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The Indian Express September 28, 2020 The Indian Army is preparing for extended deployment of troops at the LAC through the winter months. This leaves the IAF with a key role in providing support to the troops. What are the challenges to meet in the harsh winter and tough terrain? With a resolution to the standoff on the LAC still elusive, the Indian Army is preparing for extended deployment of troops in the region through the winter months. This leaves the IAF with a key role in providing support to the troops. Can the IAF support the logistics of such a large force? One part of the logistics for the Army requires land transportation, which would have been planned for before winter sets in and the passes close. The IAF will be doing very urgent missions, for which it is well prepared with a very good transport fleet consisting of C-17 Globemasters, Il-76s, and many An-32s. If it comes to the crunch, the C-130 Super Hercules can also be used for logistics support, although these are me...

  Hindustan Times September 28, 2020 At a height of 5,800 metres on the Finger Four mountainous spur, an endurance test is set to take place this winter, with Indian Army and the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) poised face-to-face, and the first short snow already falling on the Karakoram and Kailash ranges of Ladakh. While the winter is expected to worsen after Diwali in November, the situation on all the friction points in the sector is a stalemate with the PLA accusing the Indian Army of upping the ante south of Pangong Tso on August 29-30, as a result of which its claimed withdrawal plans were scuttled. The Indian  Army troops are geared for the winter  with specialized Alaskan winter clothing being imported from the US to handle temperatures 25 degrees below zero celsius at these heights. At present, the day temperatures are around 10 degrees with sunshine, with the night temperatures dropping to minus 10-15 degrees celsius. The situation along the 1,597 km Line of Ac...

 The Economic Times September 27, 2020 An Indian think-tank has sent petitions to UN Secretary General and top officials of the UN on the state-sanctioned violence against minorities in Pakistan and the murder of innocent civilians and political workers by Pak-supported terrorist groups in Jammu and Kashmir. On September 22, the Usanas Foundation, a Udaipur-based think tank, sent a petition on the increasingly deteriorating conditions of minorities in Pakistan and the violation of their rights with the state's tacit support to the UN secretary-general Antonio Gutteres. A copy of the letter was also sent to Michelle Bachelet UN High Commissioner for Human Rights; USCRIF; Human Rights Watch; Amnesty International; Freedom House; Karen Smith, Special Advisor to UN Secy Gen on Responsibility to Protect;Bedault Mylene, Office of the High Comm. For Human Rights and Special Advisor to Sec Gen on the prevention of genocide. In particular, this letter focused on the Shia community's atr...

  The Times of India September 27, 2020 KABUL:  Afghanistan 's dwindling community of Sikhs and Hindus is shrinking to its lowest levels. With growing threats from the local  Islamic State  affiliate, many are choosing to leave the country of their birth to escape the insecurity and a once-thriving community of as many as 250,000 members now counts fewer than 700. The community's numbers have been declining for years because of deep-rooted discrimination in the majority Muslim country. But, without what they say is adequate protection from the government, the attacks by the Islamic State group may complete the exodus. “We are no longer able to stay here,” said a member of the tiny community, who asked to be identified only by his last name, Hamdard, out of fear he may be targeted for speaking out. Hamdard said seven relatives of his, including his sister, nephews, and son-in-law were killed by Islamic State gunmen in an attack on the Gurdwara in March, which killed 2...

 mint Sep 25, 2020 J.Jagannath UK telecom major Vodafone Group Plc on Friday won an international arbitration against India over retrospective tax demand of  ₹ 20,000 crore. The Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague ruled that conduct of Income Tax Department is in breach of 'fair and equitable' treatment. Vodafone was represented at The Hague by DMD Advocates. The tribunal ruled that the Indian government's imposition of a tax liability on Vodafone is in breach of the investment treaty agreement between India and the Netherlands, Reuters reported while quoting a source. The tribunal, in its ruling, said the government must cease seeking the dues from Vodafone and should also pay 4.3 million pounds ($5.47 million) to the company as partial compensation for its legal costs, the source said. Spurred by the news, on Friday  Vodafone Idea's  scrip on BSE closed 12% higher at  ₹ 10.20. The tax dispute stems from Vodafone's acquisition of the Indian mobile asset...

