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Indian Express
3 days ago
- General
- Indian Express
Chopper crash in Uttarakhand: What ails the private aviation sector in the hill state
Uttarakhand chopper crash: Seven people, including an infant, died after their helicopter flying from Kedarnath crashed near Gaurikund on June 15 amid bad weather. The pilot of the chopper was among those dead. Last month, five passengers and the pilot were killed after their helicopter plunged into a gorge while flying to Gangotri. On June 7, a helicopter carrying five passengers to Kedarnath had to land on a highway after a technical snag during take-off. Helicopters being flown by private operators in Uttarakhand, specially during the Chardham pilgrimage season, were under Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) scrutiny even before Sunday's crash. Experts say a combination of flawed policy, tricky terrain, and rapidly changing weather conditions make chopper rides in the hill state dangerous. After June 15, all Char Dham yatra operations by Aryan Aviation, the operator of the crashed Bell 407 helicopter, have been stopped, and two other helicopter pilots, working for a different operator, have been suspended for six months for flying in 'unsuitable weather conditions'. What rules govern the private operators While the DGCA regulates the airspace and aviation is a subject in the Union List, the Uttarakhand Civil Aviation Development Authority (UCADA), an authority instituted in 2013, coordinates with helicopter operators. Following the Sunday tragedy, questions have been raised about the absence of an Air Traffic Control system in the region The Kedarnath helipad is located in Rudraprayag at an altitude of 11,000 feet near the shrine. The helipad is used primarily for seasonal shuttle operations during the pilgrimage, between May and June and September and October every year. The helipad is maintained by UCADA. Apart from government-owned helipads, the operators also have their own. There are around 20 operators in the state, according to UCADA CEO Sonika, including charter services. 'Charter operators can have more than two helicopters while those providing shuttle services should have at least two,' she said. Under the terms and conditions an operator has to follow, the UCADA mandates the following: The fares are on par with pony rides and the royalty levied by the UCADA is Rs 5,000 per landing at government-owned helipads. This causes a race for the maximum number of sorties possible, to increase profits. Each pilot operating shuttles is permitted up to 50 landings in a day. Additionally, the operator has to provide 10 flying hours on a non-chargeable basis each Yatra season to meet exigencies as determined by the UCADA. Failure to do so attracts a penalty of Rs 2 lakh each time. The operators have to seek the UCADA's permission to take breaks in flying, even during the monsoon. Withdrawal of any helicopter on the grounds of reduced pilgrim traffic is allowed only after the operator has obtained written approval of the CEO or the additional CEO of UCADA. The terms and conditions also say that the UCADA shall not be liable for any consequences arising out of any accident. According to its tender documents, the upper fare is Rs 8,000 per passenger one way. Speaking to The Indian Express, veteran aviator Cdr KP Sanjeev Kumar said a flawed revenue model could be at the root of the problems ailing the shrine tourism sector. 'In a region already loaded with capricious weather that pushes man & machine to its limits, unreasonable contractual clauses, extortionate landing charges and royalties are imposed on helicopter operators in the Char Dham region by UCADA. This incentivises unsafe flying & maintenance practices,' he said. Explaining further, he added, 'The Char Dham flying window is already narrow, just about four months, and on top of that, authorities penalise operators for withdrawing services or grounding aircraft for maintenance. This creates pressure to fly even in adverse conditions and to maximise landings.' Despite recommendations by the Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau, the Kedarnath helipad still lacks navigation aids and an Air Traffic Control (ATC) facility. The operators and pilots use VHF communication (very high frequency radio waves), which can be blocked by hills and mountains. The Kedarnath valley also lacks a meteorological facility with qualified personnel, when the unpredictable character of the weather and cloud formations makes it vital for pilots to have accurate information. On Kedarnath, the DGCA has a separate annexure on the regulations. 'There shall not be more than four helicopters at any given time flying within the Kedarnath valley. A maximum of six helicopters may be airborne, provided spacing is ensured in a manner so as to have only four in the Kedarnath valley. Stagger will be followed by operators to ensure only four helicopters (two inbound and two outbound) are operating within the Kedarnath valley at any one time.' On Sunday, three helicopters were en route to Guptkashi when one of them lost control. Also, only highly trained pilots are allowed to operate in the area. Along with the mandatory hill-flying experience, pilots operating in the Char Dham circuit should have knowledge of the terrain and minimum safe altitudes; seasonal meteorological conditions, communication and air traffic facilities; and search and rescue procedures. Most operators have direct booking through their websites. Many travel agencies provide a package that includes accommodation and transportation at an added cost. Helicopters can be booked for all four dhams, or for just Badrinath and Kedarnath. A pilgrim goes to Gaurikund by road, which is the base station and 16 km away from Kedarnath shrine. From here, a mule or a pony for the road ahead takes