Despite being retained on the Grey List of FATF, Pakistan continues to fund the terror organisations and the country’s state actors are still backing terror outfits. Terror organisations such as Hafiz Saeed’s LeT and Masood Azhar’s JeM are still getting financial help under different names from Pakistan.

According to sources, India has collected fresh evidence exposing Pakistan’s continued funding to the terror outfits under different names. Sources told The Daily Guardian that Indian diplomats have recently shared the fresh ‘set of evidence’ with both the United Nations (UN) and the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) headquarters. What is worth mentioning is that in order to fool the global community Hafiz Saeed had founded what he called a social organisation Jamat-un-Dawah, which is actually the smokescreen behind which terror activities were carried out. Sources say that this outfit still gets funding from Pakistani government.      

After bombing by drones at the Jammu air force base on June 27, India has further intensified its diplomatic effort to expose Pakistan’s hobnobbing with terror actors. “Pakistani intelligence agency ISI and the country’s army continue to support terrorist training camps operation on Pakistan’s soil,” UN and FATF were told.

Top diplomatic sources said that a set of solid and fresh evidence to this effect was provided to the top global forums. India is keen to highlight the fact that despite recent admonishment by FATF, Pakistan continues to show reluctance to take action against terrorists Hafiz Saeed and Masood Azhar.  

The global terror financing and money laundering watchdog FATF had instructed Pakistan to take credible action against these terrorists. Hafiz Saeed was the mastermind of Mumbai attacks, while Masood’s Jaish-e-Mohammad was behind the Pulwama blast. Both top the list of most wanted terrorists given to Pakistan by India. But no action has been taken against them by Pakistan.

On the contrary, Hafiz Saeed’s residence has been given police protection which came to light after a blast happened there. Heavy Pakistani police deployment was already there to protect his house. Moreover, Hafiz Saeed was allowed to visit his home even while he was in jail. The jail sentence is also nothing more than a way to fool the global community and institutions like FATF. Sources say that Jamat-ud-Dawa founder Saeed enjoys a homely comfort in jail. All these issues have been raised by India through diplomatic channels. “Hafiz Saeed and Masood Azhar are in jail after years of walking free just to fool the world,” say officials.  

India recently told the UN General Assembly that it is high time the international community called on Pakistan to take “effective and irreversible” actions against terror outfits operating on its soil. India also said that Islamabad should not take the “high road of morality which is only laden with mines of falsehood.”

India has reminded the United Nations of what Pakistan’s prime minister Imran Khan said in June last year. He had publicly acknowledged the presence of up to 40,000 terrorists in Pakistan and that terrorists from there have attacked the neighbouring countries.

A day after demanding a joint parliamentary committee (JPC) probe over the alleged charges of corruption in the 2016 Rafale deal, the Congress on Sunday came out all guns blazing at the Central government’s silence over the French investigation into the Rs 59,000-crore deal for the sale of 36 Dassault-built fighter jets.

The Congress said that according to documents available now, huge amounts of money were paid to middlemen in the deal, indicating that it was a vindication of its corruption allegations against Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his government.

Rahul Gandhi asked in Hindi why Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government wasn’t ready for a JPC probe. The options he provided as answer were: “guilt conscience”, “friends, too, need to be protected”, “JPC doesn’t need a Rajya Sabha seat”, and “all the options are right”. This was preceded by another Hindi tweet on Saturday, in which he posted part of a proverb referring to a guilty thief.

Rahul Gandhi, in the runup to the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, had made the Rafale deal a big issue but his party failed to dislodge the BJP from the government. This issue resurfaced on Saturday when reports came about the appointment of a French judge to lead a “highly sensitive” judicial probe into suspected “corruption” and “favouritism” in the jet deal with India.

On Saturday, the Congress demanded a JPC over the issue which was counter attacked by the BJP. “The way Rahul Gandhi is behaving, it will not be an exaggeration to say that he is being used as a pawn by competing companies. He has been lying right from the beginning on the issue. Probably, he is acting as an agent or some member of Gandhi family has been for a competing company,” BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra had said.

On Sunday Congress spokesperson Pawan Khera addressed a press conference and questioned the Central government’s silence over the probe in France.

