New Delhi, Jul 5 : The Congress on Tuesday demanded that the five per cent Goods and Services Tax (GST) levied on domestic cooking gas (LPG) cylinder be removed as it was burdening the poor.
The domestic LPG price has shot up by up to Rs 32 per cylinder – the steepest increase in six years – following implementation of the GST.
“The price of domestic LPG cylinder has gone up by Rs 32 in parts of the country after the GST became effective. This is affecting common people, the poor especially. We demand that the GST on domestic LPG cylinder be removed immediately,” senior AICC spokesperson Ajay Maken told reporters here.
Subsidised LPG rates have been increased to Rs 477.46 per 14.2-kg cylinder from Rs 446.65 in Delhi after the GST was implemented from July 1.
Before the GST came into force, two to four per cent value added tax was imposed on the LPG in some states.
Maken accused the government of not passing on the benefits of drop in global crude oil prices to people of the country.
“The government is making profits to the tune of Rs 3 lakh crore every year by not slashing prices of fuel here. On the one hand, it is making profits and on the other, it is burdening the poor by imposing GST on the LPG cylinder,” Maken said.
He claimed that food and beverages, helmets, hair oil, toothpaste, tea, coffee, butter, curd, cement and mineral water were some of the items whose prices have shot up, notwithstanding the government’s assurance that their rates would drop once the GST was in force.
Maken also described the GST as ‘Gayi Savings Tumhari’ (your savings have vanished).
The former Union minister said the government’s recent decision to lower interest rates on small saving schemes like PPF, Kisan Vikas Patra and Sukanya Samriddhi by 0.1 per cent for the July-September quarter would also affect the poor including labourers.
“It is a big blow to the common people, particularly the poor, labourers. You are collecting more taxes through the GST, but are also hurting savings of the people by such a decision,” he said.
Moscow, Jul 5 : Russia and China today called for a simultaneous freeze on North Korean nuclear and missile tests and military exercises by the United States as tensions ratcheted up on the peninsula.
“The two sides propose that the DPRK (North Korea) as a voluntary political decision declares a moratorium on testing nuclear explosive devices and ballistic rocket launches, and the US and South Korea refrain from carrying out large-scale joint exercises,” their foreign ministries said in a joint statement.
“Parallel to this the opposing sides should start negotiations and affirm general principles of their relations including the non-use of force, rejection of aggression and peaceful coexistence,” the statement said.
The joint statement issued after a meeting between leaders Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping in Moscow followed an announcement by North Korea that it had test fired its first intercontinental ballistic missile.
The claim could be a watershed moment in Pyongyang’s push to develop a nuclear weapon capable of hitting the mainland United States — although Moscow and Washington cast doubt on the claim it was a long-range missile.
The test sparked a Twitter outburst from US President Donald Trump who urged North Korea’s closest ally China to act to “end this nonsense once and for all”.
In their joint statement Russia and China condemned the missile test announcement as “unacceptable” and urged against “any statements or actions that could lead to an increase in tensions”.
China has previously called for a “dual track” approach of “suspension for suspension” that would see North Korea and the US ease up on tensions, and now Russia has added its weight to the plan.
Brussels, Jul 5 : The European Union today warned it may consider additional sanctions against North Korea after it carried out what Pyongyang tested what it claimed to be an intercontinental ballistic missile.
Last month, the EU expanded its sanctions blacklist after North Korea launched a volley of surface-to-ship cruise missiles off its east coast.
The EU’s external affairs arm said in a statement that the bloc expected North Korea to abide by UN resolutions and halt all work on its nuclear and missile programmes.
The European Union “will consider an appropriate response, in close consultation with key partners and in line with UN Security Council deliberations, including possible additional restrictive measures,” it said.
The EU expected North Korea to refrain from any further action which could increase regional tensions and to take part in talks on resolving the crisis, it added.
In an unusual joint statement earlier, Russia and China condemned the missile test as “unacceptable” and urged against “any statements or actions that could lead to an increase in tensions.”