hours, while a helicopter takes 15 minutes. May 8, 2025: Six dead near Gangotri. April 2024: An Uttarakhand government official was killed after being hit by the moving tail rotor blade of a helicopter he was about to board in Kedarnath, two days before the portals of the shrine were to be opened for pilgrims. October 2022: All seven people, including the pilot, onboard an Aryan Aviation helicopter carrying Kedarnath pilgrims were killed as it crashed after colliding with a hill amid low visibility in Rudraprayag district. August 2019: Three people were killed when a helicopter engaged in rescue operations in cloudburst-hit areas of Uttarkashi district crashed at Moldi village in Arakot. The helicopter was owned by Heritage Aviation. June 2017: A helicopter engineer in Badrinath died while two pilots suffered injuries after the chopper met with an accident. The Agusta 119 helicopter, belonging to Kestrel Aviation, was on its way to Haridwar, carrying five pilgrims, along with the two pilots and one engineer. Aiswarya Raj is a correspondent with The Indian Express who covers South Haryana. An alumna of Asian College of Journalism and the University of Kerala, she started her career at The Indian Express as a sub-editor in the Delhi city team. In her current position, she reports from Gurgaon and covers the neighbouring districts. She likes to tell stories of people and hopes to find moorings in narrative journalism. ... Read More
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Business Standard
5 days ago
- Politics
- Business Standard
Govt notifies Census 2027, Cong questions 'silence' on caste enumeration
The Centre on Monday notified conducting the next Census in 2027, a massive exercise which the government had said will include caste enumeration, even as political parties of all hues indicated that the exercise and its findings would lead to intense political contestation. The last census was held in 2011. The census will be carried out with a reference date of October 1, 2026 in the snow-bound areas like Ladakh and March 1, 2027 in the rest of the country, the notification said. The exercise is estimated to cost the exchequer over Rs 13,000 crore, and will be conducted by nearly 3.4 million enumerators and supervisors and 130,000 census functionaries armed with digital devices. Union Home Minister Amit Shah reviewed the preparation for the Census with Union Home Secretary Govind Mohan, Registrar General and Census Commissioner of India Mritunjay Kumar Narayan, and other senior officials here on Sunday. According to Article 246 of the Constitution, the Census is a subject listed at 69 in the Union List in the Seventh Schedule. In the upcoming Census, caste enumeration will also be done, the first such exercise since Independence. The training process for enumerators is likely to start in October 2025. Citizens will answer around three dozen questions ranging from whether they use a telephone, internet connection and the likes; their vehicles, the cereals they consume, water source, house type, whether the head of the household is a woman, an SC or ST. Meanwhile, terming the notification on the 16th Census as a 'damp squib', Congress general secretary in-charge communications Jairam Ramesh said it was 'silent on the inclusion of caste' in the exercise and asked whether this is another 'U-turn' by the government. He also suggested that the Centre must adopt the Telangana model for not just caste enumeration but also in bringing out detailed data on socio-economic parameters caste-wise. Later in the day, Ramesh said that if one looks at history it would be very uncomfortable for the Sangh Parivar, including the BJP, which withdrew support to the VP Singh government on the Mandal Commission issue in 1990, and started the 'Kamandal agitation'. Meanwhile in Patna, the capital of poll-bound Bihar, Union minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan participated in the centenary celebrations of martyr Buddhu Nonia. Chouhan said that the government at the Centre would, once the Census data is published, consider the Nonia community's demand for Scheduled Tribe (ST) status if it comes out that 95 per cent of the community is extremely poor. The Nonia community is present in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, and according to Bihar's caste survey of 2022, comprises 1.9 per cent of the state's population. Addressing a press conference in the national capital, Union minister Bhupendra Yadav accused the Mamata Banerjee-led West Bengal government of indulging in 'politics of appeasement' by issuing a fresh list of OBC communities that has included a large number of Muslim castes. He criticised the Congress for always betraying the OBCs pointing to the Karnataka government's decision to junk an earlier caste count and go for a fresh enumeration. On the Congress asking the Centre to adopt the 'Telangana model' for not just caste enumeration but also in bringing out detailed data on socio-economic parameters during the nationwide census, Yadav asked why the Congress did not follow the same practice in Karnataka. Congress' inner contradictions have been exposed as the party has no real commitment to social justice and resorts to such political gimmicks for electoral purposes, he said. In West Bengal, Chief Minister Banerjee asserted in the state assembly that her government was working to safeguard the interests of SCs, STs, backward castes, and Muslims, in line with the Supreme Court and High Court directives on social welfare. Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah also clarified that his government's upcoming socio-educational and caste survey is fundamentally different from the Centre's caste census. 'The Centre is only doing a caste census, while we are undertaking a comprehensive socio-educational and caste survey. The distinction is important,' he said.