“It is downright insulting to the people of India that this government and its ministers have stayed tight-lipped about this entire scandal. Why is the Minister of Defence silent?” Khera asked. “Now it is getting clearer that in the Rafale deal we have bought an item that costs Rs 570 crore at Rs 1,670 crore,” he said.

Saying that the deal was now heading towards being an “open and shut” case, the Congress spokesperson alleged that anti-corruption clauses from the deal were removed. He also accused middlemen of being involved in the proceedings. “In April, it was revealed that according to documents seized from a middleman arrested in another case by the Enforcement Directorate, crores and crores of rupees were gifted to this middle man in the Rafale deal. We don’t know what the ED did with those documents, but France is now probing them,” Khera said.

Rejecting the BJP’s argument that the people had voted for the party overwhelmingly in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections despite the Congress making the Rafale deal a poll issue, Khera said: “It is a matter of shame that this government cannot think of anything beyond elections… We are talking about what should happen now. The deal should be investigated and a JPC should be set up.”

Two-time Olympic medallist Sushil Kumar, lodged in Tihar Jail in connection with the murder of wrestler Sagar Rana, has urged prison authorities to provide him a television to remain updated about wrestling matches, officials said on Sunday. Sushil is in judicial custody till 9 July.

Kumar was arrested along with co-accused Ajay Kumar on 23 May from Delhi’s Mundka area. He and his associates allegedly assaulted wrestler Sagar Dhankar and two of his friends Sonu and Amit Kumar on the intervening night of 4-5 May over a property dispute. Dhankar, 23, succumbed to injuries later.

“Sushil Kumar has made a request through his advocate and submitted his application on Friday. He has sought a TV set to keep in touch with the current things happening outside the jail and to get updates about wrestling,” DG (Tihar) Sandeep Goel said.

Earlier, while in Mandoli Jail, Sushil had demanded special diet and supplements to be made available. In the petition, Sushil had said that he wanted supplements like Whey Protein, Omega-3 capsules, joint capsules, pre-workout C4, multivitamins, etc, as he wanted to continue his career in wrestling.

However, the jail authorities, in their reply in the court, had said that Sushil Kumar’s medical condition does not require additional protein in the form of food supplements or dietary supplements. 

Sushil was later shifted to Tihar Jail no 2 and is currently staying in a separate cell due to security threat. Special security arrangements have been made and police personnel have been deployed round the clock near his barrack.

Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Sunday wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi demanding Bharat Ratna, India’s highest civilian honour, be conferred upon doctors and healthcare workers who lost their lives fighting Covid-19.

“This year ‘Indian Doctor’ should get Bharat Ratna. ‘Indian Doctor’ means all doctors, nurses and paramedics. This will be a true tribute to the martyred doctors. It will be an honour for those who serve without worrying about their lives and their families. The whole country will be happy with this,” Kejriwal wrote.

In the letter, Kejriwal stated: “The way healthcare workers have served the country at the time of the pandemic cannot be forgotten, so the entire healthcare community should be honoured… There can be no better way to honour them.”

The Delhi CM, in his letter to the Prime Minister, suggested that rules be tweaked so that all healthcare workers can be honoured together as a group. “If there is any problem in giving Bharat Ratna to doctors, then it should be removed. If needed, the rules can also be changed. The whole country is grateful to the doctors at this time. If they were given Bharat Ratna, then the whole country is grateful,” he said.

The Indian Medical Association has said that 798 doctors, including 128 in Delhi, have died during the virulent second wave of infections. Apart from this, many other healthcare workers have also lost their lives due to the pandemic.

The Kejriwal government of Delhi is also giving a compensation of Rs 1 crore to all the frontline workers who die from Covid-19.

A new research has revealed that neutralising antibodies against the Delta variant (B1.617.2) were not observed in 16.1% of the serum samples from those given two shots of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine produced in India as Covishield.

The study by researchers of Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) has said that neutralising antibodies could not be detected in 58.1% serum samples from those given one shot of Covishield, manufactured by Serum Institute of India. This has again rekindled debate related to efficacy of vaccines against coronavirus, which is constantly mutating. 

It is noteworthy that the Delta variant has already been declared as “variant of concern” by the Union Health Ministry, which has high transmission rate and severely attacks lung cells.  