 The Telegraph Sep 25, 2020 Harley-Davidson Inc said on Thursday it would discontinue its sales and manufacturing operations in India, effectively abandoning the world’s biggest motorcycle market after a decade of unsuccessful efforts to gain a foothold. The move involves $75 million in restructuring costs, some 70 redundancies and the closure of its Bawal plant, walking away from a market worth about 17 million bike and scooter sales a year. It will retain only a scaled-down sales office in Gurgaon. “As part of The Rewire, an overhaul of its operating model and market structure, the company is changing its business model in India and evaluating options to continue to serve its customers,” a press release said. he Harley-Davidson dealer network will continue to serve customers through the contract term. “The present contract term is till December,” said Adarsh Tulsyan, proprietor of the sole Harley Davidson dealership in Calcutta.  The company has a total of 33 dealerships in ...

 Hindustan Times Sep 25, 2020 Prasun Sonwalkar A study to analyse the structure of the coronavirus from two waves of infections in a major city found that a more contagious strain dominates recent samples, researchers from Houston Methodist Hospital said on Wednesday. They studied over 5,000 genomes from viruses found in the earliest phase of the pandemic in Houston and from an ongoing, more recent wave of infections. The study, which has not yet been reviewed by outside experts, found that nearly all strains in the second wave had a mutation, known as D614G, which has been shown to increase the number of “spikes” on the crown-shaped virus. The researchers said patients infected with the variant strain had higher amounts of the virus on initial diagnosis. But there was little evidence mutations in the virus have made it deadlier. Meanwhile in the UK, chancellor Rishi Sunak on Thursday announced another multi-billion-pound package that includes the exchequer picking up parts of the ...

 The Indian Express Sep 25, 2020 Harikishan Sharma Citing the opinion of the Attorney General of India, Finance Minister  Nirmala Sitharaman  told Parliament last week that there was no provision in the law to compensate states for loss of GST revenue out of the Consolidated Fund of India (CFI). However, the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India has found that the government itself violated the law by retaining Rs 47,272 crore of GST compensation cess in the CFI during 2017-18 and 2018-19, and used the money for other purposes, which “led to overstatement of revenue receipts and understatement of fiscal deficit for the year”. “Audit examination of information in Statements 8, 9 and 13 with regard to collection of the cess and its transfer to the GST Compensation Cess Fund, shows that there was short crediting to the Fund of the GST Compensation Cess collections totalling to Rs 47,272 crore during 2017-18 and 2018-19,” the CAG has said. “The short-crediting was a ...

 The Hindu  Sep 25, 2020 AP A Chinese pharmaceutical company said on Thursday the coronavirus vaccine it is developing should be ready by early 2021 for distribution worldwide, including the United States. Yin Weidong, the CEO of SinoVac, vowed to apply to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to sell CoronaVac in the United States if it passes its third and final round of testing in humans. Mr. Yin said he personally has been given the experimental vaccine. “At the very beginning, our strategy was designed for China and for Wuhan. Soon after that in June and July we adjusted our strategy, that is to face the world,” Mr. Yin said, referring to the Chinese city were the virus first emerged. “Our goal is to provide the vaccine to the world including the U.S., EU and others,” Mr. Yin said. Stringent regulations in the U.S., European Union, Japan and Australia have historically blocked the sale of Chinese vaccines. But Mr. Yin said that could change. SinoVac is developing one of C...

 The Hindustan times Sep 25, 2020 Tarush Bhalla India’s online grocery market has emerged as the new battleground for BigBasket, Flipkart, Reliance JioMart, Swiggy and Amazon India. With customers preferring to stay indoors, companies are battling to grab a larger slice of this online grocery business that is estimated to expand ninefold to $18.2 billion by 2024, according to a new report from RedSeer. In the short-term, the size of the e-grocery market in the country is expected to expand from $1.9 billion in 2019 to $3 billion by the year-end and then grow at an annual pace of 57% for the next four years, the report said. Online sales contribute to a minuscule 0.3% of the overall grocery sales in India and are expected to increase to 2.3% by 2024, RedSeer said. Almost every food delivery and e-commerce firm pivoted to selling groceries because of the restrictions on the delivery of non-essentials during lockdown. With customers left with no option but to look at digital channels ...