space.
Russia denies targeting civilians in Mariupol and has said, without presenting evidence, that incidents including the theatre bombing and maternity hospital attack were staged. Kyiv and its Western allies dismiss this as a smear to deflect blame.
Ukraine says Russia forcibly deported thousands of Mariupol residents to Russia, including some unaccompanied children it views as having been kidnapped. Moscow denies this and says it has taken in refugees.
WHAT NEXT?
Western countries believe Russia’s initial war aim was to quickly topple the government in Kyiv, but Moscow has had to abandon that goal after armoured columns bearing down on the capital were repelled. Russia withdrew from northern Ukraine at the start of April and has said its focus is now on the areas claimed by the separatists in the east.

In recent days, a new Russian column has been moving into eastern Ukraine near the town of Izyum to the north of the Donbas. The fall of Mariupol could free up Russian troops in the south of the Donbas to mount an assault on Ukrainian forces from two directions.
Claiming its first big prize in eastern Ukraine could also give Russia a stronger position to negotiate at any peace talks.

آوریل 7, 2022

Explained: Who are Vladimir Putin’s daughters facing US sanctions over Ukraine war?

The United States and its allies have imposed sanctions against Russian President Vladimir Putin’s two daughters as the West looks to penalise Moscow for the killing of Ukrainian civilians.
Justifying the decision, a US official said: “We believe that many of Putin’s assets are hidden with family members, and that’s why we’re targeting them.”
🗞️ Subscribe Now: Get Express Premium to access the best Election reporting and analysis 🗞️
The European Union is also expected to follow suit as it discusses imposition of fresh sanctions against Russia among its 27 members. The EU sanctions, expected to take effect by Friday, would entail a freeze of any assets held in the bloc and a ban on traveling to member countries.
The moves come after reports of alleged atrocities that Ukrainian officials say were committed by Russian troops. Moscow has, however, denied any responsibility.

As the spotlight now shines upon a family shrouded in secrecy for years, we take a look at who Putin’s daughters are.
The family
Putin has two children, Maria and Katerina, from his marriage to Lyudmila Putina, a former Aeroflot steward whom he divorced in 2013, becoming the first Russian leader to divorce since Peter the Great in 1698. According to the Kremlin’s website, Putin and his wife had Maria before leaving for Germany in 1985, where he was based as a KGB officer. Katerina was born in 1986 in the German city of Dresden.
They were named after their maternal and paternal grandmothers — Maria Ivanovna Putina and Katerina Tikhonovna Shkrebneva, according to the Kremlin biography. “According to their mother, Lyudmila, Putin loves his daughters very much,” the biography said. Putin “always spoiled them, and I had to educate them,” she is cited as saying.

Putin, who has very rarely spoken publicly about his children, responded to questions at his annual press conference in 2015, saying his daughters had not fled the country, as had been speculated.
“They live in Russia. They have never been educated anywhere except Russia. I am proud of them; they continue to study and are working,” he had said. “My daughters speak three European languages fluently. I never discuss my family with anyone. They have never been ‘star’ children, they have never got pleasure from the spotlight being directed on them. They just live their own lives.”
Putin had also added that his daughters were “taking the first steps in their careers”, and were “not involved in business or politics”. However, both daughters have since launched business ventures.

The two have been kept so far from the public view that even the Kremlin has only ever identified them by their first names.
Katerina, who uses the surname of her maternal grandmother, studied at St Petersburg State University and Moscow State University and has a master’s degree in physics and mathematics. The more famous of the two daughters, Katerina, in 2013, came fifth in the world dancing championships in Switzerland. It was footage from her dance competitions that helped people identify her as Putin’s daughter.
Married to Kirill Shamalov, the younger son of Nikolai Shamalov, a close confidant of Putin and co-owner of Rossiya Bank, the two, according to an investigation by the Reuters in 2015, have corporate holdings worth more than $2 billion, as well as a luxury £4m beachfront villa in the French resort of Biarritz. Krill is already facing sanctions by the United Kingdom.
According to the Reuters report, Katerina, now, is the deputy director of the Institute for Mathematical Research of Complex Systems at Moscow State University. A Guardian report states that she also heads the $1.7 billion “artificial intelligence issues and intellectual systems” institute at the university.
Putin’s elder daughter Maria Vorontsova, 36, is a paediatric endocrinologist, studying the effects of hormones on the body. She co-wrote a book on stunted growth in children, and is listed as a researcher at the Endocrinology Research Centre in Moscow. She’s also a businesswoman with پراکسی Russia identifying her as co-owner of a company planning to build a massive medical centre.

In 2013, Maria married Russian-born Dutch businessman Jorrit Faassen, and the couple lived in the penthouse of an exclusive Amsterdam apartment building. In 2014, some Dutch neighbours called for her to be expelled from the country after the downing of MH17 by pro-Russian forces over Ukraine.
Recently a group from Amsterdam had appealed to Maria to plead with her father to end the invasion of Ukraine. A sign placed on land owned by the couple read: “Less than 2,000km from your peaceful piece of free land, your father is decimating an entire free country and its people. It seems your old man is hard to reach and clearly impossible to stop by even his hangmen. But as we all know, fathers and daughters are a different story.”
Why the secrecy?
Putin’s two daughters have kept such a low profile that even the Russians do not know what they look like.
During a press conference in 2019, Putin declined to directly answer a question about his daughters’ growing business clout and their ties to the government. He referred to Maria and Katerina as “women”, never acknowledging them as his children. “I am proud of them. They continue to study and they work,” Putin had said. “They are not involved in any business activity and they are not involved in politics. They are not trying to push their way anywhere,” he added.