The Hindu
23-05-2025
- Business
- The Hindu
Dual taxation on broadcasting services permissible in law: Supreme Court judgment
The Supreme Court has held in a judgment that broadcasting through television for the purpose of the entertainment of the subscribers can be separately taxed by the Centre and the State concerned A Bench of Justices B.V. Nagarathna and N. Kotiswar Singh said The Centre can impose service tax on the broadcasting service while the State concerned can, on the other hand, make cable operators and entertainment providers liable to pay entertainment tax. 'Broadcasting service being a taxable service under the provisions of the Finance Act, 1994, read along with the amendments made from time to time would enable both the Parliament to impose service tax on broadcasting service and the State Legislatures having the legislative competence to levy entertainment tax on those who provide entertainment to the recipients [television viewers],' the top court interpreted the law. Justice Nagarathna, who authored the judgment dated May 22, said imposition of two different taxes on two separate aspects of the same activity - broadcasting service - was permissible in law. There was no danger of overlapping taxation. 'There is no overlapping in fact or in law, inasmuch as different aspects of the same activity are being taxed under two different legislations by two different legislatures. This is because the activity of broadcasting is a service and liable to service tax imposed by the Parliament (Entry 97 – Union List) and the activity of entertainment is a subject falling under (Entry 62 - State List),' Justice Nagarathna held. The court said the expression 'entertainment' came within the ambit of 'luxury' defined in Entry 62 of the State List of the Seventh Schedule of the Constitution. 'Advances in technology have resulted in varied forms of entertainment through various media and in a variety of ways, not only in a public place but also in the confines of private space such as a home, through mobile or a cell phone or smartwatch and other personal devices, etc. The expression 'entertainments' must be given a broad, liberal and expansive meaning,' the court said.
Indian Express
22-05-2025
- Politics
- Indian Express
Karnataka renames Ramanagara district as Bengaluru South without Centre's go-ahead
Karnataka's cabinet on Thursday decided to rename Ramanagara district, neighbouring the state capital, as Bengaluru South district, even though the Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has not approved the renaming plan. A government notification announcing the renaming of Ramanagara district is expected shortly. Deputy Chief Minister and Bengaluru Development Minister D K Shivakumar told reporters following a cabinet meeting that the renaming was being done as per rules, regulations and past amendments. 'Ramanagara city will remain the headquarters of the district. The cabinet has decided to rename it as Bengaluru South district from today,' he said. Shivakumar, who first proposed renaming the district months after the Congress came to power in the state in 2023, said that Bengaluru Rural and Ramanagara were both part of the undivided Bengaluru district. 'To make sure that the Bengaluru name remains (for parts of Ramanagara), we are changing it,' he said. Asked whether the central government had cleared the proposal, he said that though a no-objection certificate (NOC) from the Centre was required, the states were within their rights to rename districts. According to a note issued by the government following the cabinet meeting, the Union home ministry refused to issue an NOC for the proposal to rename the district. 'Schedule 7 of the Indian Constitution lists the different subjects in the Union List. Number 18 in the state list classifies land as a state subject and Number 45 in the state list says Land Revenue is also a state subject. Section(4) of The Karnataka Land Revenue Act empowers the state government to rename zones, taluks, creation of districts, changing them or withdrawing them, and renaming them,' the note added. The cabinet approved the plan to rename Ramanagara district as Bengaluru South in July 2024, following which the state government submitted a proposal to the ministry for an NOC, but the response was not positive. Bengaluru Metro cost escalation The cabinet also cleared a revised estimate of Rs 40,425 crore for work under Bengaluru Metro's phase 2. Law and Parliamentary Affairs Minister H K Patil said the cost of the project had escalated from Rs 26,405 crore to Rs 40,252.02 crore, an increase of Rs 14,0198 crore. 'The revised estimate is proposed due to the increase in the cost of land acquisition and land required, a 30-100 per cent increase in the solatium due to a hike in the guidance value of land, a Rs 4,408.73-crore increase in the cost of civil works, and an increase in the length of phase 2 from 72.09 km to 75.06 km,' the minister said. Shivakumar said the government would go for a fresh tender on solid waste management in the city. Tenders for the collection and transportation of solid waste in Karnataka will be floated within four months under 33 packages. The estimated cost of the tender for seven years is Rs 4,791.95 crore.