However, many experts believe antibodies not observed is not equivalent to not present. The levels of neutralising antibodies could be significantly low that it did not get detected, but it may still be there and protect the person against infection and severe disease.

The major takeaway of this study for India’s vaccination drive is that some people might require an additional booster shot of Covishield, while those who have had the infection may require just one.

As of now, India is only administering two dosages to people above 18 years old and there is no provision of additional booster shots to those not ‘developing antibodies’ after the final vaccine certificate.  

On the other hand, health ministry officials have been advising people not to go for antibody testing after the completion of Covid-19 vaccination. On 27 May, Dr V.K. Paul, Member (Health), NITI Aayog, at a Union Health Ministry press conference, said that antibody levels were only one of the indications of immunity. “The advisable procedure to follow is to get vaccinated and adhere to Covid-19 appropriate behaviour,” he said.

Meanwhile, according to Health Ministry data, India reported 43,071 new Covid 19 cases on Sunday, making it seventh consecutive day when less than 50,000 daily new infections were detected. India has also been witnessing a continuous fall in the active caseload. The country’s active caseload stood at 4,85,350 on Sunday.  

As more people are getting recovered from Covid-19 infection, India’s daily recoveries continue to outnumber the daily new cases for 52 consecutive days now. 52,299 recoveries were registered in the last 24 hours, the data stated. 

The weekly positivity rate is currently at 2.44% while the daily positivity rate stands at 2.34%. The daily positivity rate has remained less than 5% for 27 consecutive days now.

The ongoing vaccination drive has also maintained its pace. India’s cumulative vaccination coverage crossed the landmark of 35 crore on Sunday. A total of 63,87,849 vaccine doses were administered in the last 24 hours as per provisional report released on 7 am on Sunday.

Forty-five-year-old Pushkar Singh Dhami, long associated with the BJP and the RSS, on Sunday became the 11th Chief Minister of Uttarakhand. Governor Baby Rani Maurya administered the oath to him.

Along with Dhami, Satpal Maharaj, Harkasih Rawat, Dr Dhan Singh Rawat, Banshidhar Bhagat, Yashpal Arya, Subodh Uniyal, Arvind Pandey, Bishan Singh, Ganesh Joshi, Rekha Arya and Yatishwaranand were also administered the oath of office. All these MLAs were earlier also included in the cabinet.

It is noteworthy that Tirath Singh Rawat had resigned from the post of Chief Minister two days ago citing constitutional crisis. Dhami was unanimously elected as the leader of the BJP Legislature Party at the meeting in Dehradun, party sources say.

Born in Pithoragarh, Dhami is the youngest Chief Minister of the state. Dhami, a two-time MLA, was never a minister in the Uttarakhand government.

Talking to the media on Saturday, he said that he is thankful to the party high command for giving a common worker a chance to serve the state.

After the resignation of Tirath Singh Rawat on Friday, a meeting of the BJP Legislature Party was held on Saturday. In this, Union ministers Narendra Singh Tomar and D. Purandeshwari were present as central observers. In the meeting, Tirath Singh Rawat and BJP state president Madan Kaushik proposed the name of Khatima MLA Pushkar Singh Dhami. Even after the consent of the central supervisor on this, no other name was proposed.

Dhami was born on 16 September 1975 in Tundi village of Pithoragarh. His father was a soldier. Being the only son of the house after three sisters, the responsibilities of the family always remained on him.

Dhami has done Masters in Human Resource Management and Industrial Relations. He has worked in different positions in ABVP from 1990 to 1999. Dhami was also the state president of Yuva Morcha from 2002 to 2008. He was vice-chairman of the Urban Development Council from 2010 to 2012. He was elected MLA for the first time in 2012. Under his leadership, the state government succeeded in providing 70% reservation to the local youth in the industries of the state. Dhami is considered close to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). He is also close to Maharashtra Governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari. Political experts say about Dhami that it is a name that has always been away from controversies. He has also been raising his voice loudly on issues like corruption. He is considered to have a good hold among the youth.

Coming from the Rajput community, Dhami is one of the flamboyant leaders of the state. According to political experts, in view of the upcoming Assembly elections, efforts have been made to correct caste equation in the state by making Dhami the CM. His name was in air even when Tirath Singh Rawat became the Chief Minister. His youthfulness has also gone in his favour.