Opening up about his family a bit, Putin, in an interview with the Russian state news agency TASS, had acknowledged that he enjoys communicating with his grandchildren but doesn’t like to be open about his family for security reasons. “I have grandchildren, I am happy. They are very good, sweet, like that,” Putin told TASS. “I get great pleasure from communicating with them.”
What brought the spotlight upon them?
Maria and Katerina, who have been off the radar for most of their lives, had the spotlight on themselves after their names featured on America’s new list of sanctions.
“We have reason to believe that Putin, and many of his cronies, and the oligarchs, hide their wealth, hide their assets, with family members that place their assets and their wealth in the U.S. financial system, and also many other parts of the world,” a senior US administration official told reporters, according to news agency Reuters.

“We believe that many of Putin’s assets are hidden with family members, and that’s why we’re targeting them,” the official added, speaking on condition of anonymity.
The sanctions’ list also includes the daughter and wife of Russian foreign affairs minister Sergei Lavrov. The US also banned Americans from investing in Russia, and targeted Russian financial institutions and Kremlin officials, in response to what President Joe Biden condemned as Russian “atrocities” in Ukraine.

مارس 30, 2022

‘Backwards, SCs & minorities have still not understood their rights’: SBSP president Om Prakash Rajbhar

In the recent Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections, the Suheldev Bharatiya Samaj Party (SBSP)’s president Om Prakash Rajbhar won from Zahoorabad constituency in Ghazipur. The SBSP fought the polls as part of an alliance led by the Akhilesh Yadav-headed Samajwadi Party (SP). The SBSP won 6 seats out of 17 that it contested. In an interview with The Indian Express, Rajbhar speaks on a host of issues ranging from the recent UP polls to alliance politics, to his party’s future. Excerpts:
🗞️ Subscribe Now: Get Express Premium to access the best Election reporting and analysis 🗞️
Why do you think the SP-led alliance lost the UP polls and the BJP got a comfortable majority?
When a war happens on the border, the two warring countries have different approaches. During the UP elections, our alliance had spoken about free education, free medical treatment for 25 crore people of the state. We had spoken of freeing people of problems like stray cattle, joblessness. We promised a caste census because unless the exercise is done, caste groups won’t get their share. We told the youth that 11 lakh government jobs are vacant in UP, while 22 lakh jobs are vacant in the IT sector. We talked about peace and brotherhood. The uneducated and illiterate segment of the population remembered the “namak ka karz (debt of salt)”. The weaker section, which doesn’t understand the importance of education and free medical treatment, couldn’t understand us, and behaved naively. Some people voted in the name of free ration and salt, while some others who are hardliners and want Hindu-Muslim (division), they voted on these lines. They don’t talk about education and other basic issues. They don’t care of the rising fuel prices. The backwards, Scheduled Castes, and minority communities have still not understood their rights. We had to suffer because of all these things. The last factor was that they (incumbent BJP) had the government machinery which was misused in the polls in their favour. Government officials have helped in the formation of their government.

What will the Opposition do differently in 2024 Lok Sabha elections and in the 2027 Asembly polls to take on the BJP in UP?
The 2024 general election is round the corner, and we are going to have a meeting with Akhilesh Yadav where we will discuss our future strategy. I will be able to answer this question better after our discussion in the meeting. I would like to mention that the SP has tried all ally combinations. It allied with the Congress in the 2017 UP polls and won 47 seats with 29 per cent vote share. When the SP entered into an electoral understanding with Om Prakash Rajbhar and company, it won 125 seats and got 36 per cent vote share. We just need 5-6 per cent more votes to win the UP polls. What I used to say about eastern UP has proved true. The BJP has struggled there. They could not open their account in several districts like Ambedkarnagar, Ghazipur and Azamgarh. In other eastern UP districts too, our alliance did well and won several seats, losing some by a close margin.

How content are you with the SBSP’s performance this time?
We hoped that we will win more seats. We have lost 8 seats where the margin was less than 1,000 votes. I consider it a weakness that we failed to make people understand things, else we would have won at least 14 seats.

Following the election results, there has been speculation that you will go back to allying with the BJP. Your response? Do you see a future with the SP alliance?
When I resigned from the government (previous Yogi Adityanath-led UP government) in 2019, these conversations had started an hour after my resignation – that I will go back (to the BJP coalition) after I get a call from Amit Shah or Modiji. Nothing like that happened. Similar discussion has started again. The discussion is always dominated by the strong in society. And that is what is happening now.
There have been murmurs of resentment from Pragatisheel Samajwadi Party chief Shivpal Yadav camp. How do you see the developing situation in the SP alliance?
I don’t think there is any truth to the stories of any differences between our allies.

What is your take on Akhilesh Yadav as Leader of Opposition in UP?
This decision is 100 per cent right. He (Akhilesh) should be in the House to fight the people’s battle.
CM Adityanath has allocated portfolios to his ministers. How do you see it?
These allocations have been done on the basis of caste. The ministries have been given based on the traditional occupations of the castes the leaders represent. Like Sanjay Nishad has been given the fisheries portfolio because it is his community’s traditional occupation. The weaker Bhar Rajbhar and poor do work as labour so they have been given the labour ministry. All backward and Dalit leaders have been given departments based on their castes’ traditional occupations. A Pandit (Brahmin) will handle education.