An IAF chopper carrying Chief of Defence Staff Bipin Rawat, his wife and 12 others crashed in Tamil Nadu on Wednesday. The IAF Mi-17V5 helicopter was airborne from Sulur for Wellington. “An IAF Mi-17V5 helicopter, with CDS Gen Bipin Rawat on board, met with an accident today near Coonoor, Tamil Nadu. An Inquiry has been ordered to ascertain the cause of the accident,” the Indian Air Force tweeted.

Defence Minister Rajnath Singh has informed Prime Minister Narendra Modi about the developments. According to sources, Singh will brief Parliament on the incident tomorrow. Sources said that at least three injured people from the crash have been taken to a nearby hospital, but their identities are not confirmed yet. The crash took place in the Nilgiris, shortly after the Mi-series chopper took off from the army base in Sulur.

The chopper carrying Bipin Rawat, the first Chief of Defence Staff of India, crashed near the upper Coonoor region at around 12.20 pm. Top sources in Tamil Nadu police and the Indian military facility at Coonoor said four survivors were shifted to Coonoor military hospital. “All of them had burn injuries. The first batch of six senior doctors from Coimbatore general hospital has reached Coonoor hospital,” said an army source.

The crash happened at a distance of about 10 km from the helipad where it was to land with CDS Rawat, who was to attend a cadet interaction programme today afternoon at the Defence Services Staff College, Wellington.

Visuals showed the badly damaged chopper in flames, possibly under the impact of the crash. The accident site was a scene of despair with trees being reduced to broken pieces under the impact of the crash, flames from the chopper engulfing the wooden logs resulting in billowing smoke and personnel scurrying to douse the fire, including using buckets and water hose.

It is being reported that Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin, DGP C Sylendra Babu and Chief Secretary V Irai Anbu are taking a chartered flight to Coimbatore after 5 pm. Their travel plans from Coimbatore to Coonoor will depend on the communication from the Union defence ministry, a source said.

Cryptocurrency: The Union government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi is planning to come up with a bill that wants people to voluntarily declare all the crypto assets or face huge penalties. To everyone’s shock the Modi government seems to be taking stringent action against people who are holding cryptocurrency!

The Union government will give crypto holders a deadline to declare their assets. So that they can meet any new rules, according to the sources asking not to be identified as the discussions are private. Authorities are planning to classify cryptocurrencies as financial assets and the Indian government is considering appointing its capital markets regulator.

According to Bloomberg news portal, India is considering appointing its capital markets regulator to oversee cryptocurrencies, according to people with knowledge of the matter, as authorities look to classify them as financial assets. Modi’s government, which plans to introduce legislation in the on-going parliament session, will probably give crypto holders a deadline to declare their assets and meet any new rules, the people said, asking not to be identified as the discussions are private. The bill is likely to use the term ‘cryptoassets’ rather than ‘cryptocurrencies,’ and won’t refer to the central bank’s plan to create its own digital currency, one of the people said.

Any violators could be fined as much as 200 million rupees ($2.7 million) or imprisoned for 1.5 years, according to the proposals, the people said. The government may also consider prescribing a minimum threshold for investing in crypto assets to safeguard small investors.

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said last week the government has reworked an earlier bill — which had proposed banning all private cryptocurrencies — to factor in new developments. There was no proposal to recognize Bitcoin as a currency in the country, she added.

The crypto market in India has grown 641 per cent in the year through June 2021, according to an October report from Chainalysis, a crypto-analysis firm. The government is now considering taxing gains from digital currencies, and there have been calls to impose stricter rules for transactions in virtual coins due to the unregulated nature of the business.

Soon, the Union government is planning to introduce legislation in the on-going parliament session. This bill is expected to use the term ‘cryptoassets’ rather than ‘cryptocurrencies,’. It won’t refer to the central bank’s plan to create its own digital currency. The government is considering taxing gains from digital currencies. Apart from that there have been calls to impose stricter rules for transactions in virtual coins due to the unregulated nature of the business.

Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy is facing severe backlash from all quarters and the reason is that he is driving the state into severe debts! With huge cash needs to meet the welfare programmes as well as other regular expenses, the state is not in a position to meet the needs and has conveniently taken loans which has drawn it into debt trap! Will Jagan be able to pull out the state from the debts?

Issue of AP’s debts came to light today when the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) Rajya Sabha MP Kanakamedala Ravindra Kumar raised the question. It has been clearly mentioned that the state government has borrowed Rs 57,479 crore from state owned banks during the period April 1st 2019 to November 30th 2021. AP’s revenue deficit is at 662.80 per cent while the fiscal deficit was up by 107.79 per cent in the first half of the 2021-22 financial year.

Earlier, it has been reported that the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) has pointed out lapses, both constitutional and procedural, in financial management by Andhra Pradesh government. The audit report for the financial year 2019-20 was tabled in the state Legislature.

Some of the prominent issues red flagged by the CAG are:
a) non-disclosure of off-budget borrowings running up to Rs 26,096.98 crore in budget documents;

b) transfer of Rs 1,100 crore related to the State Disaster Relief Fund to personal deposit account in violation of rules;

c) 80 per cent of borrowings utilised to balance revenue accounts affecting asset creation;

d) “unacceptable” argument to amend the Fiscal Responsibility and Budgetary Management Act in December 2020 to reset targets relating to the five-year period from 2015-16 to 2019-20;

e) effective capital expenditure amounted to just 0.72 per cent of the GSDP and finally, unsustainable level of debt to GSDP ratio.

The CAG went on to mention that the expenditure of the state was mainly focused on social services, which include education, health and welfare activities. In fact, welfare activities constituted 18 per cent of the total expenditure in Andhra Pradesh and around 13 per cent was spent on education, sports among others. In this respect, the CAG agreed that “development expenditure and expenditure on social services as a proportion of total expenditure were higher in the State compared to the other general category states.”

It also found fault with the government for not expending enough on asset creation. “This reflects poorly on the State’s commitment towards infrastructure creation,” the report said.

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The financial situation of AP has become bait for opposition to attack Jagan government. The state Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) said the Jagan government has pushed the state into a debt trap, as evident from Rs 1,45,600 crore worth loans taken by it since 2019. They observed that funds are being spent on welfare initiatives with an objective to improve individual fame, instead of revenue generation programmes.

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