The Print
02-05-2025
- Politics
- The Print
The Centre must use the caste census wisely
Now, for the first time in nearly 94 years, the idea of including caste-based data in the census has resurfaced. The last time caste-based data was included in the census was in 1931. A decade later, while data was collected on caste for the next census, it couldn't be published due to World War II. When the 1951 census was conducted, Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru's government ended the collection of caste-based data, although columns for religion, Scheduled Castes (SCs), and Scheduled Tribes (STs) remained. India's next population census was scheduled for 2020, with the data expected in 2021. However, it couldn't be conducted due to the Covid crisis. Meanwhile, opposition parties demanded that the central government include caste data in the upcoming census. It appeared that after the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, the Narendra Modi government could initiate the census process at any time. Now, about a year after the general elections, the Centre has announced that the next population survey will include a caste census. Also read: Caste census will lead to the decline of Indian economy The consequences When Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar was part of the INDIA bloc, he conducted a caste survey in his state, with the report released in 2023. He was a vocal proponent of caste-based enumeration and made significant contributions to social justice politics. Later, he joined hands with the BJP. After him, Rahul Gandhi continued to raise the issue of caste census, but his calls did not gain much traction, largely because, barring a few instances, the Congress party has not consistently supported the cause of social justice. After Nitish Kumar departed from the Opposition alliance, Karnataka CM Siddaramaiah tabled the state's caste census report in the Assembly, while the Telangana government also conducted a caste survey. But both efforts faced resistance within the Congress for various reasons. It's worth noting that the subject of Census is listed at number 69 in the Union List of the Seventh Schedule. Interestingly, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) also supported the caste census, describing it as a sensitive issue. It advised against politicising the data and emphasised its use for empowering society. Now that the caste census is set to take place, we must understand its potential consequences. In a democracy where electoral power depends on numbers, many political parties may use the caste data to demand increased reservations and thereby expand their electoral base. The slogan of Kanshi Ram, 'Jiski jitni sankhya bhari, uski utni hissedari (greater the numbers, greater the share)', will echo in the streets. On the other hand, the data will help accurately assess the conditions of marginalised communities. The central government can use this information to improve existing welfare schemes and introduce new ones. Although over the past few years, the Centre has implemented several innovative schemes for the backward classes, SCs, and STs. The data will also assist in implementing the recommendations of the Rohini Commission, which advocated for sub-categorisation of other backward classes (OBC) to ensure that reservation benefits reach the most disadvantaged and marginalised within the backward classes. Currently, in every category, one or two dominant castes tend to receive the majority of the benefits of reservations. This data will also reveal the status of disadvantaged groups within Muslims and Christians, sparking a new debate. Any social justice measures implemented using this data that don't compromise national unity and the social fabric of the country should be welcomed. It remains to be seen, however, in which direction the debate on social justice moves in the wake of this caste census. Swadesh Singh is a Distinguished Fellow at India Foundation, New Delhi and teaches Political Science at Delhi University, Delhi. Views are personal. (Edited by Aamaan Alam Khan)