EU sanctions against North Korea date back to 2006 and are part of international efforts to halt a nuclear and ballistic missile programme which experts say is intended to give Pyongyang the capability to hit the US mainland.
The Indian Army today maintained that no bulldozers were used when its bunkers were destroyed by the Chinese army amid the current standoff with China in the Sikkim sector.
The army also denied that the border standoff with China is the longest ever since 1962.
“The incident is not the longest standoff between the two nations,” said a statement issued by the Army spokesman here.
The spokesman also said that no bulldozers were “ever employed” for destroying the Indian bunkers and that no physical scuffle had occurred between the personnel of Indian Army and the People’s Liberation Army(PLA). A senior government functionary had earlier said that bulldozers were used to destroy the Indian bunkers.
The spokesman also claimed that no such incident ever happened on June 6 and referred to a statement made by the Ministry of External Affairs in which the date of incident was mentioned as June 16.
The spokesman went on to clarify that “Indo-China relations as also the relationship between both the armies are extremely well managed by a host of mechanisms.
“The MoD (Ministry of Defence) or the Indian Army has neither issued any official statement nor has undertaken any unofficial briefings due to the fact that such sensitive issues are best dealt between two nations away from the media glare,” the spokesman said.
He said that in this situation “as some of the acts have happened involving Bhutan, therefore, Ministry of External Affairs has already given a substantial briefing on the issue.”
Beijing, Jul 3: China’s ambitious space programme suffered a rare setback today as its new heavy-lift carrier rocket, the Long March-5 Y2 failed to put the country’s largest satellite into orbit.
An anomaly occurred during the flight of the rocket, which blasted off at 7:23 PM (local time) from Wenchang Space Launch Centre in southern province of Hainan, state-run Xinhua news agency reported.
Further investigation will be carried out, it said.
The blast which was telecast live initially appeared successful as the rocket blasted off seemingly without problem. But Xinhua later reported that the rocket launch has failed.
The Long March-5 made its maiden flight in November 2016 from Wenchang, sending its payload into pre-set orbit.
The rocket, carried the Shijian-18 satellite.
The launch is the last test for the Long March-5 series before its mission to send the Chang’e-5 lunar probe into space in the latter half of this year, which will return with samples, the report said.
With a weight of 7.5 tonnes, Shijian-18 is China’s latest technology experiment satellite and the heaviest satellite China has ever launched into space, it said.
It was aimed at testing China’s new Dongfanghong-5 (DFH- 5) satellite platform and carry out in-orbit experiments including Q/V band satellite communication, satellite-ground laser communication technologies and an advanced Hull electric propulsion system, it said.
China is carrying out massive space programme in recent years with missions to moon and manned missions to build a space station which is currently under construction.
According to experts, the massive heavy rockets also have fined tuned China’s missile power.
The Long March-5 uses environmentally friendly fuel, including kerosene, liquid hydrogen, and liquid oxygen, rather than highly toxic propellants, it said.
In April this year China has launched its first cargo spacecraft, Tianzhou-1, into space using the country s heaviest Long March-7 Y2 carrier rocket to dock with the orbiting experimental space station which was expected to be operationalised by 2022. .
Tianzhou-1 was larger and heavier than Tiangong-2, which is 10.4 metres in length and has a maximum diametre of 3.35 meters, weighing 8.6 tonnes.
Colombo, Jul 3: Sri Lanka’s former president Mahinda Rajapaksa warned that the constitutional reform process undertaken by the Sirisena government would end up with a federal Constitution for the country replacing the current unitary charter.
Speaking at a political gathering at Bibile in the central region of the country, Rajapaksa said, “It will be a federal Constitution. We are all opposed to it”.
Rajapaksa alleged that Tamil National Alliance (TNA) had said that in Tamil-dominated region in the North, the new Constitution will be a federal constitution even if it will not be named so.
“This government has no mandate to create a new constitution. They only have the mandate to abolish the presidential system,” Rajapaksa said.
The current government of President Maithripala Sirisena and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe launched their action for a brand new constitution in early 2016. Several committees comprising members of all political parties were appointed.
A 21-member steering committee which was formed last year, consists of the Prime Minister (Chairman), Leader of the Opposition, Leader of the House, the Minister of Justice, and not more than 11 other Members of the Constitutional Assembly.
The committee report to the parliament soon with its final recommendations.
Rajapaksa said the Joint Opposition (JO) members will join the constitutional process only if the local council elections are held.
The government has been postponing elections for over 300 local councils since 2015 for want of electoral reforms. But the JO has dubbed the postponement as one taken for political reasons as the government feared losing the election to JO.
He said the election was now likely to happen in September.
Hyderabad, Jul 3: Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao has decided to introduce special budget for agriculture from next year and to substantially enhance the funds for farming sector.
The chief minister also announced that 2,500 clusters with one cluster for every 5,000 acres will be set up across the state and in every cluster, dais will be constructed for the farmers to interact, an official release said today.
KCR, who had held an extended high-level review meeting on farmers’ welfare and agriculture development yesterday, instructed officials that the farmers should be educated about the power of unity and the farmers association should be formed from the village to state level to forge an alliance with other farmers.
The chief minister decided to have training programmes also for the farmers from the village to state level with new, modern scientific techniques and practices.
He said there is a need to expand the agriculture ministry as more than two-thirds of the population is depending on agriculture in the state.
“If need be services of retired officers and scientists should be utilised and the ministry should be reorganised,” Rao said.
“Under the united Andhra Pradesh, Telangana farmers were deceived and they were distressed for irrigation water. Hence we have focused on agriculture and the irrigation sectors and we are getting the results.
“We have begun executing various projects to supply water to one crore acres. Under ‘Mission Kakatiya,’ we are reviving the tanks. We are providing quality nine hours power supply to the farmers and we will provide 24-hour power supply in future,” added Rao.
Manila, Jul 2: Islamist militants occupying a southern Philippine city have forced nearly 400,000 people in the wider area to flee their homes, officials said today, while warning of disease outbreaks and psychological trauma among refugees.
The city of Marawi, considered the Muslim capital of the largely Catholic Philippines, has been reduced to a ghost town after self-styled followers of the Islamic State movement launched an assault on the city on May 23.
For more than a month, the government has deployed jet fighters, attack helicopters and armoured vehicles to crush the militants who are members of the so-called Maute group.
The fighting has left over 400 people dead, while the Maute fighters still control parts of the city, using snipers and improvised explosive devices to slow the military’s advance.
Liza Mazo, the regional civil defence director, said it was not just the city’s residents leaving the area but also people living in the surrounding communities.
Out of 389,300 who have fled, over 70,380 people have been housed in 79 government-run evacuation centres, while the rest have sheltered with their relatives, according to social welfare department figures.
Mazo said that relief officials have struggled to deal with outbreaks of illness at the evacuation centres as government forces continue to launch air strikes and artillery barrages against the militants.
“There are alarming cases of skin diseases and gastroenteritis. We want to control the outbreak, not just in the evacuation centre but even the home-based (refugees),” she said.
“There are also cases of psychological trauma from the fighting.”
Some 26 people who have fled Marawi have since died in hospitals from various ailments, according to the health department’s local spokesman Jun Galban, but he declined to say whether their deaths were related to the evacuation.
President Rodrigo Duterte, who declared martial law over the southern Philippines to deal with the crisis, vowed on Saturday that government forces would crush the extremists.
“We will not go out there (Marawi) until the last terrorist is executed,” he said in a speech to government workers.
At one point in his speech, to demonstrate his seriousness, he lifted his shirt to reveal a holstered pistol.
But he conceded, “we are having a hard time.”
“We never realised the magnitude of their preparation for their explosives. We got there, they were positioned (with) their snipers. We practically had to climb upward,” he said.